12.08.14

Sight Unseen Presents

SU x PAOM for The Standard Shop

Last week in Miami, you could go home with art in just about any form — not just on a canvas (Art Basel) but in the form of a vase or a table (Design Miami), a pool toy (Grey Area x FriendsWithYou), a champagne bottle (Ruinart x Georgia Russel), or, if you happened by the shop at The Standard Spa, beach gear courtesy of yours truly. For this year's Miami fair, Sight Unseen teamed up with Print All Over Me to curate a line of warm-weather clothing and accessories sold exclusively at the Standard, featuring prints by Paul Wackers, Ellen Van Dusen of Dusen Dusen, Peter Judson, Rachel Domm, Caitlin Foster, Marta Veludo, Eunice Luk, Branden Collins, and Rafael de Cardenas (who designed the shop's interior a few years back).
More
11.24.14

Sight Unseen Presents

Our 5th Anniversary Party

Two weeks ago, Sight Unseen celebrated our 5th anniversary with a post full of birthday cards made for us by our favorite designers and readers. But we couldn't possibly mark such a momentous occasion with a web post alone — we had to throw a party, of course! Last Thursday night, we gathered 200 of our closest friends and clients together at the stunning roof bar of the McCarren Hotel & Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where we sipped Bombay Sapphire cocktails, danced to music spun by DJs Kyle Garner and Jon Santos under a piñata by Confettisystem, tossed around pool-toy dance props crafted by Misha Kahn, and ate adorable hand-shaped cookies and a golden birthday cake baked by Fredericks & Mae. There were even custom zig-zaggy funhouse mirrors by Chiaozza on hand to freak us out once we got tipsy. It was a memorable night for all involved, and we're grateful to our partners at Bombay Sapphire and Chelsea Hotels for helping to make it happen. It's definitely going to be hard to top come 2019!
More
10.22.14

The Making of

Make a Sculpey Mobile, With Fort Makers

The team behind Fort Makers don’t refer to themselves as a design studio but rather an “artist collective,” and there’s a marked difference: They make functional objects, but instead of producing a stream of products with a unified aesthetic, they each work individually under the studio umbrella, experimenting with whatever interests them at any given time. In a way, it’s that same sense of structureless structure that first attracted Noah Spencer to the idea of making mobiles: You can hang pretty much anything from them, as long as you get the balance right. “Any kind of visual language can be carried into the mobile world,” says Spencer, a Paul Loebach and Uhuru Design alum who co-founded Fort Makers in 2008. While he primarily makes models hung with simple wooden shapes, he’s also been toying around lately with more expressive elements made from polymer clay (aka Sculpey), a method he graciously offered to teach Sight Unseen readers in this tutorial.
More
05.07.14

Studio Visit

Upstate, Fashion Designers

If there’s one thing we’ve learned here at Sight Unseen, it’s that a lack of training can sometimes go an awfully long way. Such was the case with Kalen Kaminski and Astrid Chastka of Upstate, who started their popular Brooklyn-based, shibori-inspired womenswear and accessories label back in 2010 with nary a day of fashion training between them. When they first met a few years earlier, Kaminski was an anthropology major turned prop stylist and Chastka was an architecture grad turned unhappy architect. Soon after bonding over an appreciation of handcrafted items, they found themselves trawling New York fabric stores, trying to replicate one of Kaminski’s vintage scarves. “We couldn’t find anything we liked, and we probably had no idea where to go,” Chastka told me when we visited the pair’s Greenpoint studio a few months back. “At the time, Kalen was living with an artist, and he had a shibori tapestry on his wall. We saw that, and we were like, ‘That’s perfect.’”
More
02.22.14

Saturday Selects

Week of February 17, 2014

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: inside the homes of two design powerhouses, a visit to fave duo New Friends (above), and a Richard Serra parked in the middle of Manhattan.
More
01.10.14

At Home With

Rebecca Bartoshesky, prop stylist

Prop styling is a little bit like industrial design only in that some of its best practitioners never even realized it was a career until after they’d finished school. Such was the case with Rebecca Bartoshesky, an up-and-coming New York prop stylist who studied interior design at FIT.
More
10.10.09

100 Stories Later...

Contributors

Dana Covit Dana Covit is a Los Angeles-based writer, researcher, and brand storyteller. Her editorial work has appeared in Broccoli Magazine — where she’s explored topics like seashells and butterflies — Romance Journal, and Refinery29. She also writes and sends a newsletter called THESE FAVORITE THINGS, and is usually dreaming of road trips, day trips, and fruit-bearing trees. Alix-Rose Cowie Alix-Rose Cowie is an art and design writer, and a fashion and still life photographer who lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Pippa Drummond Pippa Drummond is a photographer based in Brooklyn (by way of Auckland, NZ). She shoots still life, interiors, and food. Brian W. Ferry Brian Ferry is a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn. He regularly shoots interiors and environments, artists and designers, portraits, and travel and lifestyle stories both for personal work and for clients and collaborators such as Freunde von Freunden, BBDO/Starbucks, Aritzia, Wilder Quarterly, Brooklyn Magazine, Bon Appetit, and Martha Stewart Living. His work has been exhibited in Los Angeles and London, and a limited-edition book of his photographs was published in 2011 by Lawson’s Books. He frequently posts new photographs, thoughts, ideas, and inspirations on his popular blog, the blue hour. Kate Lawson Kate Lawson is a UK–based freelance writer and creative content consultant. Her work has appeared online and in print for Architectural Digest, Dazed & Confused, FT Weekend, I-D Magazine, Interview Magazine, Observer Magazine, The Sunday Times Style, Wallpaper and more. When not writing, she can be found in an art gallery or museum, particularly in the gift shop, satisfying her shopping addiction for photography books and art prints. She’s also obsessed with the Art Deco period and 1980s interiors. Jennifer S. Li Jennifer S. Li is a writer living in sunny Los Angeles. Her work appears regularly in Art in America, ArtAsiaPacific, ArtReview and more. When not writing or in a museum or art gallery, she hikes with her dog, Theo, plays violin, and eats baked goods. Sean Santiago Sean Santiago is a Brooklyn-based writer, photographer and kale apologist who advocates for drinking at lunch. An avid traveler, he is always on the hunt for good coffee and better bread. His work has appeared on Refinery29, Elle Decor, and Freunde Von Freunden. Charlie Schuck Charlie Schuck is a photographer and director who grew up on an island in the Pacific Northwest and now resides in New York. His work is greatly guided by the … Continue reading Contributors
More
12.11.23

Caroline Chao

New York, fromc.co With a Masters in architecture from Harvard in hand, Chao began her working life at large firms that built skyscrapers. But once she moved to New York last year, she scaled down to smaller, more personal level and began a furniture practice, launching with two collections in lucite, glass, mirror, and upholstery that experiment with light and perspective. Her works reflect our favorite qualities: they’re simple and understated, but always with a subtly unique form or approach that makes them covetable at the same time. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? The first word that comes to mind is multitudes. In many ways, American design feels free and unconstrained, and there isn’t necessarily any one dominant theme. There’s a celebration of diversity and novelty, and I see that in my own work too. My identity is caught between realms and cultures. I also operate between the disciplines of furniture, interior space, and architecture. The result feels like a freedom of expression between scales and disciplines, cultures and worlds. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? I’ll be launching several new pieces in the spring, furthering my explorations of light and optics first presented in the View Collection (last two photos above). I’m very excited about following this thread and continuing to develop concepts in reflection, light, and spatial awareness through objects. I’m also working on an exciting collaboration for Milan Design Week in 2024, which I hope to share more about soon. Lastly, a couple interior projects I’ve been working on for several years are close to completion, which I’m thrilled about. What inspires or informs your work in general? I have many influences, among them psychology and perception, light and optics, and Surrealism. For my most recent launch, the View Collection, the primary interest was light and optical perception. I’ve always been drawn to the effects of light and space on how we perceive our surroundings. This sparked an interest in spatial perception. Architectural ideas of views, light, and space are perhaps less commonly discussed in furniture, but are very present themes in my pieces. The most powerful element of design is its affect, which sometimes has an immediate impact, but for the best pieces the affect becomes richer and clearer as you live with them. Works like the I-Beam Light, Coffee & Tea Tables, and Orb … Continue reading Caroline Chao
More
05.14.17

Sight Unseen Presents Image Download

Want to Instagram an image you found in our Sight Unseen Presents magazine? Download it here — but please tag Sight Unseen and our photographers! @_sightunseen_ #sightunseenpresents Drunk Tank Pink at Coming Soon, photos by @pippa_drummond Drunk Tank Pink at Lalito, photos by @pippa_drummond Kanghee Kim x Areaware at Rachel Comey, photos by @tinycactus Natalie Weinberger at The Primary Essentials, photos by @pippa_drummond Brendan Timmins at Creatures of Comfort, photos by @pippa_drummond Justin Donnelly and Monling Lee at Anthom, photos by @monlinglee Dimes Peppermill at Dimes, photos by @brianwferry Rear View by PIN–UP and Angela Dimayuga at Mission Chinese Food Hayden Dunham at Picture Room, photos courtesy of @haydendunham Sight Unseen manicures at Paintbox, Vasa Mihich sculpture photos by @robinstein New rugs at Kasthall, photos courtesy of @kasthall Piles, Stacks, Lumps, and Mounds by CHIAOZZA at Canal Street Market
More