Sight Unseen Moda Operandi
11.03.22

Shopping

Starting Today, You Can Shop Contemporary Objects From Our Book on Moda Operandi

Today we launched a Sight Unseen trunkshow on Moda Operandi that makes the work of 11 of the contemporary designers featured in our book readily available for you to fall in love with. From a $47 bookend set by Bi-Rite and a $38 Utility Objects ceramic cup, all the way up to a large $2,800 cast-bronze statement candelabra by Fort Standard, the sale — which runs now through the end of the year — is just one more way of bringing our book to life.
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11.02.22

Sight Unseen Presents

At Phillips’s New Los Angeles Outpost, Our Curated Selection of California Designers is On View — And Available for Purchase

When we first began selling furniture online via our 1stDibs storefront back in 2018, we wondered if there was much of a market for buying things, well, sight unseen, as it were. Turns out there was, but after nearly five years, we still longed for a physical space in which our clients could actually see and feel and sit on the pieces in question. So when Phillips approached us earlier this year, asking if we might be interested in curating a rotating selection of contemporary California-based designers at the auction house's newly opened Los Angeles gallery space, we couldn't say yes fast enough.
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10.31.22

Fair Report

A Paper Chaise, a Tropicana-Orange Chair: 5 Favorites From This Year’s London Design Festival

Don’t ask us how, but we suddenly find ourselves in the waning days of October, which means it was more than a month ago now that the London Design Festival celebrated its 20th anniversary. Yes, we’re late. No, we won’t blame the Queen’s death or the tumultuous upheavals at 10 Downing (and beyond) for our delay. Yes, we’re still going to share some gems that caught our attention, including a Tropicana-orange chair, a collection of furniture made from layers of paper, and an exhibition that explores the theme of moving in with a partner — and the smashing together of taste, desire, and habit that ensues.
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10.27.22

Shopping

Seven Design Tastemakers on Their Biggest eBay Scores — and Secret Expert Shopping Tips

We talk at length in our forthcoming book, How to Live With Objects, about the joys of getting lost in the online shopping process on your way to building a more personal home, and about how shopping, even if you don't buy anything, can help you learn about makers and movements as you define or refine your taste. There's really no better place to do that than eBay. Today, we asked seven tastemakers and shopping experts to share their favorite eBay finds, as well as their top shopping tips and current favorite saved searches (because as every shopping expert will tell you, you *must* have saved searches).
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10.26.22

Interiors

Conjuring the Soul of Baltimore — And John Waters — At ASH’s New Hotel Ulysses

At The Ulysses, ASH’s latest hotel, newly opened in Baltimore, maximalism is having a moment — but in a surprisingly considered way, where a wealth of patterns, textures, and influences combine and cohere in a highly cinematic, vintage style. The interior nods to Baltimore’s own John Waters and his trashy-kitsch leanings, for sure, but it's matched with the refined opulence a Visconti set from the Italian cinema classic Il Gattopardo. We spoke to ASH's Will Cooper about how ASH approaches the cities they inhabit, how to be trendy without becoming dated, and how to know when over the top is just enough.
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10.25.22

Current Obsession

Adam Stech on Italian Futurism, Part II: The 1930s Ceramics of Mazzotti and Nikolay Diulgheroff

Like many of the best art movements of the early 1900s, the radical Italian Futurist movement was most-known for two-dimensional works, but encompassed the applied arts as well. One of its more interesting — yet largely forgotten — practitioners was the late designer and artist Nikolay Diulgheroff, for whom ceramics became a medium of dynamic expression for his and the Futurists’ ideas.
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10.24.22

Current Obsession

Adam Stech on Italian Futurism, Part I: Tour Four of Italy’s Most Avant-Garde Interiors

In the 1909 manifesto for one of the most controversial avant-garde art movements of the 20th century — Italian Futurism — founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti confessed his admiration for the modern age and its inventions, for speed, the roar of engines, and the rage of war weapons. The group’s paintings and sculptures attempted to depict the speed and dynamism of the industrial age, but Futurism’s reach also extended to a practice in architecture and interior design, and in the past few years I toured Italy to uncover few of its best spaces.
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10.23.22

Saturday Selects

Week of October 17, 2022

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an afternoon tea tray cast using blocks found on Mexico City streets, conveyor-belt chairs, "moldy marble," and a heavenly collaboration between Lalique and James Turrell.
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10.20.22

Sighted

In His First Work of Architecture — A Country HQ for Kvadrat — Thomas Demand Takes Inspiration From the Page

Known for his highly nuanced, opaque, anything-but-straightforward photographs of cinematically lit, full-scale sets made of paper, artist Thomas Demand’s latest project is an incredibly literal work of architecture that appears like a paper construction. The pavilion — done in partnership with Caruso St John Architects as part of the textile manufacturer Kvadrat’s headquarters in coastal Ebeltoft, Denmark — follows, as the artist says “the logic of paper."
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10.19.22

Sighted

Studio Paolo Ferrari Changes Perspective for Latest ‘Editions’ Furniture Series

In 2016, the Toronto-based interior designer Paolo Ferrari released his studio's first edition of collectible furniture, intending to evolve and expand upon its forms over time. Last week, at his New York gallery Colony, he unveiled the collection's latest iteration — Editions 04 — which was meant to debut in 2019 but was postponed due to the pandemic. This extra time proved beneficial for Ferrari, who was able to pause, contemplate, and develop his designs even further than previously anticipated. It also provided another fortuitous opportunity: to photograph them against the dramatic industrial backdrop of Skylight Steelworks, a former factory and 1960s office space on 750 acres outside of Toronto in the one-time steel town of Hamilton, which has recently become home to a new generation of creatives and artists.
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10.15.22

Saturday Selects

Week of October 10, 2022

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a new chair collection from a beloved interior designer, a light-filled restaurant atop Ace Hotel Sydney, and a longtime Danish exhibition whose conceptual works continue to push the boundary between form and function – and make a few statements about the climate crisis and sustainability along the way.
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