03.09.17

Up and Coming

An Up-And-Coming Dutch Duo On Why They Don’t Identify As “Designers”

In 2008, when Daphna Isaacs Burggraaf and Laurens Manders began collaborating, they kept their studios separate. It wasn’t until four years later that they officially founded their company, compounding ideas and names — the latter of which was deemed a challenge until the Internet threw up the solution. “We were looking to find out if images of our products had been published, and we found an image of our lamps with the name ‘Daphna Laurens’ written above it.” Upon reading this, they realized that it was exactly what they’d been looking for — an anonymous name that symbolized their way of working together; a new ego that has allowed them to playfully carve out a space for themselves as form-flexing experimenters.

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03.08.17

Sighted

We’re Taking the Day Off to Support Women’s Rights

Today, across the world, women — when they can — are staying home from their jobs, refusing to spend money, wearing red, or heading out to marches and rallies as part of A Day Without A Woman, a 24-hour strike to support equality, justice, and human rights for women. Sight Unseen, of course, is run by women, and so in lieu of content, we're posting a simple statement of support. We'll see you in the streets.

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03.07.17

Fair Report

30 Artists and Galleries We Loved During New York Art Week 2017

We can't quite put our finger on what it was that made this year's Armory Arts Week feel so fresh. Was it the new venues? After all, NADA moved from Basketball City to Skylight Clarkson North, while Spring/Break moved from the old Post Office to an ex-Condé Nast office at 4 Times Square. Was it the fresh blood — the fact that NADA was even there at all, after years of coinciding with May's Frieze Fair? Or maybe it was simply the weather — we made the rounds on a gorgeously sunny Thursday that made the views at Spring Studios' Independent fair even more glorious. Whatever the case, we found much to love

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03.06.17

Eye Candy

A French Creative Studio Gives the Silk Scarf a Majorly Cool Upgrade

In the last few years, the silk scarf has seen a major upgrade from studios like Massif Central and A Peace Treaty, but one of our favorites on that short list of cool is Suprême Bon Ton, the French creative studio whose fourth collection is as playful and stunning as past iterations. “Totem” features a variety of blue, teal, and cream-colored organic shapes that appear to be stacked, wedged, and floating around the silk canvases, following the brand's longtime obsession with rocks and geology.

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03.04.17

Saturday Selects

Week of February 27, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a plywood paradise in Topanga Canyon, a fashion presentation outfitted with contemporary design icons, and a series of tapestries that are way too chic to be acoustic panels.

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01.22.16

At Home With

The Brooklyn Brownstone of Sit + Read’s Kyle Garner and Sharktooth’s Kellen Tucker

Kyle Garner and Kellen Tucker may do magazine-level work for clients, but when it comes to their own two-floor brownstone in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood, it’s barely about looks at all. “The driving force is comfort,” says Tucker, who deals antique textiles through her shop Sharktooth. “If you close your eyes and walk into this house, does it feel good?” Garner, the furniture dealer and designer behind Sit + Read, agrees: “We prioritize the feeling over the aesthetic,” he says.

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03.03.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

We Already Can’t Wait For This Exhibition of Norwegian Designers in Milan

Where has a year gone? It feels like just yesterday we were swooning over the images from this stellar exhibition in Milan of Norwegian designers (and getting excited for our own inaugural show with some of those same talents). Now it's nearly Milan time again, and with it comes news of a brand new show of young Norwegians, this time curated by our friend Katrin Greiling under the umbrella "Everything is Connected."

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03.02.17

Sighted

Pink Travertine and Rusty Velvet in a Coolly Minimalist Cape Town Boutique

On a recent family trip to Cape Town, I determined to go to the best restaurant in the city, to revisit to my favorite beach hangout (Beta), and, thanks to a hot tip from a friend's Instagram, to pop in on a store that can only be described as #sosightunseen. The eponymous boutique of fashion designer Margot Molyneux, the shop opened at the end of last year, showcasing the brand's minimal-chic designs — in a color palette of peach, green, rust, white, and black — with a store design by Molyneux's husband to match.

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03.01.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

At Friedman Benda, Faye Toogood Channels Her Spiritual and Earthly Instincts

Since showing her first ​Assemblage​ furniture collection back in 2010, British designer Faye Toogood has evolved the series, adding pieces in new materials to each subsequent collection — from sycamore and stone, to resin and steel, to patinated brass and wire mesh, to fiberglass and plaster. Her latest range, ​Assemblage 5​, on show at Friedman Benda in New York in the designer's first solo U.S. exhibition, is inspired by spiritual objects but bound by her signature balance of elemental materials, invoking a strong sense of ritual and permanence.

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02.28.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

Chamber’s Founder Can’t Attend His New Show — Because He Was Barred From Re-entering the Country

We never doubted that we'd cover the third in Chamber Gallery's game-changing exhibition series curated by Matylda Krzykowski, which opens this Thursday and focuses on the question of what makes an object appealing to invite into our homes. We just never dreamed we'd have to cover it like this. Chamber founder Juan Garcia Mosqueda was recently detained at the US border, and we've published his open letter to the design community, in full.

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02.27.17

Eye Candy

This Contemporary Design Icon Looks Even Better Shot By One of our Favorite Photogs

It might be funny to associate a photographer with a single color, but when we think of Stockholm photographer Tekla Severin, pink is the shade that immediately springs to mind. Scrolling through her Instagram, there's definitive evidence that she has shot other colors, but in our mind Severin lives in some Bofill–designed paradise of rose tones and geometric lines. So it makes perfect sense that New Tendency, the ever-chic Berlin-based design brand, would hire Severin to style and shoot its pink Meta Side Table, released earlier last year.

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02.25.17

Saturday Selects

Week of February 20, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: “blush” as a matte glaze for light fixtures, the latest interior by India Mahdavi, and a toilet bowl brush to write home about.

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02.24.17

Sighted

These $50 Posters Are a Serious Score

This week marked the launch of yet another great inexpensive poster series on yet another great art site, created by the multi-disciplinary Danish design studio Atelier CPH. The images were inspired by 70s colors and abstracted faces, and they look like something you'd be psyched to unearth at an antique mall for five times the price. These are only 49 to 89 Euros each, and they come with the cache of a creative duo whose clients include Kinfolk, Ferm Living, and Norm Architects.

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