11.21.24

Gift Guides

Lace Pants and Stone-Encrusted Pillboxes: Jill’s 2024 Sight Unseen Gift Guide

Part II of our annual gift guide! A reminder: whether you’d actually buy these things is, to a certain extent, beside the point; it’s how enjoyable it can be to dig into a well-curated list and imagine a future when your home might be full of incredible things, and the world might just be a better place. Today’s gift guide comes from Jill, who tends to make personalized hats on Etsy for her loved ones but here is coveting a hefty glass catchall by an up-and-coming studio, the mixed-metal ring JB Blunk made for his wife, a semi-precious stone-adorned pillbox, a menorah that reminds us of a lazy Susan, and more. See — and shop — her full list below!

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11.20.24

Gift Guides

Chocolate Sardines and Albers Hats: Monica’s 2024 Sight Unseen Gift Guide

This month marks Sight Unseen's 15th birthday (!!!) and there was only one gift we really wanted, which — unfortunately — we woke up on November 6 to find we definitively had not received. But before we gear up for a tough few years, we'll be reveling in this season's temporary reprieve, and the moments of togetherness and/or much-needed rest it will bring. In that sense, it's the perfect time to share with you our annual Sight Unseen gift guides, which while always at least a little bit practical (who wouldn't love an $18 chocolate sardine?), offer a hefty dose of fantasy and fun. Today’s guide comes from Monica, who's coveting Josef and Anni Albers hats, Greek ceramics with 1960s motifs, a sweater adorned with Franco Albini's iconic Milan metro handlebar, a wooden box meant to discourage you from doom-scrolling, and more. See — and shop — her full list after the jump!

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11.19.24

Sighted

With New Lights and a Serene New Showroom in Downtown Manhattan, Danny Kaplan is Cementing His Studio as a Major Creative Force

Danny Kaplan's Facet series is made of slab-built forms in first-time materials for the studio: perforated brass with a patina finish, stainless steel, or white painted steel (though the studio has stayed true to its ceramic roots, hand-sculpting clay models at the start of the production process). Hard, defined edges and angles paradoxically create a mellow mood, an atmosphere that’s serene and soothing. You could say the same thing about the studio’s new 4,000 square foot showroom, located in a pre-war cast iron warehouse building in NoHo; it's a meditative, calming exhalation that both resets and reinvigorates you.

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11.16.24

Saturday Selects

Week of November 11, 2024

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week was heavy on excellent exhibitions: Two art-furniture greats, friends since the '80s, join forces in a collaborative exhibition at Superhouse; a historical and contemporary showcase meditating on shadows opens at Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery; and the Swedish Grace movement gets a spotlight at Galerie56, among others. 

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03.16.22

Up and Coming

A Postmodern Pee-Wee Chair, a Pantone-Hued Rug: For LA Designer Taidgh O’Neill, the Medium is Incidental

In a new, intimate installation of O’Neill’s body of work over at Boundary in Los Angeles, older designs — spindly, geometric shelving units — sit comfortably alongside newer work that’s bulky, curvaceous, and tip-toeing into colorful, lacquered territory. 

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11.14.24

Up and Coming

The Green Goblin, Norwegian Black Metal, SpongeBob: Up-and-Coming Designer Clay Brown’s References Run the Gamut

Clay Brown’s work is shot through with an imaginative sense of play that is, quite simply, fun — but that’s not all it is. Somehow his pieces come off as minimal and spare yet highly referential and evocative, like his resin Island lamps, which call to mind cake domes; the Formica and birch I’m Ready cabinet, which could be a “mini-bar or maybe a wardrobe for a toddler;” and the jagged yet precise aluminum 1234567 bookcase, which is sharp but not at all forbidding. His Stave cabinet, part of the Sight Unseen collection, rises to a steep peak in darkly moody colors but it’s also… friendly. With its oxblood Thumbprint pull by Sam Stewart — with whom Brown has worked on several projects — it’s like a classic wooden toy scaled up to human proportions.

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11.12.24

Interiors

This Parisian Interior Deploys Moiré Walls and Animal-Print Rugs and Still Manages to Convey Understated Glamour

If an interior clings to any one time period or design movement, it can seem a bit like a theatrical set — not entirely real, not livable. But mix eras and a space can risk coming off as scattershot or lacking in a strong point of view. It’s a fine line to walk, but Stéphanie Lizée and Raphaël Hugot, of the Paris-based interiors studio Lizée-Hugot, do it gracefully, recently infusing a Parisian residence with an atmosphere that feels refreshed, yet grounded and enduring.

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11.09.24

Saturday Selects

Week of November 4, 2024

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an exhibition of items made exclusively from hardware store finds, a knitwear store in Milan with furry ribbed walls, a collection of freeform aluminum furniture, and lamps that resemble minimalist wedding cakes.

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11.08.24

Interiors

Historical Moldings Meet High-Sheen Contemporary Pieces in Joris Poggioli’s Parisian Apartment

When Joris Poggioli got the keys to an apartment inside a Napoleonic-era building in Paris’s 10th arrondissement, he immediately fell for its historic charm and potential. However, the architect and designer’s own aesthetic is highly contemporary — his trademarks include cylindrical shapes, rounded edges, and high-sheen materials — so balancing this with the existing classical details took a lot of thought and consideration. Poggioli decided that the exquisitely crafted historical features should be the main character, while his interventions and additions — including many of his own furniture designs — play a supporting role in this new chapter for the space.

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11.05.24

Fair Report

Three Design Exhibitions We Can’t Stop Thinking About from Paris Art Week

The so-called “City of Light” first earned its sobriquet in the 19th century, not only for the city’s early adoption of street lamps, but for its contributions to science and art. Remaining true to its reputation, our three favorite shows from Paris Art Week boasted innovative design pieces against the backdrop of unique or unlikely venues, from the famous and historical Rue de Seine, to Karl Lagerfeld’s former mansion, to a 17th century Gothic-style secular temple to humanism.

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11.02.24

Saturday Selects

Week of October 28, 2024

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: mirrored prism-like furniture, a spectacular renovated Porto townhouse, and an NYC home goods store and cafe with major redwood tables that we hope will bring back banquet-style dining.

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11.01.24

Excerpt: Exhibition

After 100 Years in Business, You Might Think You Know the Iconic Swedish Design Store Svenskt Tenn. You’d Be Wrong.

Something funny happens when you're a company that's been around for a full century. People start to assume that they already know everything there is to know about you — that they've somehow osmotically absorbed your brand tenets or your ethos by virtue of you simply sticking around. For me, the storied Swedish design brand Svenskt Tenn, which is celebrating its 100th birthday this year, was one of those companies. But then I went to Stockholm in September on the occasion of Svenskt Tenn's centenary retrospective opening at Liljevalchs Kunsthalle, running through January 12. Called Svenskt Tenn: A Philosophy of Home, it spans thirteen thematic rooms, curated by Jane Withers together with Svenskt Tenn's head curator Karin Södergren. It was there I realized that what I knew about this company hardly scratched the surface.

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