Eames heir Eames Demetrius - LONDON KICKS - Fashion, Music, Art, Film, London and Going Out

The term "effortlessly cool" could have been invented for Eames Demetrius, the grandson of interior product design legends Charles and Ray Eames. The 47-year-old designer, Eames documenter and legacy bearer of one of the most lauded and famous design houses in history, saunters into the room in a casual blazer and shirt, nonchalant, at ease with his public (rows of baying tourists, pens poised ready for the execution of dialogue), and his only concession to the fame game, of which he is notably a member of, and has been since birth no less, is the witty spit-ball repartee he exhibits ad whim, almost off the cuff in his deadpan, "I've been asked everything in my time" manner. He is wrongly introduced to his audience as the great grandson of the eponymous aesthetics house founders, and merely sashays up the three quazi-steps to the podium, leans elbow-forward in his best James Dean stance and laughs in his American drawl, "Well I know I look young, but I'm afraid I'm just the grandson. Unless you were just saying I'm 'great'?"

Nothing is off the table with Demetrius, in fact he encourages such lines of fire, pleading with the audience to dissect his prose, ask questions like "Why was the design mantra for Eames 'innovate as a last resort'?" (To 'keep things simple', he later informs. "There are so many problems off the bat, why create more for yourself that don't really need solving at all?" he quips), and even delve into his more personal endeavours (Demetrius, as well as an Eames ambassador-for-hire, is also an award winning film maker and documentarian, we'll have you know). "It's hard juggling a life of my own and the life of this huge entity I was born into," Demetrius chuckles, the words seemingly lingering there in the warm air between him and the wolf pack of scribes. "I mean, I have to protect the past, and Eames is something that I grew up with [both a blessing and a curse I'm told, especially when birthday time came round and his brown paper parcel contained not a remote control dumper truck or bicycle like the kids down the road, but instead a new hand-carved kick-step], but at the same time I have to look into the future." So there's life in furniture's oldest design house? "Design is timeless. Our pieces are as relevant today as they ever were. Good design does not die."

Hynam Kendall

London kicks 2008