Hasta La Ideas

(UnBeige)

Fresh from seeing his UFO hung from the rafters of France’s Gare de Lille-Flandres, Ross Lovegrove beamed himself over to New York for the Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Awards gala. The London-based designer, dressed in a horn-buttoned wool ensemble that gave him the dapper and vaguely menacing bearing of an Austrian nobleman (and even the Thom Browne-clad audience members a run for their sartorial money), was on hand last Wednesday evening to present the “Design Mind” award to Janine Benyus, but couldn’t resist presaging his praise for the biomimicry pioneer with a not-so-stealth political endorsement. Upon taking the stage, he advised the crowd that he would need to speak from prepared notes and readied his reading glasses. “I’ve got rather a lot to say here tonight,” said Lovegrove as he slowly unfolded a large piece of paper, prompting emcee Paula Zaha to question whether origami was afoot. After a bit more unfolding, he revealed that his “notes” happened to be written on the back of a bright blue “Obama for President” poster to the whoops, chuckles, and applause of the crowd. Added Lovegrove, “I just couldn’t print the Romney one. I couldn’t.”

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