Currently viewing the tag: "collaborations"
Ceramics, candles, hand printed agendas and more from one of our favorite Parisian brands
It took a recent visit to one of our favorite Paris shops to realize that despite using their products all the time we've never written about them. Astier de Villatte is a 15 year old lifestyle powerhouse founded by Benoît Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli. Their unique take on ceramics, paper goods, perfumes, candles, furniture, silverware, glassware and more are created in a Bastille workshop that used to house Napolean's silversmith.
Perhaps best known for their 18th- and 19th-century inspired handmade ceramics, many of which are designed with the equally multi-talented French artist Nathalie Lété. Their team of twenty ceramicists (perhaps the biggest in Paris) makes pottery the way Benoît's father taught him and his siblings. Starting with black Terracotta, each piece is finished with a milky glaze that amplifies the unique character of the clay, celebrating its imperfections and ensuring that no two pieces are exactly alike.
A similar nod to the past styles and methods can be found in many of their other products, from scented erasers to the only hand-typeset agenda in the world. The two-page week layout also includes an important 8th day that changes each week, named after some of their favorite foods (Cassouletday anyone?). Created with a vintage printing press, the new 2012 agendas feature the same signature mosaic pattern and bright colors but now include the Astier team's insider tips on their favorite venues in New York as well as Paris. Studiohomme has a great video visiting Astier de Villate's print and ceramic workshops:
The candle market is certainly a saturated one, but quality shines through in these glass or ceramic votives with vegetable wax candles, often named for places that inspire olfactory overload: Alcatraz, Algiers, Honolulu and Naples among them. Recent additions include a series made in conjunction with Françoise Caron and the Japan-based fragrance company, Takasago: Cabourg, Quebec, Broadway, Zermatt and Yakushima. We've had the soda-inspired "Broadway" scent burning in the office for the last week—a nice way to rid the office from the smell of its new lunchtime infatuation with the Schnipper's Chicken Club sandwich.
Also new this fall is a collaboration with New York-based designer John Derian. The artist worked mostly on small plates, painting them with his signature menagerie of birds and insects, as well as sweetheart symbols and everyday household items. The John Derian collection for Astier de Villatte, as well as many other of their products, are available at his NYC boutique.
Astier de Villatte has a few shops in Paris, is available on their site and at stores in many countries. Check their site for details.
See more of our favorite items in the gallery below.
A master of needlepoint designs exclusive belts for everyone's favorite Olympics-inspired retailer
Inspired since 2007 to bring color to corporate America with whimsical belts looped around the waists of businessmen, Washington, D.C. Tucker Blair is now teaming up with New York-based retailer, Opening Ceremony. Their collection of belts for men and women is a perfect marriage of Tucker Blair's artistry with embroidered leather belts and Opening Ceremony's emphasis on creativity.
Among the collection's five designs is a particularly fitting belt featuring various colorful flags. This international motif references Opening Ceremony's mission of celebrating the work of designers and artists abroad. The other designs include a standard leopard print, an eye-catching geometric pattern and perhaps the most adventurous, quirky white rabbits prancing across a black scene.
Beginning 15 July 2011, snag one of these snazzy, limited-edition needlepoint belts at Opening Ceremony's New York and Los Angeles locations or at Ace Hotel in NYC. Otherwise, visit Opening Ceremony's website to purchase one online for $110.
Personal submarines, Scott Campbell's tattoo art, and "guess who" sunglasses in this week's best of the web
3. Jeremy Scott and Linda Farrow Sunglasses
1. NYFW: Polka-Dot Buildings
In honor of fashion week, Architizer's street photographer snaps two New York building with polka-dotted facades.
2. En Selle Marcel
"Superior bicycles and timeless vintage accessories" sell at En Selle Marcel, Paris' new luxury concept dedicated to highlighting the raw beauty of well-crafted bicycles. Stocking limited editions, special collaborations and high-caliber bikes, hopefully they will also supply the world's best locks.
3. Jeremy Scott and Linda Farrow Sunglasses
For his latest line of Linda Farrow sunglasses, British fashion designer Jeremy Scott includes a series of impish pairs that make life into a permanent game of peek-a-boo.
4. Noblesse Oblige
Tattoo artist Scott Campbell opens OHWOW's new L.A. gallery with an exhibition of his latest works. Called Noblesse Oblige, the collection includes 3D carvings and sculptures created from uncut sheets of dollars sourced directly from the U.S. Mint.
5. Greplin Search Bar
Greplin, a new search utility, doesn't scan the web to find you the best deal on Panama Jack flip flops, but rather works as a personal search engine for all the data you keep floating in the great cloud. Give Greplin access to your Facebook, Gmail, Twitter or any number of other online services, and it presents you with a Google-like search box to browse all the data you have locked away online.
6. Ego Personal Submarine
If you get jealous watching handsome, aging scientists climb into tiny glass orbs to descend to the greatest depths of the ocean, then the Ego might just be for you. Produced by Raonhaje, the Ego is a pontoon-like seacraft with a glass-encased viewing station below deck so you can lounge under water and enjoy the sights of the blue deep.
7. DIY Photorealistic Pouches
The great folks over at Photojojo have published an easy-to-use guide detailing how to construct your own photorealistic pouches. Follow these steps and you can make a cassette tape case to tote your iPod or Nintendo controller change purses.
8. Jersey Shore Infographic
Online Schools developed an infographic outlining the salaries of your favorite Jersey Shore cast members. From vodka sponsorships to book deals, the kids from the Tristate are cleaning up. Don't look if you don't appreciate unconventional talent.
Tobias Rehberger's mind-bending optical illusions take up residence at a Finnish cafe
German artist Tobias Rehberger likes to shake things up. Since stepping on the scene 15 years ago, he's turned to a variety of mediums to toy with perception, consistently challenging his audience to see the "things which cannot be seen." His latest work transforms the interior of a cafe in Finland's cultural capital Turku into a mind-boggling display of criss-crossing lines, an installation he conceived in collaboration with Artek.
Logomo Cafe, as it's called, is the second collaboration between Rehberger and Artek, and a more subdued extension of the first. In 2009 the creative Finnish design studio tapped Rehberger to draw on the decorative WWI "razzle dazzle" style of painting to create a "visually disorienting environment" for the cafeteria at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Debuting at the Venice Biennale, the dizzying array of harsh black and white stripes and contrasting geometric furniture made for a Beetlejuice-like effect, winning him a Golden Lion award.
While the Logomo installation draws on a similar palette and stripe-obsessed sensibility as the cafeteria, this time Rehberger came up with a more airy design, using longer lines throughout the space, extending them onto the windows and accenting only with neon orange.
The Rehberger installation will be on view through 18 December 2011 at the Logomo Cafe in Turku, Finland.
Artist Agathe Snow teams up with Mykita on a pair of "monumental" sunglasses for her Guggenheim Berlin show
Aliens might've constructed Egyptian pyramids (or it could be the more likely story of slave labor), but the more urgent question according to artist Agathe Snow is our relationship to these towering structures. She takes up the question in her current show, an homage to monuments at the Guggenheim Berlin dubbed "All Access World." Corsica-born, NYC-based Snow has already made a name for herself with artfully messy sculptural works and a penchant for interactive art, with this show exploring "a more democratic approach to monument ownership and distribution." Filled with an array of mobile sculptures, large-scale wall collages, video works and more, the exhibit examines the identifying factors that bind people to places.
Accompanying the monumental mixed-media works, a pair of sunglasses designed by Snow and Berlin-based framemaker Mykita plays off the theme with subtle references to iconic landmarks. The neon pink- and black-hued shades feature a handpainted silhouette of either Manhattan's skyline or the Pyramids of Giza, applied so finely to the inner side of the lenses in gold that the wearer barely notices.
The sunglasses, limited to an edition of 200, play off Snow's idea that visually omnipresent monuments should be "available as products" sold through her fictional company All Access World. Snow explains in an interview with Deutsche Guggenheim magazine, "Monuments are a contradiction. Things that depend on the act of remembering cannot be static. How can you be of a moment in history yet speak of timelessness?" Nailing the point home, the Mykita model that Snow chose for the project (called Cyrus) riffs off the classic Clubmaster style that everyone from JFK to surfers has sported.
Assembled entirely by hand at the Mykita workshop, each pair is individually numbered on the temple and comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by Snow. They sell from Museum Shop of the Deutsche Guggenheim (and within the next few weeks at Mykita stores and other dealers) for €370 each.
Our video peek at a collection of sneakers designed by a new American classic
Call it a win for increased technical details in fashion or just call it a win for style, either way Steven Alan's collection for Nike Sportswear (launched today) has us wondering why the collaboration didn't happen sooner. The five styles all draw on Nike's archives and add Steven's impeccably clean twist, which he explains in more detail in our video interview with him here.
This first collection from their new partnership drops tomorrow in Steven Alan stores and online.
In our latest video a revived Swiss watchmaker takes us behind the scenes to look at design and handcraft
We traveled to beautiful Neuchâtel, Switzerland to learn the history of Marvin Watches, a brand celebrating it's 160th birthday and its re-introduction to consumers. Once one of the largest watchmakers in Switzerland the company suffered at the end of the last century, and was resurrected by husband and wife team Cécile and Jean-Daniel Maye eight years ago. Their hard work has paid off, and Marvin Watches was just launched in the U.S. and most European markets in October 2010.
Cécile shares Marvin's story and walks us through the year-long process of making a watch. Celebrated watch designer Sébastian Perret has been instrumental in Marvin's renaissance, and he shares his process for creating a watch from sketch to prototype.
While we were at Marvin we worked with Cécile and Sébastien to design our "Toujours Plus" Malton 160 Cushion, a Cool Hunting Edition collaboration.
A cinematic duet between director Michel Gondry and cartoonist Julie Doucet
Highly charming and intensely creative, "My New New York Diary: A Film-Book" by graphic artist Julie Doucet and director Michel Gondry merges graphic novel with cinematic storytelling. The book comes packaged with a DVD, and both are a necessary accompaniment to the other to help tell the tale of Gondry's meeting with Doucet.
The French director proposed to make a film that would make Doucet the center of the story as she had done before with her autobiographical comic-book novel "My New York Diary," but with her drawings as the film's setting and vehicle. As they talked, the process of making the 20-minute film ended up as its very plot.
"My New New York Diary" begins with Doucet talking to Gondry from her home in Montreal before meeting and staying with him in NYC, where they film her in front of a blue screen. She buys a digital recorder and records her observations on everything from Gondry's quarrels with his housemate to her reluctance at acting in her own story.
After a few days in New York, Doucet returned back to Canada, where she did dozens of drawings. Gondry edited everything, including her narration, and turned her drawings into something live—a talent he previously exemplified so well with "Science of Sleep."
"My New New York Diary" is perhaps best experienced in the order it was packaged—starting first the book, then with the DVD tucked into the back cover—to truly see how two artists breathe life into their individual mediums.
Gondry is signing the book on 11 November 2010 at L.A.'s Family Bookstore. "My New York Diary" sells online from Amazon and PictureBox for $25.
We sit down with R.E.M.'s frontman to learn about his latest creative initiative
When we found out that Michael Stipe was visiting Levi's photo workshop in NYC to conduct a project of his own last Friday, we of course headed down to learn more. There within the tall white walls of the former gallery, dozens of young creative types lined up, all anxiously awaiting their brush with one of American music's greats. As participants full of awe and admiration reached the front of the line, 7-inches and 'zines piled up next to Stipe, who quietly greeted each person, explaining how they would take the next photo before sitting for the following one. After the last subject shuffled through, we sat down with the man whose career spans musician, filmmaker and artist to learn more about what brought him there, his thoughts on brand collaborations and karaoke.
What inspired you about the space initially?
It's got a great provenance in that most New Yorkers know it as Deitch Projects, so some of the creative stuff that's happened in this particular space is pretty legendary and this is a pretty awesome follow-up. It's a very different thing, but I like the openness of it. I guess Levi's is paying for it, but I think it's really cool—whoever had the idea to do it.
For our generation, working with brands was really problematic, no one wanted to be a sellout. But more and more that seems to be just what's happening, do you still have a choice?
I think you do have a choice and my band R.E.M. for instance, have never accepted any endorsement for any purpose that was not artistic. So the line that we draw is a fine line, but anything that is an artform or anything that is artistic or creative, like a film or TV show or some collaboration that makes sense, we're okay with lending or allowing our music to be used, or our name to be used for something like that as opposed to having a tour sponsored by a brand.
Obviously, this is somewhere in that gray area and that's part of what makes it a little bit interesting. It's responding to the needs of the market in the 21st century, but it happens to be a very cool company that's doing it and it seems fairly no-strings-attached. So I'm happy to participate.
How did the space inspire what you're doing here?
This thing? This very simply is a response to a moment in time. In 2010 we find ourselves in—it's not a DMZ, it's not a no man's land—it's like a middle space between what is still photography and what is a moving image. Technology has advanced to the point now that the most recent professional cameras actually don't take still images as much they take short films and then you find the frame that you want to be a still image.
I think that 10 or 12 years from now that is going to radically alter the way we think about what a still image is. And so what we did today is something that goes back to the very beginning of moving imagery with Eadweard Muybridge of course. It takes this very simple idea of a still image and animates it simply. In our case, we're putting it through a Mac and doing a repetitive action that's easy to understand.
How did you choose the subjects?
I just wanted it to feel really democratic, kind of like the space. And I didn't want to do anything myself, I didn't really want to own it. I'm happy to own the idea or to have participated in the idea, but I didn't feel the need to take a picture or be one of the participants in the piece itself.
I like how in a way it's a little bit like a self-portrait daisy chain. I think that term has good and then very sexual connotations, it doesn't have to have sexual connotations! If there's a bad connotation, please strike that remark. Your image is being taken quite democratically by the next person in line, who takes the next person in line.
As an artist I'm thinking about and dealing right now in sculpture with the bust in history. I'm not certain that there's a 21st-century response to what a bust is as a sculptural thing.
What is the historical significance of the bust that inspires you?
Before photography and moving film there were more limited ways in which to capture someone's likeness. In the case of world leaders, death masks were made—or life masks, in the case of William Blake. I've seen a copy that Patti Smith took and made into her version of a 21st-century bust.
This would be in a way, research for me on my version of a 21st-century bust. I'm actually coming away from this with this feeding the other work I'm doing outside of music. This is an idea at the moment. The only sculptures that people know of mine are actually quite limited. There are no busts, that'll come this year.
Why bust as opposed to a portrait?
It allows me to be able to see—if I'm looking at someone—maybe they've got a great personality, but I'm looking at them and going, is this someone who from three dimensions would create an amazing piece that would speak beyond me or beyond my desires as an artist, but might provide comment or commentary or inspire other people who have no idea who this person was. So it's taking something that's quite subjective and trying to, in a very positive way, objectify it.
Do you mind telling us about your tattoo?
This was one I had done in the early '90s, it was maybe 1993 or '94. Now it's a part of me, I don't remember the original intent. I don't think it matters.
What's your favorite song for karaoke?
Oh, good one. 'Justify My Love' by Madonna. It's so retarded, it's spoken word so you can really have fun with it if you've had a few beers too many, and people respond to it well. The easy thing for me is Jimmy Webb songs, Glenn Campbell songs that he wrote because I can actually hit the notes...unless they pitch it higher or lower than my particular range.
Photos by Karen Day
Exploring Dalek's work on Hurley fixed-gears, workspaces, surfboards and more
With surfing at another high fashion moment (see the artful film our own Greg Mitnick recently shot for Proenza Schouler on the topic), Hurley's invitation to check out the U.S. Open of Surfing (of which the brand is the main sponsor) earlier this month seemed like a good idea. Other than swarms of teens crowding Huntington Beach, BMX events, skaters and performances by Weezer and Hot Hot Heat—not to mention the actual surfing itself—checking out the Hurley "campus" was a revealing look at the brand that most Southern California surfer kids have grown up wearing since Hurley introduced clothing in 1999.
Other than the California feel—Hurley's corporate HQ is actually a handful of single-story buildings in Costa Mesa, CA—the most notable and persistent theme of the offices are the geometric shapes and bright hues of Dalek's (aka James Marshall's) artwork throughout, so we decided to take a closer look at the collaboration.
While the formal collaboration started more recently, Marshall's connection to the company dates back to when Hurley evolved from shaping surfboards into a lifestyle brand for the "modern surfer [who] also loved fashion, skate, snow, music and art." The first project official project bringing the two together came in the form of a large-scale painting for the retail concept 225 Forest that Hurley opened in Laguna, CA in July of last year.
While those familiar with Marshall's trademark cosmic mouse will notice the little creature's absence in the work he's done for the label, the new direction for the artist sees him keeping with a recognizable use of colorful kaleidoscopic shapes. For Hurley, who call print and color "a pillar of the brand's foundation," these playful combinations work well for applications that include a floor-to-ceiling treatment of their cafeteria (including the fridge, pictured above), as well as patterns on their Phantom board shorts.
To see these images and more representing the partnership, including my pics of Hurley's workspace, Dalek fixies, a gallery show, check out the gallery below.
To those old-fashioned enough to view Cool Hunting on the web, you may have noticed updated images in the showcase above our logo. We hand-picked each of the images now in rotation, which are part of our ongoing collaboration with Society6.
Clicking on the images leads directly to our co-branded section of the Society6 website, where you can buy the featured work, in the form of prints, t-shirts, iPhone, iPod, and laptop skins.
Known for their easy accessibility and world-wide shipping, Society6 provides an outlet for up-and-coming artists to showcase their work. Using only the highest quality inks and papers available, each print helps fund the creation of future artwork.
By increasing artist exposure, this collaboration aims to uphold the original goals of Society6: to connect artists with unique opportunities, provide support with production and packaging, and to allow more time to create art. To view the works featured in the new partnership, check out the Cool Hunting Showcase or simply click on the artwork at the top of the page. To view other artists, purchase artwork, get involved, or just learn more about Society6, visit their website. Artwork for sale through Society6 is also available through their other retail partners, Threadless and Urban Outfitters.
Designed for the "after-hours athlete," the Chalk ping-pong table by studio Aruliden for Puma puts a seriously social spin on the game. A chalkboard surface allows players to keep track of the score, claim the next game or provoke opponents with a little written banter, and the convenient compartment underneath safely stores beverages and party favors for the ultimate in casual recreation.
Each handmade table features solid ash legs and a steel chain-link net—a major step up from the oft-crude tables tucked away in garages or basements.
Chalk hits The Conran Shop NYC on 3 June 2010, where celebrity table-tennis star Susan Sarandon will battle champions Marty Reisman and Franck "Spin" Raharinosy for its launch. The table will also sell online for $3,900.
One of the Internet's newest winning retail concepts, Gilt, joined in to celebrate online crowd-sourced tee company Threadless' 10 years in business with their new limited edition shirts sold exclusively through Gilt Children. Printed on cotton with a soft vintage feel, the shirts feature reinterpretations of some of Threadless' best-selling designs.
Kids will love Christopher Golebiowski's astronaut carrying a boom box and Joe Van Wetering's "Clouds with a Thunder," which features an off-center lightening bolt. In the super cute category, Jess Fink's "Cookie Loves Milk" shows a smiley carton of milk holding the hand of a cheery chocolate chip cookie, compete with a sweet little word bubble "I love you." In Sara Lee's Alphabet Zoo, alphabet letters superimposed over animal silhouettes cover the front panel.
The 10th anniversary shirts start selling on Gilt Children beginning 4 May 2010 at noon EST (and are not available on the Threadless site).
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