Alright. I’ve fallen for it. The Swiss Army brand has moved into shoes and I’m in. The shoes, lead by Established Brands, have been expertly produced with the expected simplicity, ease of use, and signature red color that is important to give it that Swiss Army feel. I grew up owning a Swiss Army knife, and I never thought much of it except that it was just so damn cool. And it’s this sort of child like deep mental bond that pulls me in to the lust for these shoes. What makes these shoes cool if you took the logo off? Well, their still light weight, well made, rugged, and thoughtfully designed, but quite frankly, if they had a Payless logo on them then I wouldn’t be writing about them.

This has to be one of the most useful pieces of furniture I’ve seen in a long while. It’s called the Doc System, and it folds from a sofa into a bunk bed. I’m, of course, being heavily biased because of the recent arrival of my first child. Here’s the deal, my wife and I own a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco. Space is at a premium here, so I’ve been search for just such a piece. Now would I really use a convertible modern piece of furniture like this? It depends upon how lazy you are. I’m lazy, so in the end, this piece would just stay a sofa or a bunk bed ninety-nine percent of the time.

Marcel Wanders, uber designer of the past five years, has created this recent addition to the stable of fantastic, high-concept lights for Flos.  The concept is to take an old school chandelier and treat it as it were in a haunted house with some overzealous spiders which had made the most lethal web imaginable. The result is a lamp tightly wrapped with a thin, white fiber that, I’m assuming in Marcel Wander’s opinion, looks a bit like a Zeppelin which is the name he gave the piece. From the image I’ve shown, I don’t see it, but explore its profile and, in fact, you have a Zeppelin. As witty as Mr. Wanders is with his designs I’m surprised he has not come out with the much heavier limited edition which he might call the “Lead Zeppelin”. Just a thought.
http://www.flos.com/singlelamp.jsp?back=14956&lamp=63416

Arik Levy has created a design that takes recycling to new levels while also creating an opportunity for those magazine hoarders out there to remain fashionably clutter free and still keep their magazines. We all know these people. Usually they are older single people who have saved every magazine for the past forty years because they think they might use them again some day. Well, Arik Levy’s simple Stool Wrap will allow these mentally challenged people to simply get rid of all their chairs and strap up their magazines. Sure, you could just use twine to get the same effect, but then that would not be designed by Arik Levy now would it?

Flatpack is a tufted wool rug by Big-Game, a Swiss and Belgian design house. The rug concept was born from the idea of taking a simple cardboard box and flattening it out so that each tab of the box spreads to make a rug.  I like this simply because it exploit an already interesting form of the box. I guess where I fall a bit short with liking this design entirely is I was really hoping you could turn this fabulous rug into a box, so in a sense, the rug could easily carry itself along with whatever you want to put into it. The design ends up being visual mimicry rather than functional mimicry which somehow slightly degrades the design in my mind.

This past weekend, The New York Times had an advertising supplemental that was a slick magazine devoted to the watch, a dying breed of product design. Probably my favorite of the watches was the Bell & Ross BR01-97. It is, quite frankly, one of the ugliest watches I have ever seen, but there is no denying its incredible precision and craftsmanship. I guess the reason I love this watch so much is it really sticks to its 4 tenets: water resistance, readability, precision, and performance. No where do they claim to focus on beauty. These 4 things are the mantra. Designers, engineers, and fabricators look to this with laser focus. Beauty is not in this equation. It’s too abstract. And like many Swiss modernists that have come before Bell and Ross, the beauty is the product of following these four tenets.

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 hiring designers and business people that know how to grow a brand into something special and distinct. For the last five to ten years, Burberry has made bold statements with their high-end ready-to-wear collection, and this year is no exception.

Every work in this fall’s collection is a piece of art. The trends in the collection revolve around blacks and grays in color. Designers mix ruffly flourishes of dresses, such as the piece above, with shiny, thick patent leather elbow length gloves. The gloves, which have been showing up in similar forms in many fall collections, are criss-crossed with a diamond quilt pattern and give the models a presence on the runway that is hard to pin down. Popeye was know for his thick, animated forearms, and the same effect happens when you see the models with the gloves. The difference is the gloves are much more feline which give this accessory the perfect dichotomy between strength and femininity.

Another trend that seems almost anti-Burberry that I love is their use of Shiny. When I used to think of Burberry, I thought brown or plaid. I never thought of shiny, sexy suit of armor which is what I’m showing above. And what’s great about this piece is the metallic shine of the top is still subdued somehow. It doesn’t scream at you…. Anyway, I’ve reached my Burberry limit for the day. If you’re a guy and reading this, check out the men’s collection because there are so many wearable pieces in there that doesn’t scream “I’m a nancy boy!”. Definitely have a look.

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 their iconic pieces, such as the corset dress shown above, and turned them into limited edition lamps for last May’s Milan Furniture Fair. Never before had I stared at a lamp so much. It’s sexy.

Moschino even makes a woman’s boot lamp which is somewhat reminiscent of the leg lamp seen in the movie, A Christmas Story. Moschino’s lamp, I would say is a bit simpler and more versatile for the interior designers out there. I could definitely see both the dress lamp and boot lamp as complete hits in some Las Vegas Lounge with a theme like “The Men’s Club”. You know, it could be all warm and dark where everything is covered with brown leather and mahogany… but there are strippers table dancing.

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 are in their mid twenties. They experienced a life of political correctness so they battle this by waxing their hair back into a fine sheen, keeping their physiques impeccably sculptured, and generally looking menacing. Their clothes would undoubtedly need to project this image of sexy SS officer, and what better designer to look towards than Raf Simons.

His Autumn Winter 2007/2008 collection is so overtly Nazi Couture (I would almost refer to the collection as being very “trenchcoat mafia” in style but then this analogy kept grating on me in its pimple faced gawkiness). What defines the style in my mind is an aggressive, copious use of black. Mr. Simons uses black leather, black wool, black vinyl, black silk, and anything laying around that is black. The black, in Raf’s collection is made of several layers of black juxtaposed on to yet more blacks to create and even deeper and more effective blackness. It’s the kind of black that if you saw a man wearing one of Raf Simons’ ensembles on the street you would be afraid that he would come up to you and spank you on the ass and call you a dirty jew. What’s worse, the clothes are so perfectly cut and seductive that you’d want that person to spank you on the ass.

Not to over use the Nazi Couture thing too much, but I just wanted to point out one other theme in Mr. Simons’ collection that is in my mind Nazi-ish… or at least the superficial, fetishistic perception of Nazis getting dressed up for a really good party… and that is that Raf Simon’s collection includes a number of half and full arm length shiny black leather gloves as accessories to his clothes. They look eerily like cattle gloves, but are quite effective in the intimidation factor.

Mina Perhonen is a Finnish Designer working in Japan. Her work is characterized by empire dresses with flowing waists, huge, bold buttons, neutrals mixed with a few earthy cool colors, and softness. I’ve chosen to show a picture of the softest of the soft pieces. It’s sort of a hoodie mixed with a cardigan made from what I believe is an acrylic yarn (I may be wrong). Again, Mina treats this piece with big buttons. The hood itself is cupped close to the face framing one’s profile in perfect cupie doll cuteness. In fact, this piece works kind of like a cuteness maker. You could be a toothless prune and still have people say “awwwww!” when they pass you, that’s how cute this piece is.