Bethan Gray: turning the tables Now Gray, in collaboration with Thomas Turner, a furniture developer and former furniture buyer at Habitat, has a new venture called G&T. While Gray designs the pieces, Turner develops their commercial viability. The debut collection is small - a simple but supremely elegant line of tables that will be launched at London's forth­coming Clerkenwell Design Festival. The marble-topped, three-legged Carve table is a reinterpretation of the three-legged cricket tables designed to stand on uneven slate floors in Welsh mining villages. It comes in two heights and is available in black or white marble, with oak or walnut legs. She tells me the marble used for Carve is from an area near Carrara, in Tuscany, where she and her Italian husband, Massimo, were married. It adds a nice, personal touch to the design. A third design, the Brogue table, is topped in tan or white leather and stands on oak legs. It is not only the materials that make these pieces look luxurious but also their decorative details: the edge of the Brogue table is perforated and stitched like a brogue; Carve's ultra-smooth marble top curves gently upwards around the edges. Gray relishes these details: 'I like the way the veins on the marble climb up the top's rim. Although Gray has created luxurious pieces before, she is raising the bar considerably with the G&T line. That said, she is keen to distinguish her brand from gratuitously expensive design. 'I've always wanted to work with materials such as marble, solid wood and leather," she says. These types of material lend themselves to the high-end market and naturally come at a higher price [the tables start at £630]. But G&T is honestly priced - a reflection of the high-quality materials used. The next step is to develop more products to complement the debut range, possibly an upholstery line. We want to create a collection of products that work in synergy with each other. My favourite living designer is Patricia Urquiola because she really experiments with materials. She has created a great furniture range for the Spanish company Kettal called Vieques, whose cutting-edge materials make it outdoors-proof, though you could also have it in your living-room (020-7371 5170; kettal.es). I write annual trend reports for a company called Stylus, which undertakes trend-focused research for consumer businesses. Three new trends that really stand out for me are: 1) furniture that highlights how it's constructed - how a leg is joined to a table, say; 2) mixing materials - rope with wood, wood with cast iron, upholstery that incorporates wood; 3) leather - we see it on sofas and don't think twice about it but, increasingly, it's not used only for upholstery. For example, it's now used to clad bookshelves. The last thing I bought for my own home was a floor lamp by the French designer Pierre Favresse. It's inspired by lights in the car industry and the ridged texture of the glass cleverly diffuses the light. I bought mine from Galerie Sentou in Paris, although it's stocked by Liberty - I didn't realise that until after I'd brought it home on the Eurostar (00 331 45 49 00 05; sentou.fr). My favourite interiors shops include: 1) Darkroom in London for a nicely edited collection (020-7831 7244; darkroomlondon.com). I bought its French clay vase called Les Guimards in green. 2) Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan (00 39 02 46 74 471; rossanaorlandi.com). This is a really quirky shop that radiates around a courtyard. 3) Merci in Paris (00 331 42 77 00 33; merci-merci.com). I love the way it looks and feels - its wonderful high ceilings. It's adventurous about what it stocks, and sells great homeware. I've bought its Kingston metal pendant light by Jean-Paul Marzais. 4) Liberty in London (020-7734 1234; liberty.co.uk). It's such a beautiful building. I recently bought a tray there decorated with a trompe l'oeil drawing of spoons by Michael Angove. It reflects my obsession with wooden spoons - I own about 200. G&T: grayandturner.com