We are showing off our newest colors. Last year, DWR launched the Eames Soft Pad Management Chair in Spinneybeck powder blue and chocolate. This fall we are launching a new Spinneybeck color palette, exclusive to DWR. The palette, developed with Laura Guido-Clark includes warm tones of fern and persimmon, to name a few. Color swatches will be available by early September. Oh, and the powder blue and chocolate Eames Soft Pad Management Chair are on sale for a limited time.
Join us for our San Francisco Sample Sale August 11-12. You can save up to 75% on top modern design for dining, seating, lounge, workspace, outdoor, lighting, storage, bedroom and more. Save hundreds on samples, overstocks and scratched and dented products. Learn more here.
Calling all storage enthusiasts. Are you using Cubits or Cubitec? Enter the Cubit-Creativity Contest. Your creative use of Cubits or Cubitec could earn you a DWR gift certificate* ($250 for first place, $100 runner up) and a featured posting in the DWR blog. To enter, show us your creative cube usage by emailing a photo to storage@dwr.com. Winners will be notified by email. Entries must be received by August 10, 2007.
* No purchase necessary to enter or win. Entrants must be 18 or older. Void where prohibited.
Brooklyn is a hotbed for hipster fashion and typically I turn a blind eye to that genre of clothing. But I was just sent a link to silkscreen shop HeadHoods via David Report and I must admit I’m totally smitten. Screen-printed by hand, the hoodies feature images of clowns, gorillas and Audrey Hepburn. Now we’re talking. And who doesn’t want to walk the cold summer nights of San Francisco disguised as Elvis Presley? And though they claim to not be “cheap,” HeadHoods do custom prints. I am thinking one with Charles Eames on the left and Ray Eames on the right. And like any good hipster brand they’re up on MySpace.
AAA estimates that that 38.3 million Americans will be hitting the road this Memorial Day weekend. As summer begins, it’s hard to resist the lure of the open road (well, gas prices notwithstanding…). Which is why now is a great time to introduce the first ever Design Within Reach Airstream travel trailer. It’s sleek, it’s silver and it’s stocked with some very slick accoutrements for the modern traveler. Tom Dixon’s Wire Coatrack, Heller Dinnerware, two Tripolina Chairs and George Nelson’s Ball Clock all come with it. Even a pillow covered in Paul Smith’s Modulating Stripe fabric from Maharam. But that’s only the beginning. Get the whole story here. Designer Chris Deam did such a stunning job in pulling it together, the DWR Airstream probably could have won the Apartment Therapy Smallest, Coolest Contest. Huh. I wonder if they would have let us enter.
In the two weeks that the DWR photo team spent in Palm Springs last January, we sure made some nice new friends. Clothing designer Trina Turk took the time to meet with me and Aaron Hom, our stylist. Trina’s clothing is available in high-end boutiques all over. What I like about her work is that it clearly reflects style a specific period in time (late ’60s, early ’70s), but without being retro. It's like the new versions of the Beetle or the Mini: clearly an update on classic designs, while still feeling current. The Airstream trailer of clothing, if you will.
Trina and her husband, photographer Jonathan Skow, own an historic home in Palm Springs known as the Ship of the Desert. They’ve done a meticulous job of restoring and preserving this piece of West Coast modernism. Perhaps one day they’ll let us do a shoot there.
Trina and Jonathan were very gracious and welcoming, directing us to other homes for potential locations, second hand stores for propping and let us use anything we wanted from Trina’s store in Palm Springs. She even sent down an entire box of samples from her headquarters in L.A. We hope to get the opportunity to return the favor, should they find themselves in the Bay Area.
Posted by Michael Sainato, DWR art director
Many women, and more and more men, have bag fetishes. We’ve all heard of months-long wait lists for Hermes and Louis Vuitton bags. Here in NYC I know girls who pay their rent late due to splurges on Marc Jacobs purses. I used to laugh at them, but now I’ve become one of them.
It all started with my marathon training. Schlepping all my gear (running sneakers, iPod, Kiehl's bottles and the New York Times) was taking its toll. I went out looking for the perfectly designed bag. And I found it. Goyard’s classic tote first caught my eye while in Europe last year. They were everywhere and were being carried by everyone regardless of age, sex, or look.
The reason I dare call it the perfect design lies in the bag’s simplicity and function. It is big enough to hold gym clothes, magazines and schoolbooks. Plus, the painted canvas tote is hand-stenciled, waterproof and reversible. Goyard doesn’t change out its styles each season, and since 1853 (they’re the oldest luggage maker in the world) the company has made simple trunks, bags and luggage. One person makes each bag from beginning to end. Yes I am sucker for a sale's pitch, but the Goyard tote lives up to the hype. It proves Mies van der Rohe’s notion that “less is more.” Unless, of course, you’re talking about price. And, yes, that's me. Maybe I have a possible new career in the modeling biz.
