The Cool Hunter, Roaming the globe so you're in the know
Hot Pick
September 25 2009
Australian designer Josh Goot showed a divine, blindingly bright SS2010 collection at London Fashion Week earlier this week, presented in an open air car park - a suitably urban location given the collection's powerfully modern feel.
The collection, made up mostly of elongated t-shirt dresses, mini dresses and tanks, was all about bold graphic prints. The pieces themselves, which also included a handful of pants and jackets, were kind of secondary, acting more like personal, mobile canvases for the beautifully sharp, urban graphic prints that adorned them.
If Goot's bold colors freak you out, fear not, the designer also showed a section of less-in-your-face black and white prints, which, while still precise and complex will probably appeal to a broader range of customers (read: color-phobes). - Laura Demasi
September 24 2009
Françoise Nielly’s massive, colorful portraits are delicious to look at. Even more wonderful – and particularly infuriating to those of us who have timidly dabbled in painting – is to watch her create them. In a beautiful video posted on her site, she, in her confident, strong hand, wields her painting knife shaped like a miniature garden trowel, and makes painting look easy like cake frosting. She paints her vivid, passionate canvases — some as large as 78 x 25 inches (195 x 62 centimeters) -- from black-and-white photos, further proof of her unfailing ability to interpret light, shadow, hue and tone by applying brilliant colors and daring strokes.
Born in Marseille, brought up near Cannes and Saint-Tropez, and now living in Paris, Nielly is at home among bold contrast and dazzling light. To add to her likeability, here is the list of her loves: Life, wide open spaces, sushi, blue lagoons, the Internet, humor, books, Paris, New York and Vancouver. - Tuija Seipell
September 24 2009
We believe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge your favorite drink by its label. Vitaminwater is crowdsourcing its next flavor through the launch of their Flavorcreator app on Facebook, marking the first time that fans of Vitaminwater can collaborate to create the next flavor.
Vitaminwater enthusiasts will have the opportunity to name the flavor, write the bottle copy and design the label via a contest with the winner or winning team receiving a $5,000 prize from Vitaminwater.
Bottles designed by TCH Design
September 23 2009
The bucolic setting of this lovely private refuge is located in a tiny hamlet in the Flemish district of Belgium, about 10 kilometers from the country’s third-largest city of Gent. Gent-based architecture studio Wim Goes Architectuur designed the beautiful extension to this residence. The wooden addition sits above a new wine cellar and extends partly over the pond.
The natural, graying wood, the green vegetation and the blue sky and pond create a harmonious balance, accented by the slim vertical lines of the largest surfaces. Goes’s signature style combines intentional, unpretentious simplicity with functional clarity, and results in stark beauty with Japanese-Finnish undertones.
In this residential structure, Goes created an elegant facade that encompasses both visual and structural grace. The facade is created from slim strips of wood (only 6 x 8 centimeters in cross-section) selected for the straightness of the growth rings in each piece of wood. And although the wood will still warp slightly in the rain and sun, this does not pose a structural problem because the facade does not need to bear wind load -- the wind will blow right through the strips. The only structural load the wood strips must carry is the vertical load of the roof.
Wim Goes is an award-winning architect, born in 1969 in Ghent. He established Wim Goes Architectuur in 1997. The firm’s work includes private, public and retail projects, ranging from the stunning Yohji Yamamoto flagship store in a neoclassic building in Antwerp, to museum, office and design environments. This year, he was chosen as one of the 40 under 40 European Architects by the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. - Tuija Seipell.
September 22 2009
The fluro/rainbow color trend is still moving off the RTW catwalks and into accessories with a bang (or should we say a splash?). We're loving this Italian range of watches, amusingly dubbed the "Jelly Toy Watch which comes in blindingly bright selection of primary and fluro colours, only this time, the latest Toy Watch throws in a jelly-like matching silicone strap. Buy online from Toy Watch USA
September 20 2009
Electro has always been the bread and butter of the Western crowd. France kicked off the distortion explosion with Justice, DatA and the Ed Banger sound, while the US set have been high balling with crunchy jams courtesy of the Los Angeles party set, including Steve Aoki's Dim Mak crew as well as Classixx and the late great Guns N Bombs. But over in Japan, Shinichi Osawa has been making plenty of noise with his relentless output of forward thinking, super-sized bangers, beating his Western contemporaries at their own game.
Having already unleashed a celebrated artist album back in 2007 (The One), Osawa's latest masterpiece comes in Teppan Yaki, and despite its dubious title, the oversized package collects all of Osawa's biggest remixes to date, including main-room reworks for the likes of Boys Noize, Cazals, Van She and Bag Raiders, as well as an extra disc of the producer's remixes for Japanese artists like De De Mouse, becoming a primer of sorts for far-out Japanese club culture. – Dave Ruby Howe
Shinichi Osawa's Teppan Yaki is out now.
September 18 2009
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September 17 2009
It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that toys and childhood play were the guiding inspirations for the recently completed children’s sports and recreation center in Saint-Cloud, a wealthy community located in the metropolitan area of Paris, about six miles from the city center.
Designed by Paris-based KOZ Architects, and coexisting with several older educational buildings and a residential development, the 1,600 square-meter facility is unexpected and bold in its riotous use of colors both inside and out. A more typical an approach for this type of neighborhood would have been a structure that vanishes into its surroundings.
The funhouse by KOZ has turned into a favorite of kids, parents and teachers, as the facility was planned and its wild colors used in specific ways that fosters the intended functions -- play and sports – and not just to shock or delight.
Joining cube-shaped, basic concrete structures with an overlay and creating a sports court on top of the building have not only increased the building’s usability and maximized the use of the site, but also accommodated the complex’s surprisingly easy fit into the site. A monolithic, monotonic approach would have created a mass much more imposing and seemingly unfriendly than the varying-height structure with its pixelated glass facade that now draws children in through color and an abundance of natural light.
KOZ was established in 1999 Christophe Ouhayoun and Nicholas Ziesel, graduates of the Paris-Belleville School of Architecture who both spent part of their childhoods in the USA. With three other architectural firms, KOZ established a collaborative collective, Plan01 in 2001. - Tuija Seipell
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September 16 2009
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We are excited to be talking with Mini Cooper globally about TCH customized designer car wraps, so that Mini owners can really feel they are a cut above everyone else as far as coolness is concerned. We are imagining the fun that owners will have in selecting their favorite design and designer for their very own cool Mini.
We would love to hear from designers/illustrators/art directors who would be interested in submitting a design for consideration as one of the final 25 options. If you are interested, please email us and we will give you the details on how to submit your design. Have you seen our Mini in Neon colors?
Other TCH initiatives - POP UP Skate Ramp, Virgin Atlantic by TCH, TreeLife by TCH, Puma Spinstar by TCH
September 12 2009
Not so long ago, we noticed the handiwork of Deardesign when they created the Munich sports shoe concept store in Barcelona’s massive L’illa Diagonal.
Now Ignasi Llauradó and Eric Dufourd, the founders of the Barcelona-based design and architecture studio, have completed another flagship store in the same mall. This time, the store belongs to local fashion brand Lurdes Bergada, Syngman Cucala, established by the 30-year fashion veteran, Lurdes Bergada.
In keeping with the fashion brand’s industrial and minimalistic style, Deardesign created a vast hangar-like feel by including all of the functions of the store – both client-facing and back-room – under one roof, but separating them with a curving wall.
This wall, created with 1,000 pieces of beech wood screwed together by 2,400 screws, forms an igloo-like huge presence and becomes a focal point that emphasizes the size of the entire space. Each piece of wood is unique and each piece is visibly numbered – a necessary technical detail for building the wall and a creative design idea to expose the “making of” and to bring attention to the construction features. The use of concrete, wood and cement further adds to the warehouse-like atmosphere.
The clothing brand is all about simple, clean lines and technical ability, and the industrial feel of the store interior echoes this beautifully.
Lurdes Bergada and her son, Syngman Cucala, are known for the practicality and high quality of their fashionable clothing for both men and women, sold in their five stores (including two in Madrid) of which the first opened in 1978.
For Deardesign, this flagship is an impressive addition to their already impressive retail client list that includes LVMH Group, Burberry, Nike and Sephora. Ignasi Llauradó is an industrial designer educated in Barcelona and Eric Dufourd is a Paris-trained interior designer. They established Deardesign in 2005. - Tuija Seipell
September 11 2009
The multi-talented Dutch designer Maurice Mentjens impresses once again, this time with the design of the first store, opened this summer in Arnhem, for Dutch fashion label Ami-e-toi.
The label’s first collection, designed by young Dutch designers, including Denmark-born Claes Iversen, launched with a flashy catwalk show at the Arnhem Fashion Biennale in 2007. The label is part of Stichting Mode Met een Missie (Fashion with a mission foundation) which, in turn, was founded in 2005 to help women with problems caused by addiction, homelessness or psychiatric issues. In “teach-them-to-fish” spirit, the women are taught to make the Ami-e-toi label’s clothing and so gain a profession, and self respect.
In Mentjens’s luxurious store design, Art Deco meets boudoir and is juxtaposed with red-velvet sofas, oak parquet flooring, marble, busts on mirror-top tables, and cameos on the wall. Two massive mirrored walls ensure that the fashions and the fashionistas are visible in endless repetition. The idea “Nothing is quite as it seems” is part of the design concept, echoing the contrast between have-it-all fashionistas and the women who make the fashions. - Tuija Seipell
September 11 2009
Kids’ wear has come such a long way in the last 5-8 years. Once upon a time, it was hand-me-downs from your older brothers and sisters. These days, any brand worth its weight in fashion gold, will have a diffusion range of kids’ wear offering the same grown-up aesthetic for young fashionistas and their stylish parents.
Jean Paul Gaultier’s range is such an example. Kids’ wear is a competitive market, but with style running through the Parisian’s veins, JPG is spot on with the modern and age-appropriate collection. It’s got the right amount of fashionability, bold shapes and distinct tailoring of JPG’s adult range but with a sense of fun and wearability more suited to kids. – Kate Vandermeer
