Hasta La Ideas

Japanese apparel giant blankets NYC with retail installations in advance of its largest store opening yet

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Savvy readers may have noticed that we were featured in the Voices of New York campaign last month, the first of many initiatives that Japanese apparel retailer Uniqlo undertook to celebrate the imminent arrival of their two latest NYC flagship stores. Since then, the brand has been literally putting itself on the map by dropping pop-up shops inside of tidy cubes (designed by our friends at HWKN) all over NYC to showcase signature products, like their colorful cashmere sweaters. As if setting up nearly 20 Uniqlo Cubes all across New York wasn’t enough, the brand also launched a preview of an upcoming addition to their activewear offering as styled by Nicola Formichetti.

It’s easy to forget that Nicola Formichetti is Uniqlo’s Fashion Director, considering his ongoing work with Lady Gaga and designer role at Thierry Mugler. At his low-key TriBeCa storefront, Nicola’s, the Uniqlo Innovation Project, presented a step forward for Uniqlo’s sportier side that bears Formichetti’s touch. The sleek, sparse designs are injected with thoughtful design details that manage to balance style and necessity, with many pieces cut from Uniqlo’s well-known heat retention and water repellent high-tech fabrics. The full range presents a take on “how the future dresses” according to the collection’s site, and will be sure to please fans of versatile and stylish pieces that can transition from play to work and back again.

This weekend, Uniqlo Cubes will be present at the DUMBO Arts Festival helping to celebrate Brooklyn’s place in the art world. Featuring local, national, and international participants, the festival features over 500 participants. Visitors can experience everything from studio visits to musical performances. We particularly recommend paying a visit to experience the Leo Kuelbs Collection’s Immersive Surfaces presentation, which features artists’ works projected onto the stone anchorage that supports the Manhattan Bridge, turning DUMBO itself into a canvas.

We’ll soon be launching a special edition of CH Local highlighting other upcoming events in NYC that Uniqlo Cubes will be present at, along with our favorite spots nearby, so stay tuned!

Five jumping-off points when visiting Antwerp’s new impressive museum

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Building as exhibition: the Guggenheim pioneered the larger-than-life model we’ve come to expect from any international museum worth its salt. New York and Bilbao have their Guggenheims, and Rome has its MAXXI. Now, Antwerp has its own iconic piece of museum architecture and it’s poised to make the medieval Flemish town a global destination. The Museum aan de Stroom opened last weekend to an estimated 100,000 visitors, including the Belgian royal family. (Yes, they’ve got a royal family.)

First, some context. Antwerp is a harbor village with a massive port more than seven times the size of its commercial center. In the 1600s, the city was the seat of the Dutch superpower, establishing the nation’s merchant status for centuries to come. Though Antwerp now belongs to Belgium and Chinese harbors have taken precedence in the world’s shipping market, it’s still a city defined by its watery borders. And it’s there, just off the River Scheldt between the historic city center and the up-and-coming industrial neighborhood het Eilandje, that the MAS Museum steps into its starring role.

An icon the city elders ordered, and an icon they got, with a striking ten-story monolith of stacked boxes in alternating red Indian limestone and undulating glass. The architects, Neutelings Riedijk from Rotterdam, rotated each level 90 degrees, allowing the escalators to ascend around the perimeter of the museum. The effect is a moving viewing platform affording wraparound views of the city, from the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady to the domed Centraal Station to the grittier docklands and warehouses in the immediate vicinity of MAS.

The exhibition spaces, designed by B Architecten, highlight the social and economic culture of the Dutch lowlands and draw from the permanent collections of Antwerp’s more established museums. The 470,000 objects come from three of the city’s historical museums, along with temporary exhibitions of pieces from the contemporary art museum, MuHKA, and the Koninklijk fine arts museum, currently closed for renovation. Highlights include the Wunderkammer (“cabinet of curiosities”) pairing Northern Renaissance still life paintings with found objects and scientific artifacts, and a floor devoted to harbor history, including miniature ship models and counterfeit goods seized from the ports. All eight floors of exhibition space are outfitted in interactive technology as well — should you be curious about that minutely detailed illustrated map of Antwerp from 1566, use the handy QR code to go back in time to the 16th century.

Taking the international and interactive themes online, MAS Museum also offers a quirky virtual tour on its website. From your computer, you can reserve a real live museum guide and steer them through the building according to what you want to see. For the less dictatorial, a video library lets you experience the museum inside and out.

Those visiting the museum in person should take note that beyond the fascinating works on display within and the impressive exterior are some places of note not to be missed. Ranging from a cafe perched upon the River Scheldt that offers stunning views to a young gallery with an eye for works that rival what is housed at the main attraction, here are our five recommendations for places to visit after you’ve had your fill of everything this new cultural landmark has to offer.

Bar Berlin

Bar Berlin is a dark and roomy all-day affair that acts as a cafe, meeting spot, and at night, a bustling bar with attractive young Antwerpers and their international friends. Order a bolleke, the Antwerp nickname for the local pale ale by De Koninck brewery. Kleine Markt 1

Viar

One of the standout shops on the antique-heavy thoroughfare of Kloosterstraat, Viar offers both hand-picked vintage costumes and blue-chip furniture and objets d’art: mid-century Italian desks, Baroque floor mirrors, and sinuous silver candlesticks. Kloosterstraat, 65

Glenns Restaurant

Gilded in a heavy helping of Dutch design and Tom Dixon lighting, Glenns Restaurant is carved out of a former garage near the fine arts museum and named after Antwerp’s most famous hairdresser (yes). The menu is a careful, but not overly precious, demonstration of local seafood and crisp, elegant wines. Graaf van Egmontstraat 39

Zuiderterras Cafe

Zuiderterras – A ship-like restaurant on the banks of the River Schedlt with ridiculous views, Zuiderterras Cafe is where locals go to pretend they’re tourists. The food is straightforward, but the swoon induced by a killer sunset adds a memorable sheen to the proceedings. Ernest van Dijckkaai 37

Office Baroque Gallery

Office Baroque Gallery has been showing the work of international artists (including Cool Hunting favorites Mathew Cerletty and Matthew Brannon) for three years. Their space promises intelligent exhibitions for discovering rising talent. Lange Kievitstraat 48

A day in the life of creating our site makes GPS art to celebrate the new Range Rover Evoque

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Anticipating tonight’s NYC launch of the Range Rover Evoque it seems like the right time to share a video I’ve been working on as part of my involvement with the Pulse of the City campaign. While the larger program is an evolving, interactive guide to 10 cities, one component is the Pulse iPhone app that tracks your movement and converts it to a piece of digital art. This past January I used the app to track a day in New York visiting a bunch of different venues where I often find inspiration for the site.

Our interview with the chief curator of an online travel leader’s new collection

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Launched in 2009, Jetsetter, like its sister Gilt, applies the winning sample-sale concept to travel. Expanding on its success, their new Jetsetter 24/7 allows members to book trips at any time with the assurance that its team personally vets each hotel, tour and cruise, has an easy-to-use site and provides top-notch customer service. To learn a little more about the people behind Jetsetter’s commitment to creating a premium travel experience that make it work, we checked in with International Director of Partner Development Roberta Seiler. To celebrate the launch of the new feature, Jetsetter is giving away seven vacations, including a two-night Miami getaway for two with airfare and luxury accommodations at South Beach’s Raleigh Hotel. Visit Jetsetter 24/7 before 1 February 2011 to enter to win one.

Above portrait of Roberta Seiler shot by Gregory Stefano at the Peninsula Hotel, a Jetsetter Verified property.

What elements do you look for in a hotel? What are some of your favorite destinations?

I really value friendliness, courtesy and a fantastic concierge. No matter how expensive a hotel is, if you walk in and immediately feel at home then they have done a good job. Free wi-fi that works is nice too. My favorite destinations are Rio de Janeiro, Sevilla and Charleston, SC.

How does this appeal specifically to the Jetsetter clientele?

Our members love to travel and like to experience the real thing. Whether it’s a beach vacation or an authentic adventure, this generation wants to feel immersed in the culture when they travel, with all the comforts of course.

What inspired the creation of Jetsetter24/7?

Our private sales are the big attraction, but when sales ended our members would write into our support team asking about verified hotels in certain destinations. It’s a lot of work for the team to verify each hotel and produce each sale so now this beautiful editorial can live on in Jetsetter 24/7 and members can purchase rooms at prevailing market rate all year round. Given how much our members enjoy traveling, they will certainly be happy with our year round availability to the best places.

What professional or personal experiences do you draw on to effectively curate the list of destination hotels?

I have had the privilege of traveling extensively with my friends and family. Having grown up between Brazil, Switzerland and New York traveling wasn’t seasonal, it was a constent part of my life. I also worked at Leading Hotels of the World and Peninsula Hotels early in my career and learned so much about the thoughtfulness and quality that goes into a top hotel. We also listen to our members, grading our partners through questionnaires we send to members after they stay at one of our partner hotels. If the reviews aren’t spectacular, then we will not feature that property again.

What was the initial selection process like?

We have a team of fantastic curators that reach out to properties based on personal experience, recommendations from someone they trust or extraordinary reputation. We then verify the hotels using one of our travel correspondents.

How important is “Jetsetter Verified”? What exactly do Jetsetter correspondents do?

The fact that we verify our hotels is so important to living up to our member’s expectations. We want you to know exactly what you are going to get with each hotel featured. We will not feature a hotel that has not been verified. Our network of travel correspondents are the best travel writers in the world. They are each selected for their expertise and they bring this insight directly to members in an unbiased, editorial voice.

What’s the next step for curated travel?

Our new Expert Travel services is a great way to get a really personalized expert advice. We are also bringing in many more extraordinay experiences that provide adventure and access to the best of the best. It’s funny, this generation we cater to wants us to narrow it down for them and make travel choices easy and accessible. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Nau’s portrait series of brand ambassadors from film, food, design and more

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Identifying 12 people that truly represent the Nau spirit, the Portland-based brand created ten compelling profiles of subjects spanning writers to butchers. As part of their ongoing project called “Portraits of our Friends,” Nau’s Provocateurs live by codes in keeping with the Nau ethos and serving as a benchmark for the type of people for which they design their products.

To capture the essence of each, Nau continued their collaboration with photographer Eden Batki and filmmakers Thomas Oliver and Jordan Strong, the duo behind Into the Woods. Working together to shoot both still photos and video, the team brings the stories behind these notable individuals to life.

The group represents a range of vocations and interests, from home design to butchery but every person is compelling in their own way. Adrian Grenier and Daniela Sea get commended for using their celebrity status to speak out and give back to their chosen causes, providing clean drinking water to developing nations and working to end violence against women, respectively. Daniel Sharp, Nau’s principal photographer, shoots smart and spontaneous images that resonate for the brand’s designers. Camas Davis, food writer and founder of a sustainable meat collective is a forceful advocate for locally-sourced foods and responsible consumption.
Jeremy Pelley of creative team
Official Manufacturing Co., the brains behind the brand identity of Ace hotels, impresses with his business manifesto, which boasts lines like “Kill your ego and fear of failure.”

To learn more about the portrait series and get to know The Provocateurs, visit the Nau blog.