Design Studio 54

It seems that Simon Doonan's fascination this holiday season with Andy Warhol has influenced his husband Jonathan Adler's designs.  Adler, who mixes modern and kitsch better than anyone, has created what I consider to be the most perfect, poptastic gift choice of the season.  Yes, ladies and gents, behold Adler's needlepoint Liza Minnelli pillows!
Warhol was fond of the Studio 54 scene and so is Adler apparently.  He has taken his traditional handcrafted wool pillows, typically done in bold, colored geometric prints, and has covered them with the faces of Liza, legendary fashion designer Halston and the Studio 54 logo. Pop imagery combined with arts and crafts? Yes indeed.

Adler says the pillow is "Our homage to the hard-core hedonism of the disco era rendered in the paradoxically cozy medium of needlepoint." Brilliant, just brilliant.

Sketches become reality

The Furniture for Production students at CCA are totally hitting their stride in the class we’re hosting. They’ve been sketching furiously and presented their best of three drawings two weeks ago. Their next challenge was to pick one to focus on and creating a ¼ scale model of it. They presented these scale models last week. The details in the chairs are so cool. And I can’t help it, but aren’t all small things adorable? See for yourself here.

Want to make your own ¼ scale model chair? Our Champagne Chair Contest is coming. Check back in December to get the details.

DWR.com gets a facelift.

Everyone needs a change now and then, so we’ve recently redesigned the dwr.com homepage. We’re trying to make it easier for our customers to navigate the site and find exactly what they’re looking for. We want to make sure everyone knows about the events happening in our Studios and reflect our design aesthetic a little more strongly. Did we succeed? Let us know what you think.

Pursuit of quality.

The launch of the limited edition 20-06 Chair from Emeco and Foster + Associates (which is available only at DWR, I might add), was the perfect excuse to find out more about Norman Foster, a true living legend of architecture. His firm, Foster + Partners, has a positively staggering international portfolio. Start to look at their projects – which include London’s Millennium Bridge, the Bilbao Metro, Wembly Stadium and the Beijing International Airport (set to open in 2008), just to name a very few – and it becomes clear that their understanding of the big picture is remarkable. Whether it’s the London skyline or the Swiss Alps (check out my personal favorite, the Chesa Futura apartment building in St. Moritz; shown above), Foster and his team build structures that somehow manage to simultaneously stand out and blend into their surroundings. Thus, it’s so very exciting that they’ve gone from macro to slightly more micro with the launch of the 20-06 Chair. Their partnership with Emeco makes perfect sense – both strongly value the pursuit of quality and environmental-consciousness in their work. Definitely worth checking out.

Learn more about Foster’s approach and the emphasis he places on creating green architecture with this piece he wrote for CNN and find out more about his background and upbringing here.

Crossing Boundaries

Last week DWR’s Flatiron studio (I work there so stop in and say hello sometime) hosted an event in conjunction with Waterworks celebrating the launch of interior designer Vicente Wolf’s newest book Crossing Boundaries: A Global Vision of Design. Wolf presented a slideshow of his work and signed books afterwards.

Obviously, the event has come and gone but we’d be remiss not to point out just how much we’ve fallen in love with the book.  It is 200 pages of his work and a story of how his travels have affected his design aesthetic.  The people, colors, textiles, products and landscapes of his many trips find ways into his work, both directly (a textile from a foreign country) and indirectly (a colorway from a riverbed halfway across the world). Wolf’s impressive resume includes residential designs for Clive Davis and the NYC restaurant Alto, pictured above.

He is also a designer who understands “modern” without overtly embracing it.  During his lecture he suggested mixing both modern and traditional in equal parts, thus allowing each part of an interior’s mixture to stand out and tell a story.  It is great book, full of wonderful ideas. 

A Dandy Dunny

Kid Robot is at it again.  Having teamed up with fashion designers as diverse as Heatherette, Prada and Versace for past collaborations, it’s no surprise that their latest fashion muse is the Ralph Lauren of England, Paul Smith. Smith is no stranger to collaborating either. In the past, he’s developed a line of textiles for Maharam, designed a Mini Cooper in his signature stripe and redesigned Arne Jacobsen’s classic Series 7 Chair for Fritz Hansen.

Smith is known for his suits, loud shirts and multi-stripes. He is a dominant fashion brand globally and recent efforts have suggested he’s set to conquer the U.S. This year, PS has launched a store in LA (that Wallpaper magazine went gaga over) and a new flagship here in Soho. His first U.S. shop on 5th Avenue is a mixture of suiting, shirts, books and found objects that Smith has discovered all over the globe. It is also the only place you can snatch up a limited edition PS/Kid Robot T-shirt.  For $120, you get the toy too.

Or you could wait until November 24th when the 8” version of his Kid Robot toy, the Dandy Dunny, will go live online. But you’d better be fast.  They’ll assuredly sell out right away.

Perks of Being a Wallflower

As you might have noticed in recent DWR catalogs, our art direction team has been spicing up our photography through the use of wallpapers that act as decorative backdrops to some of our more streamlined products. We’ve received many questions from customers asking where these can be purchased, so we’re more than happy to hook you up with a link to the Cole and Sons site. Their wallpaper designs range from the feminine to over the top (in a good way).

Even more adventurous are the designs from Nama Rococo, a wallpaper studio that claims to draw influence from the French artist Watteau, Chinese hand-scroll paintings from the Qing Dynasty and Funkadelic album covers. Not only are their wallpapers striking, but their website is fun to explore.>

Being a renter and someone who constantly likes to mix up my environment, I’m always looking for ways to customize my home on a whim. These designs might just do the trick.

MODERN + DESIGN + FUNCTION

For the third year in a row, Chicago's North Avenue Studio is hosting a juried furniture competition entitled, MODERN + DESIGN + FUNCTION: Chicago Furniture Now to support new, innovative furniture designs by emerging Chicago designers. The contest has attracted the attention of the regional design community. Chicago Furniture Now was created to foster new ideas in modern furniture design in the Chicago area. A panel of judges made up of respected professionals in architecture, art, design and fashion will select 20-25 top entries to be exhibited, making this a great opportunity for up-and-coming designers and design firms to have their original work juried.

Please review the application [pdf] and the complete rules.

Application deadline: Friday, January 12, 2007, 7pm.
Approximately 20-25 of the top entries will be exhibited Thursday, February 15, 2007, 6:30-9:30pm.

“I hate camping.”

Or so says Marcel Wanders in his latest design jaunt with Puma to bring some fun into the outdoor lounging realm. I love the idea of making camping/life outside more than just yellow and black gore-tex and green coleman grills. This is what crossed my mind today as my co-worker Karen John handed me a gold and black marketing book from one of our favorite Dutch designers, Marcel Wanders. Wanders teamed up with Puma to launch products designed a camping/beach/lounge experience. The line includes a shade structure, coolers, beach balls, flip flops and bags, all jazzed up with his black and white prints. Wanders and Puma seem like a match made in heaven. The line will be in stores this week. For now, I’m going to play with the marketing book, it has cutouts and dolls so I can pretend camp, all from the comfort of my desk. Now how about a desk meets tent type of thing?

Going Once, Going Twice...

Wright, the Chicago-based auction house, will offer Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #21 (1958) at auction on December 3, 2006. The Los Angeles property has been immaculately restored to the original intent of the architect. The steel and glass residence is surrounded by reflection pools and nestled into the Hollywood Hills. Estimate $2.5-3.5 million.

For New Yorkers, an exclusive Manhattan preview to this auction, along with others from Wright’s upcoming season, is being held at the Urban Glass House located at 330 Spring Street, New York City. The structure represents Philip Johnson’s last residential commission and was designed with the same rigorous attention to detail as his world-famous Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. This preview event is open to the public November 14-19. Exhibition items will include Poul Kjærholm designs and a 1958 Porsche 356 Speedster from Koenig’s Case Study House, as well as Isamu Noguchi’s rare Prismatic table, which has never before appeared on the market.