LOL. You all must realize how much I like color by now. A fun topic, it’s changing like crazy of late, which gives me much to talk and therefore write about.

Alas, its time to move on from red. So, where shall we go? From images of Maison Objet 2008 and the ever so creative and innovative Campana Brothers, it’s a little bit of everything with heavier influences of pink and purples which is putting the reds into blues and popping it with greens and yellows.

Campana Brothers Sushi Chairs: (above left: Sushi IV Chair) (below Sushi II Chair)

Maison Objet 2008 (taken from NY Times article) and Dior Fall 2008 (Style.com):

Maison Objet 2008 (Image taken from 3 Layer Cake blog):

New York Gift Show 2008 (Pablo Pardo, images from Apartment Therapy):

NY 2007 Gift Show: John Pomp Glass

I want to talk more about the Campana Brothers, because those chairs are from 2003 and produced in limited editions. They’ve come out with some more recent stuff that I think will also have a waterfall effect in home design (next post). If you are wondering where to find the chairs featured here MossOnline, ExtremeMoss, carries them or you can go directly to the Campana Brothers website.

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Webkinz. As Alison Zisko reported 2.11.08 for trade journal Home Furnishings News, “For the uninitiated, Webkinz, manufactured by Ganz, are small plush toys that come with a secret code that unlocks a secure Web site, enabling children to take care of a virtual pet online. It offers games, trivia questions and all sorts of ways for children to mind the health and well being of their pet, as well as create and decorate rooms for it on the computer. Webkinz are introduced periodically. Introduced in April 2005, they retail for around $12.95 apiece.”

The article further states ,”“We sold almost half a million dollars in Webkinz last year,” said David Calcaterra, vice president of Thrifty Florist, which operates 16 of the combined flower and gift shops in the metropolitan Detroit region. “People bought other things. In the month of December, it made a difference.”

So far what they are talking about is the selling of the stuffed animals, Webkinz, themselves. What about actual products that license them. Seems like a terrific boost to sales of anything i.e. bedding, tabletop items themselves, furniture, pajamas….lunchboxes, backbacks. It’s a thought, or more like a recommendation. I haven’t checked into licensing the product myself, not yet.

I will say that it is one of those things Moms are recommending to other Moms and is a topic of conversation between Moms….always a surefire way of seeing the beginnings of something very big.

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Lots of fab patchwork prints have come across my desk of late. All too good not to share. You’ll see what I mean. It makes you want to go to the nearest flea market and pick up a hodge podge of textiles and cut and sew away and voila! You’ve got yourself one of the coolest coverlets in the dorm, in the neighborhood, in your life. Check these out and tell me it doesn’t create a call to action.

From the style files. Shared Space is a project that Dutch designer Bertjan Pot did for Tent and Witte de With. Tent and Witte De With are two art foundations and exhibition spaces that share a building in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. In between their offices they have one mutual room of which they both have the right to use but up recently it didn’t really have a function. They invited Pot to come up with a use for it. Together with Frank Bruggeman he made it part office and part living room. For the living room part Bertjan created the extra large sofa which is filled with beanbag material and covers made out of a patchwork of fabrics he collected over the past few years. The secondhand carpet got an extra pattern of colored stripes made by melting colored duct-tape into it.

From Bloesm. Patchwork curtains, patchwork blankets, patchwork pillows…Marlies Spaan from the Netherlands creates these great items for your home. Have a look here at MeS.

From stye-files. Uono’s handmade bedspreads (top image) are unique. The very best geometric and abstract vintage 60s and 70s scarves are collected for the first side - each scarf is like an abstract painting. On the flip side is a solid-tone or tone-on-tone 100% hemp for a totally reversible bedspread. The hemp is a subtle, mod tone of palest sage/khaki green and works well with both traditional and modernist decor. Visit Uno’s website and/or Etsy shop for more information and to see all their beautiful designs. They also have a great pillow collection!

Even Urban Outfitters has gotten onto the craze.

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Hard to find, but I found a couple….my advice would be to try to design some a little more representative of the 60’s and 70’s. I searched all of the usual suspects: patchwork quilts come close, but Anthropologies Viceroy Garden duvet cover and pillows is a little closer. The wave duvet and pillow set is better especially if it came in a yellow and orange and brown combination but I can’t find the blue one even anymore. One from Urban Outfitters comes close to the period as well.

So, like I said, let’s design some especially for back to school and back to college 09-2010. Call me, I’d be happy to help.

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Back to school or back to college always presents challenges for retailers, parents and the back to school bound teen or college aged person…..

I say go retro, you can’t lose. Using this wave pattern will get you there in no time flat. This image is from a bedroom of a hotel in L.A, the Standard (213-892-8080). Elle Decor UK used this image as a part of their report on Hotel Style. Getting the most from this wave pattern the designers echo the graphic with the stripes in the curtains and the lighting.

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