they’d Look Like This
This is the work of lighting designer Lindsey Adelman. Wired Magazine interviewed her at her studio on the Bowery in New York City.
You can see more of her work, and read the article at Wired.
Missoni Launches into Furniture Design
The couture label adapts their fashion design methods in developing pieces for the home with bold patterns.
New York Design Week marked Missoni’s North American debut of their latest furniture collection, and PSFK had the opportunity to speak with Christopher Philips, Brand Manager for Missoni Home: The Americas about the collection’s design.
You can read all about it at the PSFK site. The site also has additional photos of Missoni’s new furniture collection for your viewing pleasure.
Narciso Rodriguez to Design for Kohl’s
Narciso Rodriguez is the fashion designer leading the way for Kohl’s new DesigNation concept: limited-edition collections featuring fashions based on international inspiration from various designers.
“I am very proud of the collection that was inspired by Istanbul and created for Kohl’s,” Rodriguez tells USA TODAY in a statement. “It is a complete collection that was designed with many women in mind. I look forward to its debut and seeing the collection accessible to everyone.”
The collection, which will include dresses, skirts, pants and shirts (prices range from $30 to $150), will be available at Kohl’s and Kohls.com beginning in early November. Rodriguez’s celebrity fans include Claire Danes, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michelle Obama.
What Realtors Could Learn from Fashion and Ad Gurus
It goes without saying that real estate marketing isn’t the world’s most progressive field. Browse some online property listings–with the small, grainy photographs and the oddly dated decor and the Realtors who look like they’re posing for a portrait at the local Olan Mills–and it becomes abundantly, painfully obvious. If real estate is as much about selling an image as it is about selling property, and surely it is, then why does that image look like an embarrassing Polaroid from a 1980s youth?
Here to inject a big dose of sex appeal into the limp world of residential real estate is Fantastic Frank, a young, Stockholm-based real estate agency that has built a vibrant business model on sleek decor, impeccable photography, and a promiscuous social-media presence. The company hires photographers and stylists from high-gloss industries, including fashion, advertising, and architecture, to transform ho-hum apartments into temples of modern design that wouldn’t seem out of place in the pages of Elle Decor.
Then, Fantastic Frank lobs its photographs around the web, sharing them with design blogs and interior design magazines, in addition to standard-issue property sites. “We’re actually not doing anything radically new,” CEO Tomas Backman tells us. “We’re just using the communication attitude from the fashion and ad agency industries and applying it to the sleeping gray real estate branch.”
What is radically new are the numbers Fantastic Frank is throwing up. “We have looked at official data from Sweden’s largest marketplace for real estate, www.hemnet.se,” Backman says. “We have compared the number of times our ads are shown to the market against the number of times the competition gets its ads shown–and we have on average 50% more people viewing our ads than the competition.” Not bad for a boutique agency that’s just a year and a half old.
“This in turn gives us more people at the open house–there’s always an open house in Sweden, and then a bidding war–and so more people to sell the property to,” he says. “This most certainly given us better prices than the competition, but it’s tricky to measure” because prices vary dramatically from one property to the next.
Fantastic Frank has thrived in Stockholm’s relatively robust housing market. But it stands to reason that, at a time of crisis for many other real estate markets around the world, the Swedish company’s model could be a promising way for agencies to distinguish themselves and, in turn, help homesellers reap greater profits (or at least lose less money). Indeed, Fantastic Frank plans to take its strategy global: “We are not stopping with Stockholm,” Backman says. “Next year we are looking at two new countries. We don’t know where yet. We need to find the right fantastic people first.”
Missoni’s First Interior-designed Residence
Missonihome have already brought their vividly textured lifestyle concept to the world through their branded hotels in Edinburgh and Kuwait. Now in partnership with Century Properties, the fashion house unveils the interior design of its first residential building, the 52-storey, tropical rainforest-infused design condo, Acqua Livingstone, in the Philippine capital of Manila.
Acqua Livingstone will have 645 units with one to three bedrooms. A private collection of special units called Acqua Privé will also be available to purchase.
Showcasing the regenerating Pasig River into its waterfront design, the residence features a central amenity area called The Pebble, a four-storey sports and leisure complex with three waterfalls. At the Pebble’s ground floor is the RiverWalk Promenade that features a stretch of restaurants, bars and cafes. Next to it is the Boardwalk, where an exclusive water shuttle will take residents to and from the Makati riverside.
The Canopy at Acqua Livingstone. The lower level will house functions rooms, business center, an indoor and outdoor gym, Jacuzzi, a library and spa. The upper level is a social space dedicated to interaction and entertainment with an amphitheatre, lounge, DJ booth and dance floor, pool with swim-up bar (see below), and barbecue facilities. Tying these two levels together is a fanciful organic wire-mesh tree that winds its way up and connects to the mezzanine floor, where residents can enjoy surrounding views or a meal in the open-air dining area.
Look at that. It’s like the Garden of Eden with a swim-up bar.
Images courtesy MISSONIHOME and Century Properties
Donna Cameron
