February 3, 2009
Minimalism and fantasy, together. The interior of this teahouse is simple and modern, while the fantastical exterior looks like something from a Hiyao Miyazaki film. The interior view of the sliding wooden doors or shutters is just beautiful.
January 24, 2009
Why can’t more civilian bags be like this – free of bling, glitz, chacha, weird anatomical looking folds, pointless, slouchy, ruched wrinkledness, and dopey hardware? I don’t understand the bags being churned out by the big couture houses at the moment.
January 20, 2009
I always meant to initiate a regular feature about bad design but for a long time I didn’t have the heart for it. For one thing, finding insincere design is like shooting fish in a barrel.
January 13, 2009
This amazing textile is actually the back of a quilt by Lauren Venell, but it could just as easily be the front. Venell’s fabric is dark blue denim, with light grey quilting thread to show the quilting design in contrast, and she pieced and quilted the whole thing by hand on the sewing machine.
January 12, 2009
Here are two quite beautiful DIY projects from the 60s, both found in The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970. Most of what you find in the book is a bit kitschy, but these two ideas seemed brilliant.
December 3, 2008
The use of the word “bohemian” is getting curiouser and curiouser (to quote Alice in Wonderland). Bohemian! Arty! What do these even mean now? To choose a trivial example, is this round object in our studio arty?
November 25, 2008
I fell in love with this artifact when I saw it in the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico in Mexico City in 2000. One of my best friends and I were in Mexico City and were wandering around the museum’s immensitude for a couple of hours when I turned a corner and suddenly saw this piece.
November 5, 2008
Loyal Loot, four designers in Edmonton, Alberta who produce simple but interesting, stylish work, have one of the most enviable company names in Canadian design. Their Log Bowls are really appealing, and we also love their Coat Hang.
October 30, 2008
For the record, an image of the oldest fragment of textile ever found. This is a Neolithic fragment of linen from Egypt circa 5000BC—a shred of clothing that belonged to someone 7000 years ago.
October 8, 2008
Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto and Arne Jacobsen used these rugs regularly in their interiors, which is not surprising. Their unusual combination of minimalism and handmade detail, restraint and inventiveness works well with modernism’s aesthetics by both echoing the abstract geometry of the architecture and also counterbalancing that austerity with some softness.
