Hudson home tour with Elise McMahon of LikeMindedObjects © Pippa Drummond

At Home in Hudson, With A Designer Embracing the DIY Culture of Upstate New York

Over the past few years, as designers from Bushwick to Red Hook have begun moving farther and farther up the Hudson River, we've begun to wonder: Is upstate New York the new Brooklyn? Five years ago, one of those such designers was Elise McMahon of LikeMindedObjects, a RISD grad who works within a kind of freeform, collaborative, ad hoc aesthetic. We visited her art-filled home in Hudson, New York late last summer to find out more.
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Eny Lee Parker

Eny Lee Parker’s New Ceramic Chainmail Has a Secret Message Encoded in Its Links

Where do you go after you've been named this year's "breakout American design star" AND one of the best fashion brands of 2017? If you're Eny Lee Parker, you just keep churning out incredible new work, even if you're in the throes of an upcoming cross-country move. The triple-threat ceramicist/furniture designer/jewelry maker debuted a new collection this weekend, and while the new work covers some familiar ground (thick ceramic legs as table bases), Parker also dug deep into a new obsession: ceramic chainmail.
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Week of January 15, 2018

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: Rudolf Schindler is the new go-to design influence, sage is officially "the new neutral," and the last bastion of forgotten 1980s decor — seashells — makes its way into the Zeitgeist.
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Mociun’s New Brooklyn Flagship is a Sophisticated, Instagram-Friendly Oasis

Caitlin Mociun opened her universally-beloved home-goods store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn more than half a decade ago. But like the neighborhood she calls home, Mociun has done a lot of growing up in that time. Late last year, that growing up culminated in the opening of a second Mociun flagship, this one devoted primarily to her fine-jewelry line — i.e. the source of much Instagram-induced hyperventilation among certain women we know.
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Up and coming Swiss designer Dimitri Bähler

This Swiss Designer Blends the Rational With the Emotional to Create Some of the Most Beautiful Objects We’ve Seen

"When I started at ECAL at age 18, I actually didn’t know much about design," admits Dimitri Bähler. "As a kid, I was more interested in music, fashion, and illustration, along with biology and chemistry. In fact, I've always combined those two poles of interests: the rational and the emotional." That seems as good a way as any to describe Bähler, a young Swiss designer whose work has always seemed the result of both meticulous planning and wild experimentation. In many of his pieces, a relatively strict basic form is married to a more complex and renegade surface treatment.
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This Up-and-Coming Spanish Artist Perfectly Mixes Organic Shapes and Geometry

Like many of our subjects, Barcelona-based sculptor Carla Cascales Alimbau has one foot in the art world and one foot in design. Alimbau, who used to work for a large design corporation before developing her independent art practice in 2015, cites influences from furniture and architecture, including Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Alvar Aalto. But her sculptures are in fact functionless beauties, often mixing organic shapes with geometry, and the imperfections of nature with the purity of polished materials.
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The Design Trends We’re Predicting Will Be Big in 2018

Where do trends come from, and how do forecasters like ourselves know which ones will rise to the top? Why does a movement like Memphis come into vogue only to be replaced by something like Art Deco? Why is rust trending? These are the questions we ask ourselves every day, whether we're walking the halls of a design fair, scrolling through endless runway presentations, or simply trying to make sense of what's coming through our inboxes. Here, we've compiled six of the design trends we predict will most influence interior design and objects in the coming year.
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If You Like Design and Books, You’re Going to Love [Reads]

We're living in a world where the algorithm pretty much rules all: The algorithm decides which high school friends are worth keeping up with, whether you might enjoy the new album by Gucci Mane, and if you're the type of person who would buy Loeffler Randall shoes from an Instagram ad. So it's refreshing — and kind of quaint — that the new book subscription and delivery service [reads] is curated by actual humans.
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A New Book Documents the Architectural Mash-Ups of One of Earth’s Most Mystical Locales

Pretty much everyone is a travel photographer on Instagram these days, and there's nothing we like better than when one of our favorite photographers heads somewhere far-flung. But for Brian Ferry's latest project — a book called The Deepest Lake, which documents Ferry's 2014 trip to Kashmir — Instagram didn't seem like the proper vehicle on which to be seen. "When I post photos online, it can feel insignificant," Ferry says. "People scroll past it once and then move on. I want people to have the time and the space to really look at a photo, and so I had the idea to make a book."
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This Swedish Illustrator’s Soft-Edged Work Might Be the Calming Influence We All Need Right Now

If you're a relatively highly attuned design person — and chances are, if you're here, you are — you might recognize the work of Swedish-born, Barcelona-based designer and illustrator Klas Ernflo (and not just because it often reminds us of another perennial SU fave, Geoff McFetridge). Ernflo's done work for Apartamento, Domus, Frame, IKEA, Mother London, Oyyo, and more, in addition to keeping up his own studio with drawings, paintings, and sculpture. But it's his latest project that we find the most fascinating.
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7 Insiders on the Best Design Moments of 2017

We asked seven of our favorite designers, art directors, gallerists, curators and more to reflect on their top design moments of the past year — an experience they had, an exhibition they saw, a discovery they made, an interior they fell in love with — as well as the one thing they’re most looking forward to in the new year.
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