From Showroom to Living Room: How the Living Luxe Design Show Shapes Our Work
- Aya Design in Style
- May 30
- 4 min read
Design inspiration doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It comes from walking spaces, touching surfaces, hearing conversations, and watching how others shape the world around them.
This spring, we had the opportunity to visit the Living Luxe Design Show in Toronto, a thoughtfully curated event that brought together some of the most inspiring voices in high-end design. From emerging talent to established craftspeople, the show wasn’t just about what’s new, it was about what’s next. And for us at Aya Design in Style, it was a space to reconnect with our process, our peers, and our purpose.
Throughout the month, we’ve been singing the praises of the incredible brands and designers we encountered at the show across our social media. But here, we want to pause and reflect on the deeper role these shows play in our work, and why they matter.
A Place to Listen, Not Just Look
Too often, design shows get framed as trendspotting grounds. But for us, the value of events like Living Luxe is far more layered. They’re spaces to observe, to learn, and to listen, to the materials, to the makers, and to how people are responding to space.
When we walk into a booth or installation, we’re not just asking, “Is this beautiful?” We’re asking:
What feeling does this evoke?
Could this piece live comfortably in someone’s home for years?
Does it offer something new, or simply something louder?
Design for us is not about spectacle, it’s about resonance. And shows like Living Luxe help us filter through the noise, reconnect with intention, and spark new conversations within our team and with our clients.
The Power of Connection
Another reason we attend these shows is community. As a boutique firm, we thrive on collaboration, with artisans, fabricators, engineers, and fellow designers. Events like Living Luxe give us the rare chance to meet the people behind the work: the craftsman behind the marble slab, the engineer behind the pivot door, the artist behind the light fixture.
Sometimes these conversations lead to future partnerships. Sometimes they simply expand our understanding. Either way, they leave a mark on how we approach our next project.
A great example of this was connecting with the team at Opulence Architectural Systems, whose dramatic entryways and architectural doors opened up new ideas for how we think about transitions in a space. Or the time spent with Cava Surfaces, discovering new stone finishes and feeling the weight, literally, of quality materials.
These are the kinds of exchanges that shape how we specify and how we design. Because behind every product we choose for a client’s home is a person, a process, and a principle we believe in.
Turning Inspiration Into Reality
It’s one thing to walk through a space and admire the layout. It’s another to take the essence of that layout and make it work in a client’s home, with their rhythm, their rituals, and their reality.
That’s the real challenge, and joy, of our work.
We don’t copy what we see at shows. We absorb it. We reflect. And then we ask, How could this serve someone’s daily life?
For example, at Living Luxe we were drawn to the minimalist beauty of Baril Design. But rather than simply specify a faucet from their collection, we started imagining entire bathroom experiences around their approach: soft curves, matte finishes, restrained palettes. How might this feel in a home with older architecture? What’s the lighting like in that particular client’s ensuite? These are the questions that bridge the gap between inspiration and implementation.
It’s the same with Moorgen, whose smart home technologies, particularly the Zaha Hadid-designed control panels, are redefining how tech is integrated into high-end interiors. For us, that sparked thoughts not just about convenience, but about quiet control: spaces where tech supports mood, not just function.
A Design Show Isn’t Just an Event, it’s Part of the Process
Some of the most important choices we make as designers don’t happen in our studio. They happen when we’re out in the world, seeing, listening, absorbing.
Shows like Living Luxe become part of our creative process. They feed our curiosity, challenge our habits, and give us new ways to tell the story of a home.
We walk away not with a shopping list, but with a sense of direction. Of what matters. Of how our spaces can continue to evolve, not for trends, but for the people who live in them.
And that’s what makes these moments so valuable.
We’re grateful to the organisers, designers, and makers who brought Living Luxe to life, and to our clients, who trust us to bring that inspiration back home with clarity and care.
We’ll keep designing spaces that feel personal, timeless, and quietly bold. And we’ll keep learning from the world around us, one conversation, one surface, one moment at a time.
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