Cool Hunting

Cool Hunting x Phaidon Holiday Shopping Party
To celebrate the season, we teamed up with our friends at Phaidon books to throw an event next Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at their pop-up store in NYC's Soho from 5-8pm. (Click invite image for larger view.) With drinks, a menu of snacks culled from Phaidon's stellar cookbooks and 30% off their range of fabulous books spanning art, architecture, fashion, design and more, the...

Kehinde Wiley: Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II
by Ariston Anderson This year's Art Basel Miami Beach features myriad homages to the deceased King of Pop, including works by David LaChappelle, Jeff Sonhouse and Jonathan Monk. By far, the most powerful piece on display is a semi-commissioned work by renowned Brooklyn artist Kehinde Wiley at Deitch's booth. The massive Rubens-inspired oil, called "Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II," swaps out the Spanish monarch's...

Form Us With Love: Ogle Pendant Lamp
by Richard Prime Stockholm-based design company Form Us With Love releases its latest design this month, produced for Swedish lighting manufacturer, Atelje Lyktan. Called Ogle, the pendant lamp mixes the functionality of a spotlight with the elegance of a pendant. The matte black lacquer has a pleasing tactility and with its LED fitting, the lamp continues FUWL's eye for clean lines and attention to...

Hotchocspoon
The "iPhone among hot chocolates," Hotchocspoon is made of a wooden spoon stuck into a large cube of solid drinking chocolate. To enjoy it, simply stir into a searing cup of whole milk for a deliciously rich treat. Available in over 46 exotic flavors, including Strawberry and Pink Pepper, Chili Orange, Sea Salt and Honey and even Seaweed, my personal favorite, Amaretto and Macaroons,...

Cooper-Hewitt Shop x Vitsœ: 33 Gifts at 33 Bond Pop-Up
Bringing a hand-picked selection from their Upper East Side outpost to Vitsœ's Bond Street space, Cooper-Hewitt makes their first-rate gifts from their shop more accessible to downtown masses through December. The collection of goods uses the address of the furniture showroom to limit the offerings to 33 items, all geared towards design-minded giftees and available pre-wrapped and tax-free. (Cooper-Hewitt members can also bring their...

Memolio Giveaway
A quick three-step process, Memolio turns digital images into transportable pictures. The compact album houses 24 images on durable, water-resistant card stock within personalized front and back covers. Ideal as mini portfolios or a modern take on the wallet insert, Memolio albums also make for great holiday greeting cards or stocking stuffer. Each runs €15 (shipping included) and you create them in minutes from...

Gentlemen of Bacongo
Photographer Daniele Tamagni's new book Gentlemen of Bacongo captures the fascinating subculture of the Congo in which men (and a few women) dress in designer and handmade suits and other luxury items. The movement, called Le Sape, combines French styles from their colonial roots and the individual's (often flamboyant) style. Le Sapeurs, as they're called, wear pink suits and D&G belts while living in...

Oscilloscope DVD Subscription Giveaway
by Ariston Anderson Like a cheese-of-the-month club, Beastie Boy turned indie film mogul Adam Yauch's new subscription service delivers 10 new releases from his own Oscilloscope Laboratories to your doorstep over the course of a year. Calling it the "Circe of Trust," either you're in it or you're out when it comes to trusting the slightly off-center film distributor's lineup of films. "There's a...

C.P. Company Long Parka with Wire Hood
For the most miserable of winter days, C.P. Company's new flagship parka has a wire hood to keep it from flopping into eyes, while shielding heads from the elements without the need for buttons or toggles. When worn down, the wire easily shapes around the neck. Made from a durable nylon-cotton blend, the coat's other functional elements include a high collar, drawstring waist adjustment,...

Valerie Confections
by Julie Wolfson In an L.A. neighborhood between Koreatown, Silverlake and just west of downtown, you'll find the tiny haven Valerie Confections where chocolatiers make some of the best artisanal chocolates in Southern California. What Valerie Gordon and her partner Stan Weightman Jr. began in 2004 as a few types of hand-crafted toffee since has blossomed into a full service confectioner. In addition to her...

OK Go x Moritz Waldemeyer at Design Miami
Blending design, technology, music and fashion on one stage, German designer Moritz Waldemeyer and Silvia Venturini Fendi (of the fashion label that bears her name) created an interactive performance for the hard-working band OK Go. Wearing suits with LED displays, the band plays furry, glowing Gibson guitars covered in leather that shoot lasers from the neck. The lasers leave traces that react to the...

Eunsuk Hur Fabrics
by Adrienne So Laser cutting, acid printing and etching fabric, Eunsuk Hur's ethereal, multi-layered creations are already making a name for themselves in fashion and interior design. Moving abroad from South Korea to London to further her studies, Hur graduated earlier this year from the renowned Central Saint Martins School for Art and Design. Intrigued by the way plants and animals respond to their environments...

Jeffery West Shoes
With names like "Fallen Angels" and "Hannibal," the Jeffery-West shoe collection—the work of childhood friends Mark Jeffery and Guy West—fall somewhere between a swanky gentlemen's club and Sweeney Todd's closet. Blood-red leather linings and handmade soles, inscribed with "Decadence, Sleaze and Excess,“ ooze with the kind of luxe horror that arguably only Brits can successfully pull off. Both born in England's historical shoe making...

Alex Steinweiss, Inventor of the Modern Album Cover
How did some album art become so iconic that it's inseparable from the music? Mention Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, for example, and it usually conjures images of the iconic triangle prism on the cover. (Click below images for detail.) Without Alex Steinweiss, Columbia Records' first art director in 1940, the pop culture phenomenon known as the album cover may not have...

Claire de Lavallée Ceramics
by Zeva Bellel Photos by Fabrice Fortin French ceramic artist Claire de Lavallée draws on her skills from her former life as a baker to works her clay into brightly-hued organic shapes. Surrounded by wall-to-wall cupboards, cutting boards and rolling pins galore, her wonderfully-cluttered Left Bank atelier has the look and feel of an industrial kitchen. But instead of turning out batches of rustic tarts...

Nudo Adopt-an-Olive-Tree Giveaway
Making the farm-to-table connection all the more real, Nudo's "adopt-an-olive-tree" program delivers their delicious certified organic olive oil to your door along with the pride of ownership that comes from calling one of their trees yours. In addition to four 500mL tins of the tree's first cold press extra virgin oil in mid-April and three half-size tins of infused (lemon, chile and orange) oil...

Inbox Posters
London-based design studio Brighten the Corners makes light of the messaging system now ingrained in our daily lives with their new set of posters aptly titled "Inbox." From funny to feisty, the posters visualize 10 years of the design firm's collection of "good emails" deserving special attention for their expressive (or lack thereof) merits. Creators of the clever typographic children's tales (geared for adults),...

Arcadia: Cross-Country Style, Architecture and Design
by Anna Carnick The new book "Arcadia: Cross-Country Style, Architecture and Design" interprets its namesake (the remote mountain region of Greek mythology) for the modern age, surveying contemporary alpine and back-country architecture, bespoke furniture and interior design projects that take their inspiration from the beauty of their natural surroundings. Demonstrating an awesome range of possibilities for integrating of-the-moment aesthetics with breathtaking environments, the book's traditional...

In Every Tree
by Richard Prime Working between the boundaries of art and design under the label In Every Tree, Swedish designers Maria Larsson and Maria Olevik focus on sculptural bone china objects, as well as light in its spatial context. The designers investigate the use of modern technology and the role it plays in transforming physical objects into immaterial articles, creating all of their beautifully captivating work...

The All-New 2011 Audi A8 and Light Light by Tom Dixon
Audi invited us to Miami for the worldwide launch of the all-new A8, their flagship sedan, held in conjunction with the opening of Design Miami. Tom Dixon and Stefan Sielaff (Audi's Head of Design) were part of a panel that spoke about the importance of innovation in design, and how core both are at Audi. Tom then spoke about "Light Light," a piece he...

Twinkle Pop-Up Shop
Before the fashionable yarn brand Wool and the Gang and even before celebs started toting needles, designer Wenlan Chia reinvented knitting with her chunky hoodies and sweater dresses under the name Twinkle. Over the last decade, Wenlan's evolved it into a complete lifestyle brand, marking its 10th anniversary with a Twinkle by Wenlan pop-up shop in NYC's East Village that opens next week. Presenting...

Cool Hunting's 2009 Gift Guide
Constantly updated with our finds—from luxurious hand-sewn boxers ($65) to a Kenny Scharf-designed bong ($400)—this year's Cool Hunting Gift Guide makes a go-to resource for anyone tricky or otherwise on your list. We've included gifts for all types (grumpy dads and crafting sisters alike) and at a variety of price points, including under $25 (check out the cult NYC restaurant cookbook "Momofuku" and beyond...

Baking for Good
Started by New Yorker Emily Dubner, the online bakery Baking for Good donates 15% of each purchase to a cause chosen by the customer. By tying charity to a guilty pleasure, Baking for Good allows customers to feel better about gifting or consuming scrumptious snacks and desserts and makes it easy to give back. With a list of nonprofits and community causes almost as...

Committee: Plastic Relics
by Richard Prime Deptford, London-based Committee, one of the firms most cleverly adopting cradle-to-cradle design practices, recently launched a new conceptual series called Plastic Relics, a project exploring the links between traditional crafts and new design approaches. Using 3D scanning and CAD design expertise, Committee designers customize vessels to fit lids sourced from 21st century plastic ephemera, like a telephone receiver and a Dyson...

Brooklyn Brine Pickles
The Brooklyn food renaissance recently welcomed another local producer to its ranks with the addition of Brooklyn Brine, a pickling operation based in the burgeoning neighborhood of Greenpoint. Founded in August by Josh Egnew and Shamus Jones, with the recent addition of vegan blogger Joya Carlton, critics are already singing the new brand's praises for its spirited approach to preserving. From early-spring delectables like...