Goodbye Fanny Pack, Hello Koffski! The Hip New Man Bag

Call it the Man Bag for the New Millenium, or the long overdue replacement for that famous fashion faux pas; the fannypack.



But finally there's something for men to wear on their belt that isn't an eyesore and will hold everything from their keys and wallet to their cellphone:


The Koffski is available in both full size as well as a junior version. Also available are shoulder straps or belts with it.



It offers customized design in a thoroughly practical form and is extremely comfortable to wear. This bag for men (we know, an odd thought) is reminiscent of a gun holster and has room for a wallet, your mobile, a bunch of keys, your Montblanc pen, enough documents to have you travel once around the globe and plenty of credit cards to pay for your Martinis (shaken, obviously...).



The junior version of the Koffski is assembled in a traditional leather manufacture in Solingen (famous for the knives usually...) using leather from the heart of Tuscany, a little village called Santa Croce sull'Arno, in between Florence and Pisa. The leather is left in a much less refined state and has a less dense surface, prone to aging in a different way than yesterdays version, more like traditional saddle bags. The metal parts are exposed to a spezial galvanization process, resulting in a matt appearance, resembling old silver...

This version isn't numbered, but has a branded logotype, that reminds you of the manufacturing process. It's available for purchase here.

A :15 second giggle

As "hip" as I may proclaim to be, every once in awhile, something that ought to be on a site called socuteyouwanttovomit.com really gets me.

Here's one of those examples:

Ever wonder what a baby panda's sneeze sounds like?
Well, even if you didn't, it's worth a listen.

Funky Find of The Week: Bloomframe, The Insta-Balcony

Insta-Balcony! The Bloomframe®

This cool architectural gem (a balcony that folds open with the push of a button in 15 seconds and closes flat to be a window) was created by an architectural firm in Amsterdam named Hofman Dujardin.



It was presented as a prototype at the 2007 International Building and Construction Exhibition in Utrecht Netherlands last week. The design is patented and Bloomframe® is expected to be available for both commercial and private residences later in 2007.

Stop Sitting Up Straight! The Right Angle For Your Task Chair

Your mother was wrong: Sitting up straight is bad for you. Scottish radiologists confirmed in a study last year that a 130-degree angle of recline between torso and thighs reduces pressure on the discs in the lower back. This (and its sleek design) is why the ubiquitous Aeron chair was so ahead of its time in 1994. It deeply reclined by pivoting at the hips.

But designers find that the features of chairs like the Aeron (see image below) are lost on most sitters. The array of levers and knobs—recline tension, lumbar support, seat-pan depth, forward tilt—are commonly ignored by users, who only think to change the chair’s height.


above: The revolutionary Aeron Chair

This neglect has manufacturers such as Herman Miller and Humanscale looking toward the next frontier: a self-adjusting chair. “We’re working on a chair that will listen to who’s sitting on it and adjust itself to their weight,” says Bill Dowell, director of research at Herman Miller, which makes the Aeron.



Humanscale’s Freedom chairs (shown above) include a counterbalance system that adjusts itself like scales to the sitter’s weight as he or she reclines, eliminating the need for recline controls.


above photo by Nick Kaloterakis

Or perhaps the chair of the future isn’t one at all. Chairs contribute in part to the high rate of back pain, which, according to the National Institutes of Health, affects eight out of 10 Americans. “Our notion of a machine for sitting may not make sense in a globalized world,” says Herman Miller designer Cameron Campbell. Galen Cranz of the University of California at Berkeley points out in her book The Chair that the Indian practice of squatting and the Muslim practice of stretching five times a day to pray have great ergonomic benefits. Ten years from now, one worker may settle into a low recliner, another will kneel on a soft carpet, and they’ll talk across a pile of office cushions.—

This article is reprinted from THE FUTURE OF WORK-Pimp Your Cube 2017
The ultimate self-adjusting office chair plus seven more concepts that will make your daily grind a little smoother By Peter Hall and Lauren Aaronson | February 2007 Peter Hall