The Design Crack Guide to Natural Fabrics
Osloh Jeans: Cycling Becomes Truly Fashionable
i apologize in advance for sending out so many bicycle obsessed links, but i really like how thoughtful these new cycling jeans are. There are so many design decisions made here which advance the cyclist’s sensibilities into actual clothing. Please have a look at the link below, and you will see the various good ideas [...]
Snurkengoed Bedding: The Perfect Bedding for the Average American
Have you ever wondered what it might be like to be homeless and sleep in the cool night air under a cardboard box? No? I never have, but if you have a weird sense of humor and a yearning to get closer to your grungy roots, or you feel like you need to practice sleeping [...]
Fokus Fabrik: A Finnish Fantasy
I’ve been meaning to write about this small Finnish company for quite some time. You need a fabric for your design that incorporates a kind of 80s collage DIY aesthetic? This might very well be the designers to look at. Their fabric work suggests industrial wastelands, flowers juxtaposed with grainy penwork of enlarged [...]
Do Baby by Gabriele Pezzini
Within this past year several people I know including my wife had a baby. And for some strange reason 2 of the babies that I saw born this year (including my boy Lawrence) were photographed at one point in a tote bag. So it was some sort of fate that I was sent an email [...]
Mixko: A World of Undiscoverd Similarities
Mixko, as their namesake indicates, is a company that mixes multiple unlike things together to come up with completely new meanings. They look at an object like a whistle, for instance, and say, “Hey, if the scale of that whistle were multiplied in size by, like four hundred times, then that whistle would make a [...]
Paul Smith Spring 2008 Collection: Straight from a Wes Anderson Film
I’m one of those guys who wishes that Paul Smith was my best friend. Paul and I would hang out walking the streets of London looking for affected youth to star in his advertising campaigns. Every once in a while I would look over at Paul and say, ” Hey Paul, would it be possible [...]
Armani Casa: Classic Big Brand Design Perfection
I’ve made it a point to cover big, chunky fantastically fashionable brands over the next few weeks, and today is one of my favorites: Armani Casa. Armani Casa is like the stage set for a highly stylized 1940s noir film with a good budget. Each piece evokes one of two feelings in me. Armani [...]
Tree Curtain by Nienke Sybrandy is Exciting Piece of ASCII Art
Normally when I think of ASCII I’m immediately thinking of a geeky programmer spending his or her spare time making a portait of Elvis only using the letters E,L,V,I, and S. But this curtain is true art. I love it. Now if only I had a room to put it in…
Balenciaga Fall / Winter 2007
If you did not know, my wife and I just had a child 8 days ago. This child has been out of the house for his pediatrician’s appointment among other journey’s, but his real inaugural first day out I’ve decided to take him to the new Barneys in San Francisco. And what might I find [...]
G-STAR RAW: Denim as Couture
I included G-STAR RAW to the Crack List simply because I’ve never seen denim treated so expertly. Where I live in San Francisco there are only two ways recognized as fashionable for denim: there is the teenage hip-hop style of wearing jeans around your ankles (how can you run from police with your jeans like [...]
The Flamenco Chair
Here is an item that I think breached a curatorial focus in me, and I’ve decided to show it anyway. It does not seem terribly innovative. It’s not particularly clever. It doesn’t use materials in a striking and unexpected way. Really, the only reason I have shown this chair, the Flamenco Chair, is because I [...]
Burberry offers an extremely exciting fall winter 07/08 collection
I’ve increasingly been looking at fashion lately, and call me conservative: I love the Burberry collection for this upcoming season. Burberry, as you may know, was a brand that only catered to preppy Hampton sows for years and years. It ranked up there with Ralph Lauren in yawn factor. Today, Burberry has reinvented itself by [...]
Just How Sexy Can a Lamp Be? The Moschino Dress Lamp Answers
Moschino, that clever Italian fashion house, is always jabbing a stick in the eye of what fashion should be. They are a creative lot that does not like to be tied down by any sense of tradition. One of their recent forays is in the realm of lighting design. They have taken a number of [...]
Nazi Couture: Raf Simons Autumn/Winter Collection 2007-2008
I live in San Francisco where a multitude of strange subcultures coexist. However one that has never taken a foothold which I think would give the city a new dimension is what I will refer to as Nazi Couture. In one sense, I imagine Nazi Couture as a group of self absorbed young males who [...]
Rocking Sheep by Povl Kjær
I’ve been looking at a lot of Danish design and craft lately, and while on my electronic journey of discovery, I came upon a new interpretation of a child’s rocking horse by Povl Kjær. He has dropped the valiant horse and gone for the plusher more comfortable Rocking Sheep. I really had nothing much to [...]
UM Carry by Josh Jakus
This weekend in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, there was this thing called the Capsule street sale. Capsule hosted probably 200 vendors of what I might call “crafty” design. The majority of the work was pretty competent, but honestly, I was hoping for some more innovative products out of the deal. Imagine, if you dare, several [...]
