Cool Hunting
| 04 November 2005view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Needled this Week
by Josh Rubin
Needled started the week off with Wentworth Miller and his faux tattooed torso in the TV series Prison Break and we all wondered who gets the pleasure of smoothing those decals on. Changing focus from the faux to fearsome, tattoo artist and painter of the macabre, Dan Henk, was this week's featured artist. The art work of tattooists on collectible toys and The Munny Show were Wednesday's highlight, and Thursday was all about shopping for tattoo inspired gear. The week rounds off with sex with a look at the work of fetish and tattoo photographer Charles Gatewood.
Smart Travelling
by Ami Kealoha
Based in a travel boutique down an alleyway in Berlin's Mitte district, Smart Travelling is a web-based service that provides members with info about 24 European cities. Following a "less is more approach," listings must be unusual and meet criteria for originality. Users can search for entries by what type of vacation (e.g. "Stylish/Stage" or "Authentic/Local") they want and whether they're travelling for business, as a couple, with family, etc. A handy feature saves choices in a pdf format so that they can be printed or saved for reference, creating a personalized guidebook. Membership starts at 19 euros for one year.
Lomo Printshop
by Ami Kealoha
More custom photo products and more from Lomo via their month-old Printshop. Working with "the finest professional photo lab" in Vienna, Lomo prints customers' images onto stickers or transforms them into oversize mosaic wall-hangings. Sticker rolls ($15) come in two dimensions, either 2" x 1.2" stickers (64 per roll) or 4" x 2.64" stickers (16 per roll), and can be printed with many unique images as there are stickers per roll or with duplicates. The "Clipwall" starts at $50 and tops out at $175 and 13 square feet on the website, but huge sizes, alternative shapes, and other customizations are possible. Both products take about a week to process before they're shipped from Austria.
Look out for more customizable products, like snowboards, shower curtains, and wallpaper, from Lomo soon!
This Week at Refinery29
by Josh Rubin
Refinery29 reminds us that it's never too early to start mulling over gift options. In a league of its very own, ALIFE/Kangol's 'Il Padrino' Fedora box-set has swept into NYC in frustratingly tiny numbers. Another, less flashy option is Jill Platner , a metalsmith and old-school artisan whose jewelry designs are at once rugged and comfortable to wear. Switching coasts, L.A. hipster designer Alex & Chloe's mixed media acrylic and gold pendants recontextualize silhouetted images, making their necklaces a bold statement for girls and guys. For that classic, New York shopping experience, diamond-in-the-rough vintage jewelry store Pippin has an outstanding collection of estate jewelry and new-old stock that makes a visit to their storefront a time-warping experience.
Custom Photo ATM Cards
by Ami Kealoha
A reader tipped us to Dutch bank Postbank's new custom photo ATM card, called "de paskamer." By uploading a photo via the de paskamer website, customers can easily create a background of their choosing and will receive the card in about six working days. It appears the service is only offered in the Netherlands currently, but similar services for checks are widely available in the U.S.
This Week in Tropolism
by Josh Rubin
This week in Tropolism, we got virtual. As in virtual concert hall, virtual skyscraper, and virtual museum for Ground Zero. We also started a map of our community. We grow.
