Sight Unseen

Sighted: Paper View Video for the Karlsson’s Unfiltered Project

Jill Singer — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:36:00 +0000

It's funny: Though we spend our working lives documenting people's stories, worming our way into their studios and homes and teasing out their inspirations, we tend to squirm at the thought of others turning their lens on us. And yet every time they have, we've always been pleased by the results — the video we're debuting today being no exception. It was commissioned by Karlsson's Gold Vodka to go behind the scenes of Paper View, Sight Unseen's first printed edition and the inaugural project in the Karlsson's Unfiltered series (which continues this week with the American Design Club's Raw + Unfiltered ICFF exhibit). In the video, filmmakers Jonathan Sanden and Rachel Wolff catch us speaking about how the book came to be and take you inside the studios of Paper View subjects Cmmnwlth and Chen Chen + Kai Williams, bringing yet another dimension to both page and screen. Click through to watch it after the jump.

Noho Design District: The Balloon Factory at Japan Premium Beef

Monica Khemsurov — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:00:04 +0000

As traditions go, you can't get much better than the one that will commence this Friday in the window of the tiny Great Jones butcher shop Japan Premium Beef: An annual display of custom meat-themed installations, rendered in various incongruous materials. It started during the 2010 Noho Design District, with the delicate glass sausages that won Fabrica's Sam Baron a similar commission for T magazine earlier this year. And it will continue for 2012 with a series of inflatable meat balloons — whose prototypes are pictured above — that are being specially created for us by the Chicago designers behind the Balloon Factory project. We asked Caroline Linder, Lisa Smith, Michael Savona, Thomas Moran, and Steven Haulenbeek for the skinny on their savory new creation, which we invite you to visit this weekend at the Noho Design District.

Sighted: Roll & Hill at ICFF and the Noho Design District

Jill Singer — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:54:53 +0000

Three ICFFs ago, when we launched the Noho Design District, our biggest exhibition was the debut of Jason Miller's highly anticipated new lighting company Roll & Hill, which took over the top floor of our beloved former lumber building (RIP) and cozily lit its dilapidated interior with a string of gorgeously modern chandeliers. It's hard to believe how far both of us have come since then. With the imminent redevelopment of the NDD's former hub at 45 Great Jones, we went hunting for a new home, and instead found two (we'll be camping out next weekend at 22 Bond Street and the new Standard, East Village hotel). And Roll & Hill — in addition to showing its new collection at the Javits Center — will join up with us once again in Noho, this time spreading out over 3,500 square feet on the ground floor of 2 Cooper Square, where a monthlong temporary showroom will showcase the brand's full collection in addition to its new products for 2012. The brand debuted two new lights in Milan last month but we snagged an exclusive first look at the entire new 2012 collection, which includes new work by NDD alums Jonah Takagi (above), Lukas Peet, and Lindsey Adelman, as well as Miller himself. Check out the new products after the jump and join us next weekend to check out the goods for yourselves.

The Making of: Sneak Peek at the 2012 Noho Design District

Monica Khemsurov — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:58:05 +0000

If we've been quiet this week, it's because — as usual — we're up to something big, something outside the realm of the digital. In this case, that something is the 2012 Noho Design District, taking place in New York's Noho neighborhood in just two short weeks, from May 18 to 21. We founded the NDD three years ago to ensure that there would always be a place for the kind of design we love during New York Design Week — independent talents, innovative brands, and an emphasis on the creative, not just the commercial — and our efforts have only grown since then. With the help of the local organization Noho-Bowery Stakeholders, this year's show promises more locations than ever, including two new brand new hubs: the former photo studio at 22 Bond, and the Standard, East Village hotel, where Sonos will help us host a series of exhibitions that includes a showcase of California design curated by your faithful editors. Other exciting developments: The new city-wide design-week coalition we're a part of (check out the DesignweekNYC.org site for details), and a shuttle that will be looping around town to all the hotspots during ICFF, including Noho. There's still a lot left to be done before then, but we wanted to take a moment to give you a sneak peek of what's in progress; the process images below were submitted by some of the designers whose work you'll see on view at the Noho Design District. We can't wait to show you the final results.

What We Saw: At the 2012 Milan Furniture Fair, Part III

Monica Khemsurov — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:27:55 +0000

To quote Pilar Viladas in her roundup on The Moment this week, "Another year, another Milan Furniture Fair." Seriously. The Salone always seems so crazy and exciting while you're actually there — if not important, depending on whether any offerings managed to impress — but looking back on it a week later, it inevitably melts into one big blur of chairs and tables that probably already existed, in one form or another, the year before. With today's album of snapshots, some taken by Future Perfect owner and intrepid reporter Dave Alhadeff and some by the Eindhoven-based designer Max Lipsey, we offer you one last chance to relive the experience of the 2012 fair, up close and personal, before it gets written into the great furniture catalog in the sky. Maybe next year we'll go back ourselves, and remember what the fuss is about all over again. Until then...

What We Saw: At the 2012 Milan Furniture Fair, Part II

Jill Singer — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:03:04 +0000

We'd scarcely pressed "Post" on last week's Milan Furniture Fair recap when another round of photos arrived in our inbox, this one featuring the jaw-droppingly amazing Sedimentation vases pictured above, which could be our favorite thing to emerge from the weeklong festivities. The fact that they're the work of a student — the Swedish-born Royal College of Art up-and-comer Hilda Hellström — makes them even more exciting, especially when the fair can sometimes seem dominated by glitzy launches from the megabrands. "I am OBSESSED with these," wrote The Future Perfect's Dave Alhadeff. "The forms feel well beyond student work and the 'on-trend' marbling technique." We couldn't agree more, and Hellström's urns were just one of the products we fell in love with by proxy; as the weekend wore on, we received picks from Mary Wallis, a designer at Lindsey Adelman's studio, and the American designer Jonah Takagi to round out our second wrap-up from the year's biggest furniture event. Mirrored crates, portable terrariums and zinc-coated screens are now tops on our wish lists. What's on yours?

What We Saw: At the 2012 Milan Furniture Fair

Jill Singer — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:25:17 +0000

While nothing will ever compare to the Great Ash Cloud of 2010 in terms of strange events surrounding the Milan Furniture Fair, there seems to be a fair amount of juju going on with this year's festivities — or at least with the members of our hand-picked street team, who were meant to upload photos from their bases around the Italian metropolis all this week. Pin-Up editor Felix Burrichter reported a suddenly collapsed eardrum, which stranded him in Berlin and prevented him from attending the fair entirely, while designer Sam Baron confessed his attempts to take photos at a dinner for Fiat's Lapo Eklann were sadly thwarted by bodyguards. Lucky for us, then, that we've been able to follow along on Instagram, Twitter, blogs, and a steady stream of photos arriving in our inbox from The Future Perfect's Dave Alhadeff, who's been firing off everything from potential products for his store to OMG moments to jealousy-inducing images of gelato. We'll be bringing you more photos as they roll in, but for now, here's a sampling of the first few days from one of our favorite fairgoers.

Shop: Our New Spring Additions

Monica Khemsurov — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:42:13 +0000

Today we welcome six new additions to the Sight Unseen online shop, just in time for all those late spring and early summer birthdays (including both of your humble editors — what was it about the early fall that made so many of our parents feel so frisky??). Two of them are exciting updates on existing products, while four of them are by designers who are brand new to us: Seattle up-and-comers Ladies & Gentlemen Studio make housewares inspired by their vintage finds, New Friends are a NYC/Philly weaving duo who also run two of our fave inspiration blogs, WWAKE is RISD sculpture-design grad turned jewelry maker Wing Yau, and Max Lamb, of course, is one of the biggest young stars in the furniture biz. We were especially pleased when he agreed to transform his 2010 Prism series from a purely decorative object into a wearable one — wearable in three different ways, no less — just for us. Check out the goods here, which start at just $50, then head over to the shop to place your order!