Design notebook: Swiss knives and the best bar stools The spring collection at Habitat sees a return to some of the core values that made it such a success when Terence Conran launched the company nearly 50 years ago. Now under the creative direction of Polly Dickens (whose cv includes the Conran Shop, Anthropologie and Liberty), there are more affordable pieces (£600 sofas that are made in Britain), exotic flavours (such as the beaten-aluminium Orrico coffee table, £200) and pieces with real personality. The Harlow range of rattan furniture has an energetic design that plays with quirky asymmetric shapes: a modern take on traditional conservatory furniture. Coffee tables, £175 and £200; chair, £350; chaise longue, £400. Victorinox, maker of the iconic Swiss Army Knife, has added a range of zesty new colours to its Swiss Classic kitchen collection. Four of its knives (carving, santoku, bread and pizza), from £31.99, and its carving fork, £22.99, are now available in pink, orange, green and yellow. Wax lyrical This Four Elements candleholder is by Finnsdottir Ceramic Tales, a brilliant Danish company that makes moulded geometric tabletop accessories, lighting and jewellery with a mid-20th-century feel. It costs £59.95 from Liberty. Cool camping This fully waterproof, printed polyester tent, complete with thatched roof, wooden door and window boxes, is pretty enough to complement rather than blight your garden, making it the perfect summer playhouse. It's also big enough to sleep two adults, should you decide to bring it along to a campsite or festival. Country cottage ridge tent, £120, Cath Kidston Five of the best: bar stools Pirkka bar stool (1955), designed by Ilmari Tapiovaara for Artek, £610, Skandium; Drifted bar stool by Lars Fjetland for Discipline Slab, £330, Twentytwentyone; Slab bar stool, £360, Tom Dixon; Ercol Originals bar stool, £200, Heal's; Slab bar stool, £360; Tabouret Haut (1942) by Joen Prouvé for Vitra, £505, the Lollipop Shoppe