Purling London Ltd. is a business which specialises in the design, production and marketing of chess sets and retails four models. These include 'Art Chess', 'Bold Chess', 'Dark Chess' and 'Couture Chess'. The products have been publicised in magazines globally, including The Financial Times 'How To Spend It' guide^[1], The Robb Report^[2], and Luxury Insider magazine^[3]. Purling London sets are distributed through gift, art and design retailers.

Simon Purkis, a chartered engineer, runs Purling London from an office based in London. Graduating with 1st class honours MEng from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he set up the company in 2012.

Art Chess blends individually hand carved Staunton chess pieces with hand painted artwork by contemporary artists. Lusso Magazine^[4] and PROUDmag^[5] have featured Purling London's Art Chess sets by Richard Morrissey and Darren MacPherson.

Dark Chess consists of a white illuminated board and uniform coloured original Staunton chess pieces which come in different colours such as 'Cobalt blue' or 'Classic red'. The black squares of the chess board are black lined etchings with the Purling logo sitting in the square in the left corner, with a glass board encased by a white wooden frame. Both Spears magazine^[6] and Wharf magazine^[7] have published articles on Dark Chess boards.

Bold Chess combines the original Staunton chess pieces with a lacquer finish of the Dark Chess sets, but with a traditional maple wood board replacing the illuminated board. This model has been included in City Jet's inflight magazine, 'Velocity’ in May 2014^[8].

Couture chess, by T.Raymonzrek is a one off artistic work in collaboration with Debut Contemporary and displays a ‘prohibition of chemical warfare’ message. Bystander images of this Couture chess set were shown in Tatler Magazine^[9], as well as an appearance in the art section of Wall Street International^[10].

'I wanted to create a chess set that reflects the on-going battle over scarce resources such as gold and oil...The added feature of pressing a button to eliminate your enemy, by setting off smoke over the board, is a representation of a chemical attack...gas masks are supplied to each player, to bring an added sense of realism and fuller effect of the danger...' Artist T. Raymonzrek, The Top Tier^[11].