Apple’s2003 silhouette campaign is arguably the most influential ad campaign in music history. To increase the buzz around the iPod, Apple CEO Steve Jobs directed the advertising firm Chiat/Day to develop a marketing campaign. Investing more than in any other campaign since it’s groundbreaking 1984commercial (shot by Ridley Scott), Apple blanketed in New York and other major cities with pops of color; diverse silhouettes, dancing with the white iPod, listening through corded earbuds and a message of freedom about taking our music wherever we went.
Photographed in Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York City
Some symbols can move the whole world. The Rainbow Flag, first unfurled at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade on June 25,1978, is a gleaming example. Led by Gilbert Baker (1951 – 2017), a political activist and designer, 30 volunteers hand-dyed and stitched rainbow flags for the event.
While some furniture is designed to blend into a room, this table seems determined to transport you to another planet. Ennui Gently Receives Single Date in Earth’s Tiniest Maw (2023) by designer Misha Kahn is part functional object, part sculptural daydream. Constructed from steel and plastic and finished with layers of luminous automotive paint, the table appears to have drifted in from a colorful alternate universe. Its rounded tabletop resembles a floating celestial body, while the supporting forms below twist, curl, and bloom in a way that feels simultaneously organic and alien. Continue reading Eye On Design: Misha Kahn, Ennui Gently Receives Single Date in Earth’s Tiniest Maw→
Some handbags are designed to blend in seamlessly with an outfit, but others are determined to steal the entire room. This futuristic robot-inspired Chanelminaudière, spotted on display at Sotheby’s, firmly belongs in the second category.
At first glance, the piece closely resembles a tiny retro robot or miniature arcade game rather than a handbag. Constructed in glossy black acrylic, the sculptural bag features sparkling rhinestone eyes, a glowing green circuit-board motif, and the unmistakable interlocking double “C” logo integrated into the center like the core processor of a fashionable little android. Continue reading Eye On Design: Chanel Robot Handbag→
“Clothes that will stun the crowds in museum exhibitions in the future,” was how New York Times fashion critic Bernadine Morris summarized Yves Saint Laurent’s spring /summer 1988 haute couture collection. A highlight of the collection was the Irises jacket shown here, a simulacrum of Vincent van Gogh’s 1889 painting. The jacket echoes the original’s cropped composition, zooming in even further on the curved and twisting lines of the irises. More remarkably, the embroidery amplifies the luminosity of Van Gogh’s colors, and enhances the materiality of his thick, short, wavy brushstrokes. Continue reading Eye On Design: Van Gogh’s Irises On Bead Embroidered Jacket→
