Previewing the 2025 Design Market at the Old Mill in South Perth
The Old Mill in South Perth has long worn two hats: a working slice of Western Australia's colonial milling history and, more recently, a quietly beloved cultural pocket on the edge of the Swan River. Each autumn, that red-roofed site near the bridge transforms into a weekend gathering point for the Perth design community, with the 2025 Design Market set to fill its grounds from Friday through Sunday. For the unacquainted, the market functions as a shopfront and a stage rolled into one — a place where local studios debut limited-run furniture, lighting makers test pricing on new objects, and architecture practices set up shop beside the kind of small-batch ceramics you usually only find tucked inside a Cottesloe home.
What started several years ago as a modest pop-up under the mill's stone walls has grown into something broader. Organisers now describe it as a hybrid of trade show, retail weekend, and industry catch-up, with enough floor space to absorb roughly seventy stalls spread between the main shed, the riverside lawn, and the smaller gallery rooms. The vibe leans closer to a regional makers' fair than a polished international fair — timber trestles, handwritten price tags, and exhibitors who actually want a chat.
Perth's design economy has its own rhythm, shaped by distance from the eastern seaboard and a comparatively tight pool of architects, interior designers, and product makers. Events like the Design Market do useful work for that ecosystem: they give a Canning Vale joiner a chance to talk to a Subiaco interior designer, and they let emerging graduates test work in front of the kind of clientele who might otherwise only see finished pieces at a Mount Lawley showroom. The weekend also leans into local materials, from limestone offcuts to recycled jarrah, that reflect how WA practitioners respond to a hot, dry climate and a long coastline.
For the broader Contemporary readership, the market sits alongside the publication's coverage of residential and commercial projects as a useful barometer of where WA design is heading each year. It is the kind of weekend where trends surface in conversation before they surface in any magazine, and where the line between professional and enthusiast blurs pleasantly. For context, the Design Market sits within a wider ecosystem of WA design events worth knowing about:
| Event | Primary Focus | Typical Timing | Main Audience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Market at the Old Mill | Furniture, lighting, ceramics, small-batch product | Early autumn | Designers, makers, design-curious public |
| Perth Design Week | City-wide programming across studios, schools, and venues | October | Industry, students, and broader public |
| FORM programming | Regional and remote community-led cultural projects | Year-round | Regional WA communities and cultural sector |
| Contemporary Wine In Design | Industry networking, talks, and curated showcase | Spring | Architecture and design professionals |
A Heritage Setting That Does Real Work for the Stalls
Few venues south of the river offer the same atmospheric shorthand as the Old Mill itself. The surviving stone structure, its timber galleries, and the surrounding heritage garden lend the market a sense of place that a convention centre floor could never replicate. Exhibitors consistently report that customers linger longer when the venue carries a story, and the mill's layered past — from grain milling to mid-century museum use — gives stallholders a setting that already does half the styling work.
The site's practicalities have improved, too. New covered walkways between the main hall and the riverside lawn should make navigating between stalls easier during the typical late-arvo downpour that tends to sweep through South Perth each March. Accessibility upgrades, including a dedicated entry ramp off Mill Point Road, are being trialled for the first time, which will widen the audience considerably.
There is also a thoughtful response to the venue's heritage. Several of this year's installations lean into the existing fabric rather than disguising it, with lighting reportedly rigged along the original timber beams. It is a subtle, considered move that respects the building's classification while making the work feel current. That same tension between preservation and performance shapes much of the wider Perth design conversation, where smart blind integration into heritage facades is becoming a recurring theme among practices balancing conservation briefs with contemporary performance standards.
The Line-Up of WA Makers and Studios
The exhibitor list leans heavily into small WA studios, with a strong showing from furniture makers, lighting designers, textile artists, and a growing number of interior architects opening their own product lines. Roughly forty per cent of stallholders are exhibiting for the first time, a healthy turnover that keeps the floor from feeling like the same roster each spring.
Some familiar names anchor the lineup, alongside newer labels whose debut lighting collections have reportedly sold out within hours at recent Fremantle pop-ups. A dedicated student section, drawn from graduates of Curtin University's design school and UWA's architecture program, has become a quietly competitive corner of the market in recent years.
Beyond the products, the human mix matters. Visitors can expect to bump into interior designers between jobs, architects scouting material samples, and the kind of design-curious public who treat the weekend as an annual ritual. Several practices use the market to launch pieces developed over the previous twelve months, which means the floor tends to function as a soft launch pad before items reach retailers later in the year.
Talks, Panels and Hands-On Workshops
Programming has expanded again for 2025, with the talks and workshops strand now occupying a dedicated marquee on the eastern lawn. The schedule mixes industry-facing panels with more accessible sessions aimed at homeowners and design enthusiasts, which seems to be the right balance for the audience the market attracts.
Friday's programming leans professional, with panel discussions on procurement in regional WA, on the rise of local manufacturing in light industrial suburbs like Osborne Park and Welshpool, and on how practices are adapting fee structures in a tighter market. Saturday opens with a material-led session on low-carbon interiors, while Sunday's programming shifts toward household-scale concerns: small-space joinery, rental-friendly finishes, and how to commission a piece of bespoke furniture without losing your shirt.
Workshops require pre-booking and tend to fill quickly. Past favourites — including a tile-making workshop using clay sourced from the Darling Scarp and a beginner-friendly session on upholstery — are returning, alongside newer offerings such as a one-hour introduction to specifying Australian hardwoods for residential projects. The mix feels deliberately inclusive, ranging from technical sessions for architects to relaxed craft afternoons suited to a Sunday brekkie crowd.
Materials, Sustainability and Smarter Interiors
Sustainability has shifted from a sidebar topic to a central concern over the past few editions, and the 2025 program reflects that. A dedicated materials library will sit near the main entrance, allowing visitors to compare locally sourced timbers, recycled composites, and low-embodied-carbon finishes side by side. Practitioners leading this work include studios that have been pushing hempcrete, rammed earth, and lime-based renders into mainstream residential briefs across Perth.
Several stalls lean directly into that conversation. A recent a case study using hempcrete for internal walls in a Perth suburban renovation showed how a Perth family used the material to regulate indoor temperatures through a long, hot summer — a problem familiar to anyone who has tried to keep a north-facing living room cool without leaning on ducted air conditioning. Expect follow-up conversations on the floor from the practitioners involved, which is exactly the kind of knowledge transfer the market tends to encourage.
Adjacent to the materials library, a smaller display focuses on intelligent retrofits for heritage and character homes. The crossover between heritage and innovation is one of the more interesting threads running through the 2025 lineup, reflecting a wider shift in how WA practitioners think about upgrading existing housing stock and the kind of specification advice visitors can take home.
Beyond the Stalls: Networking and After-Hours
The market's after-hours program has quietly become one of its most useful features for the local industry. Friday evening hosts the official opening and a long-table dinner under the trees, which functions as a relaxed networking moment for architects, designers, builders, and product reps who rarely share a room outside of formal industry events. Tickets tend to go quickly, particularly among the Perth interiors community.
Saturday's late session shifts into something more casual, with a pop-up bar in the riverside garden and a small programme of acoustic sets. It is the kind of evening that draws interior designers out of the studio for a proper conversation, away from the floor. For visitors flying in from regional WA — or from further abroad, given the growing interest in Perth as a design destination — these after-hours moments often turn out to be as valuable as the stalls themselves.
The market also acts as a soft runway for the broader Contemporary Wine In Design programme, the networking and showcase event that sits alongside the editorial calendar. Several exhibitors and speakers will carry into that wider programme later in the year, creating continuity for the WA design community well beyond the weekend.
The 2025 Design Market runs from Friday 14 March to Sunday 16 March at the Old Mill, South Perth, with gates open from 10am to 6pm Friday and Saturday, and 10am to 4pm Sunday. Tickets are available online, with discounted early-bird passes for design professionals and a complimentary industry hour on Friday morning. For the latest stallholder announcements and programming updates, follow Contemporary across the lead-up to the weekend — and consider making a full day of it, because the riverside walk home is half the reason to go.
