These guys are extending and bending the venerable traditions of Savile Row, while being excellent tailors still. Here's how.
Photo from moreintelligentlife.com
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
'Savile Rogues'
These guys are extending and bending the venerable traditions of Savile Row, while being excellent tailors still. Here's how.
Photo from moreintelligentlife.com
Thursday, June 25, 2009
From T Magazine: "Form Follows Fun"
I won't be designing furniture soon, but it's always inspiring to read about talented designers in any field achieving a breakthrough. In the recent T Magazine design and living issue, there's a wonderful feature on bright under-40 stars from this year's Milan Design Week. My favorites are BCXSY and Maarten De Ceulaer.
Sayaka Yamamoto and Boaz Cohen, BCXSY
The logo for BCXSY — a name derived from the initials of its partners, Boaz Cohen, 31, and Sayaka Yamamoto, 25 — features silhouettes of the two designers surrounded by a wreath of light bulbs. Bright ideas are BCXSY’s forte. Its Swing Lamp, a swing illuminated from within, appeared on the cover of the spring 2008 issue of T Design even before it had found a manufacturer. (It’s now produced by Slide.) This year, the Israeli-born Cohen and the Japanese-born Yamamoto — who met as students at the Design Academy Eindhoven and set up shop in that Dutch city — showed their Change! collection at the design emporium Spazio Rossana Orlandi. These pieces, made of carved and coated polyurethane foam blocks, ‘‘play with lightness and heaviness,’’ Cohen explained, and gave the designers the chance ‘‘to sketch in 3-D.’’ But, he added, ‘‘the sketches are the product.’’
Philippe Malouin
When Philippe Malouin moved to Europe to study design at the École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle and later at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the Canadian transplant was struck by his sudden reduction in living space. ‘‘I am interested in the idea of living with less,’’ said Malouin, 26, who was inspired to cram as much function into a single design as possible. For a student project for Hermès, he devised a bag that could also be used as a stool; his Hanger Chair, which can be used to hang a jacket or can be hung itself for storage, is going into production this year. For the Milan fair, he took standard shelving brackets, inexpensive and available at most hardware stores, and designed a series of clip-on accessories, including a lamp, a bench and a vase. Such pieces expand the use of the system and eliminate tabletop clutter, while making Malouin a sort of Dieter Rams for the D.I.Y. set in the process. ‘‘I just wanted to make well-designed pieces that people can afford,’’ he said.
Alessandra Baldereschi
Before studying industrial design at the Domus Academy in Milan, 34-year-old Alessandra Baldereschi studied art, and never recovered. ‘‘I think about projects as image,’’ she explained. She loves embellishing a straightforward form, as she did with the Soufflé chair for CoinCasa — a clear plastic cover stuffed with colorful cushions — or with her collection of ‘‘four seasons’’ wood cabinets, shown here, for Skitsch. Baldereschi’s minimalist, white-lacquered design features ornate knobs — far more than are functionally necessary — on the doors. She called her first cabinet Winter (it had mother-of-pearl knobs), and Skitsch liked the piece so much that it asked for Spring, Summer and Fall. The designer, who was recruited by Skitsch’s co-art director Cristina Morozzi, searched the Internet for knobs in ‘‘elegant and precious’’ materials, including hand-painted ceramics and glass. Baldereschi loves the ‘‘hybridization’’ of plain and fancy. ‘‘I’m romantic,’’ she said.
Nacho Carbonell
The 28-year-old Spanish designer Nacho Carbonell is, at heart, a storyteller — and one with a vivid imagination at that. For ‘‘Craft Punk,’’ the Design Academy Eindhoven graduate brought a heap of discarded Fendi leather scraps to life in a series of beastly creatures (some of which could be ridden or sat upon). His womblike papier-mâché Evolution chairs and benches — handmade from the newspapers that accumulated in his house — are his retreat from information overload. Such ideas are not so much a statement about the environment (though he insists that ‘‘waste’’ is as good a material to work with as anything you could pick up in a store) as they are an attempt to imbue inanimate design objects with an emotional core. For the coming Design Miami/Basel fair, he is making a chair out of leaves and sawdust. ‘‘It’s a chair with a goal,’’ he said: ‘‘It wants to become a tree.’’
Maarten De Ceulaer
‘‘I can’t just design something for no reason,’’ Maarten De Ceulaer said. Instead, the Brussels-based 25-year-old graduate of the Design Academy Eindhoven looks for ‘‘a simple, strong, basic concept.’’ His Leather Collection, designed for Nina Yashar’s Nilufar Gallery, explores the dynamism of the modern nomadic lifestyle. Suitcase-like storage components — each one tailored to the kind of clothing it’s meant to contain and evocative of luxurious travel accessories by companies like Hermès and Louis Vuitton — can be reconfigured and transported from room to room. ‘‘I have a big wardrobe in my house,’’ De Ceulaer explained, ‘‘and it’s too big to move. I wanted something more flexible.’’ De Ceulaer, who often works at home, is currently looking for someone to make his Nomad Light Molecule, an electrified ‘‘mother’’ light with detachable, battery-powered ‘‘children.’’ He added, ‘‘I try to find the right people to make the designs. That’s how I learn the most as a designer.’’
Simon Macro and Marcus Beck, Freshwest Design
Since founding Freshwest in 2005, 34-year-olds Simon Macro and Marcus Beck — fine-art graduates and childhood friends who work two minutes from the beach in southwest Wales — have designed everything from a water-blue acrylic ‘‘pool’’ table to a medicine cabinet. No strangers to limited editions (Beck made bespoke furniture, and Macro worked for the mad-genius designer Thomas Heatherwick), the two were surprised last fall when the C.E.O. of the Dutch company Moooi spotted their bamboo-scaffolding-inspired Brave New World Lamp, shown here, and wanted to produce it. In Milan, Moooi also exhibited Freshwest’s Lazy Chair, which collapses when you get near it, and then slowly rights itself. ‘‘It’s almost a psychology experiment,’’ Macro said. ‘‘Everyone reacts differently to it.’’ Gone are the days when the duo checked the surf reports before they checked their e-mail, but success has its upside. ‘‘It’s exciting,’’ Beck said, ‘‘to make some of these crazy ideas we have.’’
Sayaka Yamamoto and Boaz Cohen, BCXSY
The logo for BCXSY — a name derived from the initials of its partners, Boaz Cohen, 31, and Sayaka Yamamoto, 25 — features silhouettes of the two designers surrounded by a wreath of light bulbs. Bright ideas are BCXSY’s forte. Its Swing Lamp, a swing illuminated from within, appeared on the cover of the spring 2008 issue of T Design even before it had found a manufacturer. (It’s now produced by Slide.) This year, the Israeli-born Cohen and the Japanese-born Yamamoto — who met as students at the Design Academy Eindhoven and set up shop in that Dutch city — showed their Change! collection at the design emporium Spazio Rossana Orlandi. These pieces, made of carved and coated polyurethane foam blocks, ‘‘play with lightness and heaviness,’’ Cohen explained, and gave the designers the chance ‘‘to sketch in 3-D.’’ But, he added, ‘‘the sketches are the product.’’
Philippe Malouin
When Philippe Malouin moved to Europe to study design at the École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle and later at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the Canadian transplant was struck by his sudden reduction in living space. ‘‘I am interested in the idea of living with less,’’ said Malouin, 26, who was inspired to cram as much function into a single design as possible. For a student project for Hermès, he devised a bag that could also be used as a stool; his Hanger Chair, which can be used to hang a jacket or can be hung itself for storage, is going into production this year. For the Milan fair, he took standard shelving brackets, inexpensive and available at most hardware stores, and designed a series of clip-on accessories, including a lamp, a bench and a vase. Such pieces expand the use of the system and eliminate tabletop clutter, while making Malouin a sort of Dieter Rams for the D.I.Y. set in the process. ‘‘I just wanted to make well-designed pieces that people can afford,’’ he said.
Alessandra Baldereschi
Before studying industrial design at the Domus Academy in Milan, 34-year-old Alessandra Baldereschi studied art, and never recovered. ‘‘I think about projects as image,’’ she explained. She loves embellishing a straightforward form, as she did with the Soufflé chair for CoinCasa — a clear plastic cover stuffed with colorful cushions — or with her collection of ‘‘four seasons’’ wood cabinets, shown here, for Skitsch. Baldereschi’s minimalist, white-lacquered design features ornate knobs — far more than are functionally necessary — on the doors. She called her first cabinet Winter (it had mother-of-pearl knobs), and Skitsch liked the piece so much that it asked for Spring, Summer and Fall. The designer, who was recruited by Skitsch’s co-art director Cristina Morozzi, searched the Internet for knobs in ‘‘elegant and precious’’ materials, including hand-painted ceramics and glass. Baldereschi loves the ‘‘hybridization’’ of plain and fancy. ‘‘I’m romantic,’’ she said.
Nacho Carbonell
The 28-year-old Spanish designer Nacho Carbonell is, at heart, a storyteller — and one with a vivid imagination at that. For ‘‘Craft Punk,’’ the Design Academy Eindhoven graduate brought a heap of discarded Fendi leather scraps to life in a series of beastly creatures (some of which could be ridden or sat upon). His womblike papier-mâché Evolution chairs and benches — handmade from the newspapers that accumulated in his house — are his retreat from information overload. Such ideas are not so much a statement about the environment (though he insists that ‘‘waste’’ is as good a material to work with as anything you could pick up in a store) as they are an attempt to imbue inanimate design objects with an emotional core. For the coming Design Miami/Basel fair, he is making a chair out of leaves and sawdust. ‘‘It’s a chair with a goal,’’ he said: ‘‘It wants to become a tree.’’
Maarten De Ceulaer
‘‘I can’t just design something for no reason,’’ Maarten De Ceulaer said. Instead, the Brussels-based 25-year-old graduate of the Design Academy Eindhoven looks for ‘‘a simple, strong, basic concept.’’ His Leather Collection, designed for Nina Yashar’s Nilufar Gallery, explores the dynamism of the modern nomadic lifestyle. Suitcase-like storage components — each one tailored to the kind of clothing it’s meant to contain and evocative of luxurious travel accessories by companies like Hermès and Louis Vuitton — can be reconfigured and transported from room to room. ‘‘I have a big wardrobe in my house,’’ De Ceulaer explained, ‘‘and it’s too big to move. I wanted something more flexible.’’ De Ceulaer, who often works at home, is currently looking for someone to make his Nomad Light Molecule, an electrified ‘‘mother’’ light with detachable, battery-powered ‘‘children.’’ He added, ‘‘I try to find the right people to make the designs. That’s how I learn the most as a designer.’’
Simon Macro and Marcus Beck, Freshwest Design
Since founding Freshwest in 2005, 34-year-olds Simon Macro and Marcus Beck — fine-art graduates and childhood friends who work two minutes from the beach in southwest Wales — have designed everything from a water-blue acrylic ‘‘pool’’ table to a medicine cabinet. No strangers to limited editions (Beck made bespoke furniture, and Macro worked for the mad-genius designer Thomas Heatherwick), the two were surprised last fall when the C.E.O. of the Dutch company Moooi spotted their bamboo-scaffolding-inspired Brave New World Lamp, shown here, and wanted to produce it. In Milan, Moooi also exhibited Freshwest’s Lazy Chair, which collapses when you get near it, and then slowly rights itself. ‘‘It’s almost a psychology experiment,’’ Macro said. ‘‘Everyone reacts differently to it.’’ Gone are the days when the duo checked the surf reports before they checked their e-mail, but success has its upside. ‘‘It’s exciting,’’ Beck said, ‘‘to make some of these crazy ideas we have.’’
Company of We
There can never be too many places that sell stylish and well-priced stuff, so something like Company of We is always welcome. The write-up on this company in Material Interest goes:
Just because something seems too good to be true doesn't mean it isn't. So it goes with Company of We, a new menswear label that sells just-fashiony-enough versions of your closet essentials—nearly all for under $100. "It's like walking into Jeffrey and finding everything 80 percent off," says We's Jayzel Samonte. Dubious, we kicked the tires on these pieces, and they do hold up. But deals like a Dior Homme-esque snagged vest for $98 or a perfect pair of Bastian-like pleated city shorts for $78 do beg the question: How? The other half of the equation, designer Christopher Crawford, assures us that the answer is nothing more untoward than cutting out the middleman—and applying a little elbow grease. "The reason we can do this is because we don't wholesale," explains Crawford. "And I'm a pack-my-own-boxes kind of boy."
Visit the online store to see the great stuff that We sells.
Oh, and doesn't Jayzel Samonte sound suspiciously like a Pinoy name?
Monday, June 22, 2009
My childish watch
Thanks to Buddha's recent post on Trilogy, I found out that my dream Issey Miyake watch was being sold just two blocks away from my office. Of course I had to see it. It was a dream to behold, but the P22K price tag promptly woke me up.
Magically, my other "essential" watch was being sold there, too, and at a price that's great for an impulse buy. I'm delighted to be wearing its bright and happy colors right now.
Issey, I will have you, too. Please still be there in a month or so.
P.S. The meatball pasta and fish and chips from the Trilogy canteen are really good.
Monday, June 8, 2009
At Last
Yahoo! Sports
I'm so happy, I'm completely drained. From now on, I will no longer feel nervous for Roger when I watch his matches. Everything that comes after last night is extra.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Crowns and Oranges
This poetry anthology contains a poem of mine, the first time I've been published outside of La Salle's literary folio. Being a "published poet" doesn't mean much around here, but I had a proud smile when I saw this in Powerbooks today.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Tale of Two Coffees
Good thing Crema e Gusto was out of stock when I went to Lavazza. Because that made me try the Club variant, which according to the helpful barista, is single-source 100% Arabica exclusively from Latin America.
The Club is--and I cannot say this enough--fantastic. Smells terrific, and has a hundred different great flavors in it. Smoky, nutty, some sort of sweetish. It's the best coffee I've ever brewed for myself.
iPod Classic 120G
Finally got to replace my old 30G iPod with this 120G one. No more editing my play list before syncing, hooray!
Guest Blog: Corinne on a Dinner at Terrace, Greenbelt 5
My friend Corinne shares her thoughts on a dinner at Terrace at Greenbelt 5, which, by the way, serves really excellent food. Anyway, here is her entry:
22 May 2009
The first line of The Verve’s "Bittersweet Symphony" reverberates. “Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life. Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to money then you die.”
This was my mantra as I welcomed 2009. And, the hypnotic global phenomenon called recession did not help at all.
But tonight, I allowed myself to be pulled back to earth. Tonight, I spent precious and irrevocable time with people who are close to my heart. Unlike any other gimmick nights, tonight we were not out to people watch nor to be seen.
We were just a group of 3 friends, out to enjoy great food, interesting conversations, and terrific company. Oblivious to passers by, oblivious to other diners of The Terrace, we ate, drank wine, laughed, and shared stories. (Once in a while though, servers would get in our bubble. Impressed with their impeccable service, we would willingly let them in).
It was indeed as if we were situated in the comforts of our homes, like a snug and cozy space of a terrace.
Tonight was a life experience captured by this receipt that's definitely one for the ledger.
Monday, May 18, 2009
A Thing of Note
I just recently discovered this jotting pad produced by Star Paper at the neighboring school supplies store. At just P40 a pad, it's a steal considering the excellent paper quality. Today, I thought of injecting some "glamor" into my daily office tasks by making my own little letterhead with it. The result, I think, is surprisingly good. Also, I'm really liking the Goudy Old Style font I used.
I think I'm gonna write somebody a note now.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Things I'm Listening To
Actor by St Vincent
The music of St Vincent (aka Annie Clark, formerly of Polyphonic Spree) is one of the best things I've discovered this year. Her voice remains low key and pretty all throughout, but the music is by turns lush and gorgeous then explosive and violent. There's range and complexity aplenty in this superb CD.
The Law of the Playground by The Boy Least Likely To
The music of The Boy Least Likely To is instantly beguiling in its seemingly childish simplicity, but the tension comes from the themes explored in this duo's lyrics. The result is wonderful.
Set Yourself on Fire by Stars
Okay this album is four years old, but Stars is one of my all-time favorite bands, and this is their best album. It contains "The Big Fight," which when I first heard, slayed me no end.
Love vs Money by The-Dream
As far as R&B goes, this is really solid. Great beats and grooves all around.
Fantasies by Metric
I've been listening to this album nearly every day for three weeks now. It's so catchy, electric and cool, I can't stop.
Paris via Siberia
I'm dreaming of belle epoque Paris via Russia these days, much like the narrator of Dreams of My Russian Summers, Andrei Makine's dreamy, deeply perceptive and sensuous novel about memory and imagination.
Meanwhile, here is where I thank Timmy and Mells for generously hosting us two weekends ago in this beautiful house in Tali Beach. I read a chunk of this book there while enjoying their hospitality. I find that reading takes on another dimension of pleasure when you do it somewhere scenic.
I loved my room, too.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The office is a beach
I love the fall of daylight in the smoking area
Or maybe not. But if, like me, you work in a less corporate environment, you can go to work in summery attire without getting a memo from HR.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Perfect Weird-Weather Music
The weather this week has been distressingly unpredictable. One minute it's hot, the next it's pouring, then it's hot again. To keep my sanity, I listen all day long to The Sea and Cake. The band's music--consistently excellent but never too demanding--helps me maintain my equilibrium. Below are the CDs I have by them. Try looking for their songs. You'll love them.
One Bedroom (2003)
Everybody (2007)
Car Alarm (2008)
The Biz (1995)
The Fawn (1997)
The Sea and Cake (1995)
Glass (2003)
Oui (2000)
One Bedroom (2003)
Everybody (2007)
Car Alarm (2008)
The Biz (1995)
The Fawn (1997)
The Sea and Cake (1995)
Glass (2003)
Oui (2000)
Monday, April 13, 2009
11th April 2009, La Union
Sunset over LaUnion
My friends surfed while I had hotdogs and beer. It was perfect.
10th April 2009
At the Marcos Musuem...
The dictator on his wedding day
Good intentions or sheer ambition
Drafting a speech
Rant of a deluded and fallen dictator
In Vigan...
Calle Crisologo
A beautiful ruin
Full moon over Vigan
A night scene
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