I didn’t post soon enough my warning about being influenced by the Beijing colors. But in truth Nike has used the colors sparingly thus well. Their LunaRacer (pictured) are found exclusively in Nike’s new 21 Mercer Street store in New York’s Soho district which opened August 22.

Given these shoes were originally intended for the Olympic athletes, it’s fitting they used the Olympic colorways. And to Nike’s credit, these are also limited edition.

So I won’t despair too much. If you have to use the colors, this is one way to do it so one is not blinded by it. Also shown are jackets with the colorways….for further information on the shoes, Nike’s store opening, and other product found there visit Coolhunter.

Bookmark

This is something I expect to see more and more of if the world is paying attention especially to designers such as Janet Fernandez. Her work makes you feel as if you are holding something one of a kind in your hand…..oh wait, you are.

Janet’s studio, J.A. Design Studio, is based in Miami but her inspiration lies somewhere between there, Sweden, where she was born and raised, and Italy, where she lived for 20 years before coming to the United States in 1995. So imagine all of that influence hand painted onto your tablecloth and matching napkins (although each piece is hand painted so will be slightly different than the next), cushions and draperies….or whatever you want as you can also buy her linens by the yard.

Janet personally designs all the patterns and then paints them onto textiles herself. The products she creates are very exclusive because she hand mixes all her colors and also customizes the color of any of her patterns to match J.A. Design Studio’s clients’ needs. Also, all of their products are made with the finest 100% European linen (Belgium) and 100% silk taffeta (given it’s Beijing time, I couldn’t resist posting her painted Chinese symbol silk taffeta cushion above).

For more information visit her website, jadesignstudio.net, or call 305-858-2883. Too gorgeous!

Bookmark

Before I move on from the Olympic discussion, since so many others can cover the games better, I must mention the subject of color………while I found the Opening Ceremony just as spectacular bordering on spectacle as everyone else did, and didn’t mind soooo much the colors the Chinese decided upon for that Opening Ceremony (I felt they were decidedly reflective of their culture) by now after over a week of watching the games pretty intently, I can now say definitively, I hope designers and manufacturers don’t decide to be too influenced by how color was used at the games.

Plainly, bluntly, after awhile, it was just too much. I am noticing some trend toward neutrals in home furnishings which after watching the Olympic games is pretty welcome, but hopefully it’s not the overriding case. I’m not going to say it’s an anything goes culture right now, but strong punches of color (the right ones) along with graphic prints against those neutrals is creating more of a tonic against the massive amounts of color we’ve been being exposed to than just going straight to neutral. It’s just the Olympics brought the use of color to a whole new level, and hopefully we can leave it there.

Please, I am open to other opinions here, let me know, let us know, if you feel otherwise.

Bookmark

8.08.08 the Olympics begin.

Michael Phelps wins 8 Gold Medals beating Mark Spitz record of 7 gold medals in one Olympics–A Phelpsian Feat, coined by his teammate Aaron Peirsol.

Congratulations to Phelps and his teammates for bringing in the 8’s.

Beyond that, Dara Torres, at 41, broke all kinds of world records if not perceptions as the oldest Olympian to win a silver medal, and losing the gold only by 1/100 of a second. Rock on!

Bookmark

I confess I’m a little late to this party…..Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, authors of A Perfect Mess, launched their book in mid December 2006 but as a testament to a core argument of theirs, I came across it a few days ago by not looking for it and discovered for me at least right now, A Perfect Mess is in fact my perfect answer.

In a previous post on Trendbites, I confessed to being a clutterphile and thus a pile person. By Abrahamson and Freedman’s standard that puts me on the creative edge of things. While I know that, the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily function by that criteria. In fact, in researching the net about the book, it caused quite a stir for the wrong reasons to my mind when in fact it hit a nerve for the neatniks of the world. Take for instance this interview (if you didn’t see it) by Matt Lauer on the Today Show in January 07 ….he had a noticeable reaction to the images of the clutter and is a self professed clutterbuster. But he isn’t the only one; it seemed to bring out a true confessions moment (read the comments section if you visit this link) for those on both sides of the neat vs messy fence.

The essence of the book lay more with management systems than with clean desks per se, but if I may, the messy desk was/is just a great introduction to the theory that having a more messy (read not so tightly controlled) management organization will lead to greater creativity and then they proceed to show nothing but example after example of how this theory is borne out.

Bookmark