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Bracelets That Blab. Words Worn On Your Wrist.


Bangle Bracelets that have something to say, literally and figuratively - seem to be all the rage this spring.

Selling out at lightning speed ever since a mention in the New York Times, are Jessica Kagan Cushman's carved resin bracelets, a more affordable (and more politically correct) version of her Ice Age Mammoth Ivory Tusk Carved Bracelets. See below:


Above: Jessica Kagan Cushman's Bangles for $125 each. Available from Ravinstyle




Above: Not to be outdone, is designer powerhouse Chanel with their resin carved bangles spouting phrases and words about design, style and luxury.




Another, less pricey option at 39$ are Janna Conner's decoupage bangles, also available at Ravinstyle

Always witty and graphic, is the fabulousSonia Rykiel and her ivory and black resin bangels. $150.00 a piece. Available at Sonia Rykiel, NYC and Boston.



So, arm yourself this spring with the fashion accessory that does the talking for you.

Kiss Me, I'm Wearing Nike's
OR Happy St. Paddy's Day



Nike has created a limited edition shoe for St. Patrick's Day.

I thought you might like to see what the Athletic Leprechauns are wearing these days:




Nike Air Max 90 QK
Special Edition for St. Patrick's Day!
One day a year, everyone wants to be Irish. Get into to the spirit of St. Patrick's Day with this quickstrike release of the Nike Air Max 90!

The Nike Air Max 90 was first released in 1990 and was known as the Air Max or the Air Max III until 2000 when Nike reissued these classic Nike running shoes. The Air Max 90 was originally produced with a Duromesh upper, synthetic suede, and synthetic leather. The striking color combinations, clean lines made the Air Max 90 highly sought after in its original release and still extremely popular today. The all black and all white leather models are the most sought after and also extremely difficult to find.

Interested in purchasing? You can buy it here.

Meet Michael Govan, My Hero.



I was so happy to come across the article below in the NY Times, especially in light of the tragedy of the tearing down of Richard Neutra's famous Maslon House in Palm Springs. in 2002.

Richard Neutra's Maslon Home in Palm Springs before demolition:


The Maslon House after Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Rotenberg of Hopkins, Minnesota destroyed it in 2002:


A Museum Takes Steps to Collect Houses


By EDWARD WYATT
Published: March 15, 2007

LOS ANGELES, March 14 — Shortly after moving here last year to take over as director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michael Govan started looking at houses — not as a place for him to live but as potential museum pieces.


Above: Michael Govan, Director of LACMA and hopefully, The Savoir of L.A. Architecture

His idea — one that has rarely, if ever, been tried on a large scale by a major museum — is to collect significant pieces of midcentury residential architecture, including houses by Rudolf M. Schindler, Richard Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright and his son Lloyd Wright, and to treat them as both museum objects and as residences for curators.

While he has yet to acquire any properties, Mr. Govan said this week that he certainly had his eye on some, including Frank Gehry’s landmark residence in Santa Monica, a collage of tilting forms. In an interview Mr. Gehry confirmed that Mr. Govan had discussed the idea with him but said that no agreements about the house’s future had been reached.

Below: Frank Gehry residence, Santa Monica


Mr. Govan, who moved here in March 2006 from New York, where he directed the Dia Art Foundation, said his project had been driven by the immediate impression that in Los Angeles, a city defined by outdoor spaces, architecture is inseparable from art.

“It started with an effort to rethink the museum, looking at the resources that are both locally powerful and internationally relevant,” he said. “It’s clear that the most important architecture in Los Angeles is largely its domestic architecture. I’ve talked certainly to a number of people who have interesting architecture, and I’m beginning to talk to other people about raising funds to preserve these works.”

The potential cost of the houses varies widely. Many of the most distinctive properties, in Beverly Hills or the Hollywood Hills, have most recently sold for millions of dollars. Others, like Schindler’s Buck House, on Eighth Street, barely two blocks from the museum, sold for less than half a million dollars in 1995, although it clearly would be worth more than double that today.

Below: R.M. Schindler's Buck House in Los Angeles


Mr. Govan was reluctant to discuss his plans in detail, partly because he has taken only “baby steps,” he said, but also because he does not want to set off bidding wars for houses in which he is interested. He said he hoped the museum could either buy houses or have them donated, the same ways that a museum would go about acquiring paintings or sculptures.

“This whole initiative will depend on generosity,” he said. “In the same way that someone would donate a Picasso, we want people to think of ways to see these houses as works of art and to think about ways to preserve them.”

Although he said he had received an “enthusiastic response” when he presented the idea to the museum’s trustees, “we have no funds at the moment” dedicated to the effort, he added.

But the idea has already started to generate chatter in the architecture community here. Richard Koshalek, president of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and a former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, said Mr. Govan’s effort was “not only crucial for the city of Los Angeles but for the history of modern architecture.”

“Architects learn from other architects,” Mr. Koshalek said. “This history will be lost if people like Michael do not take this kind of initiative.”


above: Richard Koshalek, President of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design (my alma mater)

While owning an architecturally significant house in Los Angeles has long carried a certain cachet, many potentially valuable works have fallen into disrepair or been greatly altered by renovations undertaken by a succession of owners.

“A number of them haven’t been touched,” Mr. Govan said. “But many have been badly renovated and fundamentally changed. So I think it’s kind of the last chance to try to preserve a group of these as a collection.”

Mr. Govan’s idea is perhaps all the more remarkable because the Los Angeles County Museum does not have a department of architecture or design, unlike some older institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

But one of the museum’s first acquisitions after Mr. Govan moved to Los Angeles, after 12 years as director of Dia, was a high-rise office interior by the Modernist architect John Lautner.

The Lautner office was formerly owned by James F. Goldstein, a real-estate investor who had Lautner design the space in 1987 for the 20th floor in a building in Century City, the commercial development on Santa Monica Boulevard in west Los Angeles.

In 2005 Mr. Goldstein was informed that his lease for the space would not be renewed, and a foundation devoted to saving Lautner works began seeking a patron who would preserve the space.

The Los Angeles County Museum initially turned down the proposal because museum officials felt it did not have the room to display the 800-square-foot office. But once Mr. Govan arrived, he seized the opportunity to acquire the work for an undisclosed amount and use it not as an exhibit but as an office — specifically, his.

Below: The 850-square-foot office that John Lautner designed in Century City.


The museum now plans to install the office, which includes copper walls, a wood ceiling and a floor of black slate, as part of the renovation of the May Company building, a former department store that is on the western edge of the museum’s 20-acre campus on Wilshire Boulevard. That renovation is planned for 2008 or 2009, and Mr. Govan said he hoped to use the space as his regular office, allowing visitors access to it as an exhibit on weekends.

Similarly, he said he hoped to use the houses that he collects not strictly as museum pieces but as housing for museum staff members, a perk that he said he believed would help the museum attract new curatorial talent.

“A lot of curators here have sought out interesting houses,” he said. “I thought, ‘You could just have house tours on a regular basis to allow the public to have access to them.’ ”

Although it does not have a design collection as such, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has hardly ignored the city’s architectural history. In 1987 it organized a tour in the Silver Lake community of houses by Schindler, Neutra and other architects of the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. In 1965 the museum published “A Guide to Southern California Architecture,” a book that, although out of print, is prized by real-estate agents here who specialize in architectural gems.


Above: Charles and Ray Eames at work

Various Los Angeles organizations have also sponsored tours of houses that were built as part of the Case Study program: two dozen prototypes of modern architecture, by Charles and Ray Eames, Neutra and Pierre Koenig, among others, that were commissioned by Art & Architecture magazine and built from 1945 to 1964.

Silver Lake, an area around a man-made reservoir in the hills east of Hollywood, is the site of dozens of houses that would be potential acquisitions for the museum. The 2200 block of Silver Lake Boulevard, for example, has no fewer than five houses by Neutra, who was encouraged to migrate from Vienna to Los Angeles by Schindler, who was himself born in Austria and had worked in Chicago and Los Angeles as a construction supervisor for Frank Lloyd Wright.


Above: Schindler's Wilson House in Silver lake

Schindler’s work is also ubiquitous around Los Angeles. In 2001 the magazine ArtForum listed 32 significant works by Schindler, several in the parts of Los Angeles that visitors to the city rarely get to, including Torrance, Glendale, South Central and Woodland Hills.

Mr. Govan said that because the institution was a county museum, he did not intend to limit his collection to the area immediately around the museum’s west Los Angeles location.

With Mr. Govan’s plans already being discussed in architecture and real estate circles, the museum is certain to face some competition to acquire properties, including that of Mr. Gehry. His Santa Monica house, built in 1978 and remodeled in 1993, is known for its distinctive exteriors, which include corrugated metal, plywood and chain-link fencing.

It is also in the sights of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Mr. Gehry said, which has talked to him about its registering the house or acquiring it once he completes a new residence in nearby Venice, Calif.

“In the meantime,” Mr. Gehry said, “I’m living in it.”

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Now That's A Cover, Girl. Wallpaper* limited edition Moving Cover


above: Wallpaper Magazine's limited edition lenticular cover (detail)

Now some of you may not know the word "lenticular' but you know what it is. It's multiple images printed on a special type of material that allows the image to 'move' when you tilt it. Some people call them Flickers, some call them Motion cards, but whatever you call it, it's the coolest magazine cover I have ever seen. Because I'm a suscriber, this was a pleasant surprise in my mailbox. But you won't find it on the newsstands, you'll have to order one of these from Wallpaper* if they have any left.

Wallpaper* March 2007 limited edition cover
text from the magazine:

Hussein Chalayan designs fashion about fashion which often looks nothing like most other fashion. And he experiments, in the most radical way, with form and material. All of which has given him a reputation as a somewhat difficult designer.

His collection for spring/summer 2007, though, brings together all of Chalayan’s passions and preoccupations – fashion as social fabric, formal experimentation – and makes them magical and mechanical, a steam-punk fantasy, shifting history and architecture.



The show was called 111 (the accumulated annum, as it happens, of show sponsor and collaborator, Swarovski), and was an elegantly executed and perfectly pulled off flip through 111 years of fashion’s back pages. Chalayan is now a designer of the cleverest but lightest and prettiest little dresses around. But while the main procession was more than a pleasure, the real jaw droppers were the five outfits that closed the show.



The first, a prim, high-necked Victorian corset dress which automatically opened itself, hitched up its hems, nipped and tucked and emerged slim, modern and flapperish. The dress above starts its pupation full and Forties, then balloons, deflates, flips, rises and comes to rest as a retro-futurist Paco Rabanne tribute shift. Meanwhile the hat morphs and moulds it self into bold new shapes. There followed amazing twitching and trickery, necklines unplunged and the show-stopping outfit retreated into a hat, leaving only a puff of crystal dust and a boldy bare-naked model. (There was something unsettlingly sexy about the styling and unveiling by hidden hands).

But if this was history as a magic show, it was also a look into the future and the further integration of gearing and wardrobe, wiring and evening wear. This is what we wore worn in ways we are only starting to imagine.



The March limited edition cover features Hussein Chalayan’s mechanical dress in spectacular lenticular action. To purchase a copy, call 44.1733 385170, while stocks last. The cover is also available to subscribers, so to ensure you do not miss out on future limited edition covers, subscribe by clicking here.

Abbey Update

For those of you who wished Abbey good thoughts, she's getting an MRI today (the 14th) for what turned out to be an acute vestibular syndrome onset. As always, I will keep you posted.

In honor of her and all other animals, check out today's Funky Find of The Week.

Funky Find of the Week:
Moooi's Animal Furniture

Sing it with me everyone....Old MacDonald Had A Cool House....
Horse lamp, bunny lamp  and pig table!

Created Specifically for Front Design by Moooi, these fun “Animal things” are a sight to behold.

Horse lamp, Pig tray and Rabbit lamp

Who wouldn't want a horse to lighten up your living room and a pig to serve your guests?
Furniture to fall in love with at first sight, or hate forever.

Designed by Front Design for Moooi

This, my friends, is Abbey.

Unfortunately the love of my life, my sweet dog Abbey, who turned 14 last week, is in the vet hospital tonight. So instead of a new post I am putting a picture of her so you can see why I can't really write about anything else.


Abbey, 13 yrs, January 2007

The Movie Sucked But The Titles Were Great.




At least, that's how I felt about David Fincher's Panic Room. Most of Fincher's movies have outstanding title design (think "Fight Club" and"Seven"). Yes, there are some terrific movies which also have terrific title design, but certainly, the two are not mutually inclusive.



above titles for Panic Room by Picture Mill, produced in conjunction with Café FX.

On Submarine Channel, they love a good main title. That's why they've started an online collection of the most stunning and original ones. Some are engaging or wildly entertaining, funny, exhilarating or deadly beautiful. Some are oozing with visual treats while others hit you hard with their bold and audacious style.




Submarine Channel is a non-profit production and online distribution platform for designers, interactive artists and the people who like them. You may notice what seems like some obvious omissions, but that's because they are presently working on getting clearance rights to many of the main title sequences long revered as some of the best; like those by renowned designer, Saul Bass':


See some of the movies for which he's designed the titles here: title sequences by Saul Bass.

Forget The Film, Watch The Titles

The Ultimate Bachelor Pad.



The Ultimate Bachelor Pad (for the west coast) as interpreted by the hip men's magazine, Esquire.
An old world structure outfitted with state-of-the art technology, this 17, 000 square foot home is set high on a ridge in Southern California has a 360 degree view of everything from the Pacific Ocean to Santa Monica. Architect; Charles Gwathmey.

Meet Mr. Acrylic: Aaron R. Thomas



Above: Mr. A.R.T. himself

Aaron R. Thomas (ART) reinterprets some modern classics as well as designing and inventing his own, all in acrylic (As a matter of fact, he is sponsored by Plexiglas®).

Last year he was chosen as the lead designer to oversee the development of the Wasser Klar acrylic furniture line.

In addition to much whimsical design, he does make some high end gaming tables, beautiful lamps and more. Below are some images of his inventive and original furniture:


Above: gaming table



Some are frosted, some are hand painted.



All are fun.


above: The Lane Table made with a maple wood bowling lane top.

And all can be cleaned with a sponge.


I particularly like the acrylic eames LCW (pictured above).


above: The DJ table he created for the Golden Globes, complete with Louis Vuitton Trunk!

In addition to creating furniture, Aaron also creates sculptures from acrylic as well as custom displays for things like auto shows.

Below is an example of one of his fun sculptures titled "Freeze":



The following is reprinted from his site:
Aaron R. Thomas (A R T™) loves acrylic.

Aaron has an uncommonly intuitive way with acrylic, surely due, in part, to his lifelong exposure to the material. His Parents' acrylic workshop was his playground and he entertained himself learning to use the tools to manipulate the transparent plastic by watching his craftsman father at work. Aaron loved to turn secretly salvaged scraps into an efficient and appealing object that would bring beauty, joy, and vivacity into the world.

Aaron's philosophies of ART and Life stem from these formative experiences of the capacity for creation and invention to instantly change the world for the better.
Eliminating loveless design became his crusade.

Aaron's infectious passion and talent have enlisted a broad network of support and admiration across an intriguing variety of industries.

Aaron R. Thomas Design enjoys the exclusive sponsorship of Plexiglas®

Aaron creates custom unique pieces for top architects and designers worldwide.

Aaron's work is displayed in museums and exclusive private collections worldwide.


Aaron R. Thomas Website - Art in Acrylic

You can also see some of his other custom work and get information at another site of his: http://www.thomasplastic.com/

Please donate

C'mon people, it's only a dollar.