In 1993 The Conran Foundation Collection was established. Every year a young, design-associated personality would be invited to spend £30,000 (in 1993 money) on “things you'd like to live with” reflecting their personal opinion of what they found most inspiring. Ross Lovegrove became the first guest “collector” and he included items from a special edition camera to coat hangers, and from a Castiglioni sofa to Gillette shaving gel!

The initiative was a hugely popular annual event and guest collectors were:

• Jasper Morrison (1994)
• Alice Rawsthorn (1995)
• Janice Kirkpatrick (1996)
• Dan Pearson (1997)
• David Constantine (1998)
• Carol Vorderman (1999)
• Tyler Brule (2000)
• Marc Newson (2001)
• Droog (2002)
• Tom Heatherwick (2003/4)

After celebrating its 11th Anniversary with Tom Heatherwick as its guest collector, it was decided to break for a few years in order to properly archive and document the previous collections.

In addition to partly funding the Design Museum and sponsoring The Conran Foundation Collections, more recently The Conran Foundation has contributed to the Sir John Soane's Museum for its “Wright to Geary” exhibition, and to the Bryanston School for its Creative Arts Building.

This year, The Conran Foundation is the proud sponsor of the Royal College of Art's 2006 Summer Graduate Show. Please check www.rca.ac.uk for full show details.