I. Ronni Kappos for Anthropologie

by Wendy Dembo

Those in the know love I. Ronni Kappos jewelry for her brightly colored vintage glass beads and styles that are feminine and playful while still looking unfussy and chic. I just found out her designs will reach a much wider audience with her new line of necklaces and earrings for Anthropologie. (Look for Water Lily, Cipher, Niobe with 24k gold details and Leger necklaces.)

She's using the same high-quality beads that she always uses and she has added some charms to them as well. Kappos says, “I like being in Anthropologie, because a lot of the elements in the store or on the website have an antique or vintage feeling,” which is very similar to her simple designs. And I as a consumer, am happy that more women will be wearing her lovely work.

Generally, I am very secretive of my jewelry discoveries, especially before a designer is well known, or has mass distribution. But I love I. Ronni Kappos’ jewelry so much that I want everyone to wear it.

Nublu Orchestra

by Tim Yu

A club, record label, band and movement all-in-one, the Nublu Orchestra is committed to developing and creating new sounds and music. The Lower East Side institution is comprised of talented musicians from jazz, funk, pop, fusion, Brazilian, R&B and classical genres, "but the music we make is none of these," comments Butch Morris, conductor of the Nublu Orchestra.

On the recently released self-titled album, Morris conducts band members from Wax Poetic, Love Trio, Kudu, Brazilian Girls and others, using signals of his own invention to relay real-time arrangements and compositions. The methodology unites musicians in their playing regardless of their technical, stylistic or cultural differences. The result is a free-form combination of avant-garde jazz, folk, funk and techno forming an improvisational hypnotic sound. Get the album from iTunes or Amazon.

Nublu Orchestra will play at Nublu every Monday in April at 10 pm. They will also be playing with the Sun Ra Arkestra, another band offering unique philosophic twists, this Friday 13 April 2007 at the Paul Robeson Theater in Brooklyn, NY. Click here for more information.

Paul Robeson Theater
40 Greene Avenue
Broooklyn, NY 11201 map
tel. 1 718 783 9794

Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams Interview and Giveaway

by Ami Kealoha

For nearly two decades, Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams have been making the kind of furniture that has become an American interior design vernacular, while also setting new standards in the workplace with their progressive business practices. With their recently released book Let's Get Comfortable and five new stores opening in the U.S. (for a total of 18), we thought we'd check in with the duo to find out what it takes to build such a dynamic company. Read on to learn about their new quarterly online magazine, their rock-solid ethics and their winning strategy for building a furniture company.

They've also been kind enough to give Cool Hunting three signed copies to give away. To find out how to enter (and for the whole interview) go here.

Your furniture has such a new American sensibility and your approach to business has a similar parallel. Can you tell us what informs your decisions when it comes to business practices?
We treat people how we want to be treated. That’s a little more difficult than it sounds. There’s more than one constituency. We are very focused on treating our employees with respect, just as we would want to be treated if we worked for someone. We treat our suppliers with respect. In our world, many treat suppliers as a doormat. We don’t and as a result, we find that we get great service. We treat our customers with respect. They need to make a profit and we work with them to get their fair share. They have difficult jobs and we work with them to make their jobs go smoothly. Imagine if you are a buyer for 150 stores and you advertise one of our leather chairs. If the floor samples are not delivered on time and of good quality, a chain of events starts that is incredibly frustrating for the buyer. And finally, we put ourselves in the consumers shoes. Buying furniture can be an anxiety-ridden purchase so we have figured out every detail to make it as pleasurable as possible.

How has technology affected the way you do business? How do you think it has affected your customers and informed their lifestyle?
The most significant way technology has affected us is the overall use of the internet. We were either the first or one of the very first to have a website. We quickly learned that this was becoming a great way for consumers to “shop around” without even going to a bricks and mortar store. So, we really focused on making it a research-friendly site. We love when one of our retail stores tell us that customers come in with the items printed out that they want to buy. It makes for a quick and easy transaction. As our brand name has grown, our actual sales on our website have steadily increased.

We also use the most up to date technology in our factory. While our furniture is literally hand-built, there is one aspect that we have been able to do “computer assisted.” Using advanced cutting machines, our fabric and leather are cut under human supervision but greatly aided by these massive computerized “cutters” that give us maximum yield of materials and produce about four times faster than doing the whole operation by hand. In the final analysis this gives us the opportunity to give the consumer the best possible value.

Our whole shtick is to give consumers a more comfortable lifestyle. Using our website we give a constant flow of new ideas and product. We house the website on site at our factory and main offices with a staff that can change anything on a moments notice. So it is very up to date with our new products. Last week we launched an on-line “short” magazine called Comfortmag.net. It will just have two stories and come out quarterly. We don’t want to overload people. The first issue will have an article on what we think would look great in a second home as well as an article on Eve Ensler and her great work. Eve wrote and starred in The Vagina Monologues, and founded V Day, which raises money to protect girls and woman around the world that are abused. So, with the use of technology we’ve been able to spread our mission of making the world more comfortable for everyone to more people than ever before.

You've mentioned that your personal aesthetics play a role in Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. How do you apply the same approach on a business level?
From early on, we decided that we would only make furniture that we would have in our own homes. We also decided that we would only conduct ourselves in business as we would want to be treated. Our factory has an incredible cafeteria with an accomplished chef that serves healthy food that is second to none. Chef Sean has cooked for people who have had the opportunity to eat at great restaurants all over the world.....from Al and Tipper Gore and John Edwards to Darren Starr and Judith Light to Gordon Segal (founder of Crate and Barrel)....and all of these folks will tell you that Chef Sean is really world class. The point is that we decided we wanted to eat great food everyday and made it available for everyone at our factory—all 750 people. We eat in the café with everyone else, no private dining rooms for the execs.

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Flavorpill WMC 2007 Video

by Ami Kealoha

Directly from the frontlines of the 2007 Winter Music Conference, Flavorpill commissioned m ss ng p eces to make a video capturing all of the music and mayhem of the event. The result is a kinetic party that manages to wrap Miami flavor, a little irony, the love of music and even the South Beach institution La Sandwicherie into one. We don't know if it's more fun to listen to the bass-heavy soundtrack or to watch the rapid fire editing—so we're doing both, over and over.

For more of Flavorpill's coverage of the event, go here.

Custom Aramith Cufflinks by Atelier Verstraeten

by SummerSeventySix

Aramith is the type of resin used to make pool balls, and I first spied these cufflinks made out of the material on the Paul Smith website. They are not a Paul Smith product though, rather they are made by Belgian jewelry designer Hubert Verstraeten. While you can buy them ready-made from Paul Smith or Vivre, If you go direct to his site, Atelier Verstraeten, you can customize them, choosing from several colors and as many diamonds or semi-precious stones as you can afford. Hubert told me that a plain pair would start at around €60 plus postage, while pairs with a single semi-precious stone start from about €135.