Cool Hunting

Mad.Elephant Jewelry
We love the ingenuity of Mad.Elephant's jewelery designs, which includes items as disparate as chicken bone knuckle ring, a 22-caliber bullet shell bracelet and a dove's foot bracelet. Of her work she says, "Art is the filter in my brain that sorts through and deals with all the thoughts in my head which are numerous and sometimes hard to deal with. I heal myself...

Polli
We've been a long-time fan of Polli for their unique and contemporary jewelry and decorations, all made in Australia. They're beautifully designed and for around $50 you can't get better value....

Azumi and David
Surrealist, practical, funny or not, Azumi and David (A'N'D) are the types to take a theme and run with it. The pair have made both high-heeled a brogue versions of their shoe bags (what girl hasn't wished for a surface suitable for resting on dirty floors?) and have configured eyeglass frames into endless necklace arrangements, both riffing on design and fashion in one blow....

Fetish by David Lynch and Christian Louboutin
A perfect example of the strange and creative works that can come out of a collaboration between very different artists is the recent project by the filmmaker David Lynch and the shoe designer Christian Louboutin, both absolute masters of their medium. We discovered "Fetish" at Design Art London where these extraordinary shoes by Louboutin and their erotic photographic counterparts by Lynch were on show...

The Mr. Jones "Accurate" Watch
Speaking of memento moris and clever watches, Mr Jones' "Accurate" watch makes the inherent implication of a timepiece obvious. In fact, all of the limited edition models in his line are comments on the daily conundrums of life. Last time I featured Mr. Jones Watches, he had an exhibition-only series of prototype electronic watches developed to explore new cultural expressions, technologies of timekeeping and...

Melanie Bilenker
Made using strands of her own hair, Melanie Bilenker creates brooches, pendants and rings featuring delicately-rendered everyday scenes. A graduate of Philadelphia's University of the Arts, Bilenker's work is inspired by the Victorian tradition of keeping lockets of hair or miniature portraits painted with ground hair and pigment to commemorate the memory of a lost love. Her use of physical remnants evokes an intimate connection...