Of course if you are a color, light, and texture junkie like I am, you’ll love the collaboration of Dupont’s Corian (known mostly as a wonderful and seamless kitchen countertop material) and Missoni Home (Rosita Missoni and her husband were the original founders of Missoni Fashion) introducing Corian’s five new translucent colors while the material itself is used for all manner of things around the home. In that respect, it was a brilliant pairing….Missoni known for their vibrant color and their unique patterns was the perfect choice to help introduce Corian’s new colors but to also show just how well rounded and fascinating Corian as a material can be….

To highlight the pairing, the above picture illustrates the many colors of Missoni in a giant spool of yarn, the “Spool” itself made of Corian using the color Nocturne (black and polished). The flooring beneath the “Spool” is also made with DuPont™ Corian® (Cameo White and Nocturne colours) and features a pattern designed by Missoni rythmically inserting in the “background colour” a series of small squares of contrasting colour (glossy background finish and white matt squares). In an adjacent space is a “Ball” of yarn, also made of Dupont Corian. Who knew you could bend it like Beckham?

A familiar theme throughout the exhibit, Rosita Missoni, the designer played with the negative space black and white can create by alternating and juxtaposing one black/white color pattern against another.

The “CORIAN® loves MISSONI” interior design project is a loft-style apartment (extending over the two floors of the “Corian® Design - Milano Store” showroom) with a series of functional “rooms” - an entrance area, reception, hallway, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor and living room, bathroom and bedroom on the lower floor. In the dining room, above, the table is made of Corian using MissoniHome’s Bolt pattern. Echoing the aesthetics of the table, the MissoniHome “Bolt” pattern is stencilled on the wall behind, in a larger scale. The chandelier was designed by Rosita Missoni, is made of Corian’s Glacier White and spells Missoni. The chairs around the dining room table are Moroso’s “Ripple” chair.

A hallway area dedicated to showcasing the five new translucent colours of DuPont™ Corian® - Glacier Ice, Strawberry Ice, Blueberry Ice, Mint Ice and Lime Ice – take on an enhanced luminosity when back-lit. The area features five cubic stools made in each of the five translucent colours of DuPont™ Corian®. Contrasting with tops featuring a smooth surface, the sides of these stools have been carved with “Onda” (Wave) pattern by MissoniHome, which is also repeated, on a larger scale, on the back-wall in pale green DuPont™ Corian® Mint Ice. The cubic stools are lit from within by an LCD system developed by Artemide, run from rechargeable batteries, making them totally wireless and mobile. On the wall, a backlit circular curved fixture made in translucent DuPont™ Corian® Mint Ice is engraved with Missoni’s “Esmeraldas” pattern allowing lights to elegantly diffuse with varying intensity.

So, let’s get to the living room……..

Descending to the lower floor, visitors find themselves in the living room area where they are surrounded by a combination of multi-coloured and monochrome forms. The “Relaxer” chair and “Wengen” rug by MissoniHome are set against a large backlit screen: a wonder in terms of both aesthetics and technology. Made in DuPont™ Corian® Glacier White and carved with the “Esmeraldas” pattern from MissoniHome, the four parts of this screen are slim boxes illuminated using Artemide’s “My White Light” system, integrating RGBs and LCDs, to give different coloured lights and varying shades of white light, from warm to cool.
The two low tables in the living room space feature bases in DuPont™ Corian®, created using a new assembling technique reminiscent of mosaics: small rectangular elements in DuPont™ Corian® in black and white colours (Glacier White and Nocturne) are jointed together with metal rods to create a sort of “flexible surface”.

In realising “CORIAN® loves MISSONI” exhibition, Rosita Missoni, Luca Missoni (Rosita’s son & the project supervisor) and their design team have worked in close collaboration with architect Massimo Fucci, consultant of DuPont Surfaces to the architect and design sector, who coordinated the whole project and the creative contents.

For more details and images, visit Corian’s website. For more about MissoniHome, visit missonihome.com.

Art Direction: Rosita Missoni; supervision: Luca Missoni
Organizer/sponsor: DuPont™ Corian®
General project: MISSONI
Project manager: Arch. Massimo Fucci, DuPont™ Corian®
Partners:
Artemide (lighting solutions)
Boffi (kitchen and bathroom)
Listone Giordano (flooring systems)
Moroso (furnishing)
Zehnder Group/Runtal (radiator technology)
Hasenkopf (fabrication of DuPont™ Corian®)
TechLab Italia (fabrication of DuPont™ Corian®)
Esarc Hi-Tech (invisible audio systems)
Antica Gelateria del Corso/Nestlé (decorative ice cream compositions, served throughout the showroom and during the show)

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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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Smeg’s Fab Retro Model refrigerator has to date been offered in solid colors only; but now we have the option of stripe….then we can mix & match from any color of the rainbow in the kitchen. So I came across some other favorites that will brighten up my life every day of the week while I am having my coffee….

The “So Happy” chair by Max Design (those Italians!) marries function with emotions…besides a design element, those gaps in the back of the chair are like smiling faces. And as long as I am going this far, I’m going to add a little number for baby, the Brio Grow high chair (comes with a safety strap, suitable for 6 mos. to 7 years with a removable soft padded cushion). From Brio.

So, now all I need is a table and rug….I think I’ll just go for the round white lacquered pedestal table (also available in walnut w/nickel plated iron base) from cb2.com and some Flor rug tiles….what a cool retro look I can get with all of this. Oh, and in case you don’t like my color scheme, all of the above come in at least (white and black but also red and green (just in case you decide to go for the So Happy chair in a floral design and want a black frig!).

Think this rug would be too much? I am envisioning yellow cabinets by the way and hardwood flooring in a bleached or birch wood look. If not, Flor carpet tiles has a lot more to choose from.

And somewhere in this virtual kitchen I would have storage….some for my magazines and some for all of those odds and ends things that find their way into a kitchen…from Kartell and found at DesignShopUK.com

And then, just so my walls didn’t feel neglected, I am sure I could nail a good retro clock out there somewhere but also this handsome “Flotsam and Jetsam” sculpture by artist Tony Cragg (see Inhabitat for more from this prolific reclaimed refuse artist). Let’s see, is there anything I’ve forgotten?

Check out the Retro to Go blog and their sister site, SwitchedOnSet, for more retro inspirations if you are in that kind of mood.

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