Karim Rashid recently designed the new Majik Cafe in Belgrade, Serbia enamoring it with his trademark ‘digipop’ look that is accented with an amalgam of RG LED panels that change the color and mood of the place throughout the day. The restaurant also features a scrolling LED message board that displays customer’s text messages.
Currently residing in Florence, Serbian-born Draga Obradovic graduated with a degree in painting and has honed her own distinctive designs. She has refined an exceptional technique of directly painting on fabrics imparting an inimitable style that’s a mélange of quaint, contemporary and timeless. Whether it’s a monochrome, floral armchair or a chair boasting quirky, tongue-in-cheek messages, every piece possesses an intrinsically charming appeal that will have you craving to own one.
Chair couture – the very name bears connotations of sitting pretty or languorously laying atop luxe designs. Margaret Elman has knack for reupholstering French antique furniture by giving them a new lease of life. She creates one-of-a kind, exceptionally vibrant pieces by incorporating audacious prints in recycled polyester and organic cotton. Every fabric has a specific use for every piece of vintage furniture from classical chaise lounges to ornate chairs. The prints range from serene aquatic ripples, sepia-toned dandelion stalks and even lush, verdant patch of grass. For that consummate experience of sitting on a grassy knoll indoors, you might want to commission bergères from Elman.
Who needs hideous scaffolding coverage when there’s faux-foliage from Camouflage? The original objective has diversified with Camouflage now used in indoors and stage-backdrops. Designed by Iikka Airas and Markus Wikar, Camouflage is created from sheets of tarpaulin and the installation is devised to incorporate a three-dimensional effect once it’s hanged. In a city with a proliferation of construction cranes and towering edifices, Dubai can certainly do with this scaffolding makeover. Additionally, I can’t think of a better way to eliminate unsightly advertising rife on the half-constructed, let alone finished, structures.
Plant is a public furniture collection that consists of benches and fences that have LEDs integrated into them which the intention that they will glow and light up in the night. The Leds are solar powered so they get their energy during the day.
Noa Bembibre is a Spanish designer and has unveiled her unconventional calendar for 2008. Whimsical typography leaps out and the coloured letters denote the month. The quirky expressions bound off the wall and will definitely initiate banter.
In this day and age of double speak, it isn’t such a stretch to see Peace symbols made aggressive by combining them with symbols of violence i.e. the Bomber plane, a Noose, a Rifle – all part of a collection of accessories by New York based designer Brian Crumley.
Brilliant packaging by Goodmorning Technology for Widex, a hearing aid company by creating slits on the outside cover so that when you slide the box, it shows the waveform underneath the cover through the incision thus animating the audio image.
Miss Geschick & Lady Lapus is a collection of shock apparel and accessories that includes such novelties such as Hairy, a pair of underwear that has fake hair drawn in strategic locations, or Chewy Beauty, which is a chewing gum shaped hair clip.
‘Smile’ is graphic designer Alex Bec’s cheeky attempt at an all out war against misery by spreading ‘smile’ stickers that subvert otherwise ordinary, mundane objects.
Kirsten Hassenfed’s Dans La Lune is very much a delightful jaunt across magical realms. Lush with elaborate details yet stark in its colour scheme, this installation is simply ethereal. Abound are concatenation of stars ensconced in domes, miniature gazebos, winsome cameos aglow, translucent feminine tchotches and illuminated orbs all adorned with trimmings, crystals, curlicues and scalloped edges. Everything is handmade with extraordinary finesse from paper and intricately layered, embellished and garlanded. The entire tableau is a captivating wonderland.
Recent noteworthy accessories from a recent Marc Jacobs including a Legos inspired belt buckle that hasn’t hit the market yet and a blocky bracelet, pictured below.
During a recent excursion to Hong Kong, Sensory attended Hong Kong based artist Carrie Chau Wun Ying’s art show that has become an annual event for the past four years. This year’s show was titled “I’ve never been a troublemaker”.
