Body painting, body art or body makeup applied in a trompe l'oeil fashion on a naked or barely clad body never seems to grow tiresome. So, after sharing some of the amazing works by Emma Hack, Veruschka, Guido Daniele, and Temptu Paints with you, here's some beautiful body art of a different flavor.
The IKEA Billy bookcase is a legend by now. Spurring projects like Pimp your Billy,tons of fan sites, hacker sites and youtube videos, it's no wonder the world's best selling customizable bookcase now has it's own book celebrating 30 years of existence and over 41 million bookshelves sold.
The Billy: above: the classic simple Billy in natural, white or black can then be customized with everything from glass doors, various shelves, tons of configurations and special stickers.
The Book (thanks to a reader, I now know there are 2 versions of this book, the one below in not in English and the one shown at the top of this post IS available in English): above: The book celebrates 30 years of the Billy Bookcase The Designer:
Created by Gillis Lundgren (above) in 1979, the bookcase is the bestselling single piece of MDF furniture in the world. Designed by only the fourth employee for Ikea, 41 million have been sold since 1979. The factory where the bookcases are made knocks out 15 Billys a minute; 3.1 million a year.
As it turns 30, some of the IKEA stores are celebrating with a 3 for 2 sale, special limited editions, events and of course, the book.
Special Limited Editions: Designed by Annika Bryngelsson, the special edition, BILLY JADER is decorated with Shakespheare's love poems, while BILLY BJASTE was inspired by Japanese manga.
above: Republica adds a diamond and platinum buckle to a Gucci belt
If you're at all familiar with Stuart Hughes and his company Goldstriker, you know him as the ultra luxe purveyor of the world's most luxurious mobile phones clad in gold, diamond and platinum as well as some outrageous gifts like diamond studded golf balls and diamond chess sets.
above: some of the items available from Stuart Hughes and Goldstriker include a gold plated Bang & Olufsen Beo remote
His latest venture, along with his wife, Katharine, is a very high end fashion site called Republica in which they are customizing already luxe clothing and accessories with diamonds and precious metals.
With brands like Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada and Cavalli, they are creating limited versions of some of their products by adding platinum, diamonds, gemstones, exotic skins and more in limited numbers to make them even more exclusive..... and expensive.
The site just launched on October 5th and there are very few items being offered so far (3 to be exact), but here's a peek at the first items being offered by Republica.
Gucci Belt with Diamond and Platinum Buckle: The Gucci belt below has a buckle recreated by Stuart Hughes in platinum and diamonds and there are only 3 available.
The price? a whopping $168,709.00 USD
The Dolce and Gabbana belt shown below is also limited to 3 and has 53 indivually set diamonds of VVS1 quality totalling a carat weight of 26.5. The price on the above D&G belt is $91,879.00 USD.
Python Skin Blackberry The python skin blackberry has lots of VS1 diamonds on the front at the bottom as well as on the back and will run you $9,658.54 USD
If you've got that kind of coin (and God bless you, if you do) start shopping here.
