A different class of building site banter in Soho

Anyone doubting that the masses are more clued up about design these days than ever before should take note.

A Design Week spy overheard a group of Soho builders – clearly streets ahead culturally of their suburban counterparts – debating not the merits of a passing female, but the design aesthetics of a passing motorbike. On trying to agree who’d designed it, one suggested it was ‘that French guy, Philippe Starck. The one who does kitchenware for that Italian company’.

It was, in fact, Starck’s Aprilia bike, and the Italian company Alessi. Well done, chaps.