Hasta La Ideas

Durant 7 jours, les équipes de Sevenly ont observé autour d’eux tous les actes et les dons que les gens font sans contrepartie. En résulte cette superbe vidéo appelée tout simplement « Give » et basée sur les moments essentiels de la vie. A découvrir en vidéo HD dans la suite de l’article.

Backstage at Friday’s Jason Wu show. (Photo: Mimi Ritzen Crawford)

• Jason Wu pared down his palette and toughened up the silhouettes for spring 2013. He described the collection, shown Friday at a downtown studio space, as “Helmut Newton meets Lillian Bassman.” The late photographers’ contrasting aesthetics inspired one of Wu’s most accomplished outings to date. Peekaboo sheaths, jackets, and suiting accented with leather (Newton never met a harness he didn’t like) and lace spotlighted Wu’s tailoring chops, while a floral x-ray print nodded to Bassman and offered a darker take on his signature ladylike luxe.

• Shepard Fairey will not serve jail time in the criminal contempt case involving his Barack Obama “Hope” poster. On Friday, a New York federal court judge sentenced him to two years’ probation and a $25,000 fine. The sentence also includes 300 hours of community service. “I accept the Judge’s sentence and look forward to finally putting this episode behind me,” wrote Fairey in a statement posted to his website. “My wrong-headed actions, born out of a moment of fear and embarrassment, have not only been financially and psychologically costly to myself and my family, but also helped to obscure what I was fighting for in the first place—the ability of artists everywhere to be inspired and freely create art without reprisal.”

• In case you missed it, Julie Lasky recently jumped in the design time machine and considered which of today’s objects will be revered as classics come 2050, “the sort of thing our grandchildren will drag out of our children’s attics and install in their own living rooms.” In addition to querying a dozen contemporary furniture experts (including Murray Moss and Paola Antonelli), she came up with her own list of five future icons.

• And speaking of design classics, Vitsœ is lifting the lid on its 50-year archive. Look for digitized ephemera from the furniture company, best known for its modular shelving system designed by Dieter Rams, to be posted on its new Tumblr. The site debuted today with a look back to 1971, when live performances at furniture showrooms were a growing trend, at least in Karlsruhe, Germany, where Vitsœ plied shoppers with a vinyl sampler of the Sidewalk Hot Jazz Ochestra.

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Textile messaging. Creative clothing from Apliiq, founded by Ethan Lipsitz (pictured below).

New York Fashion Week is once again upon us, and with it, the haute Halloween of Fashion’s Night Out (look for us at Bergdorf Goodman, contemplatively fondling the Chado Ralph Rucci garments). No matter where you stand on the sartorial continuum of Carhartt to Carolina Herrera, you can spice up your wardrobe with Apliiq. The Los Angeles-based company collects rare, deadstock, and recognizable textiles and applies them to everyday garments (think crying-out-for-customization American Apparel tees). With an ever-changing assortment of limited-edition products and a vast fabric library, the Apliiq website offers a dizzying array of possible color and texture combinations for the DIY-minded. “The name derives from the French word ‘appliqué,’ which means ‘apply,’ and we literally apply fabric, cut into different geometric shapes, onto clothing,” explains founder Ethan Lipsitz. “It’s all online and made to order within a week in downtown LA.” Lipsitz, who graduated from the University Pennsylvania with a degree in urban studies and did a post-grad stint with design studio Dickson Rothschild, paused in his fabric scouting to answer our seven questions.

What led you to start Apliiq?
I have always enjoyed being creative with what I wear. In high school I started hand-stitching my mother’s fabrics onto my hoodies to add a little personal flavor. In college I stitched a Karate Kid headband onto the hood of a hoody and it became a coveted item amongst my friends. Needless to say, I started making Karate Kid hoodies for all my classmates. I quickly discovered the local fabric district in Philly and began playing more with lining hoods and stitching the fabrics onto hoodies in creative ways. By my senior year I had learned how to use a sewing machine and was customizing hoodies with my fabric collection for friends and shops around Philly. From the get go it was always about letting them customize and relaying that feeling of wearing something that’s uniquely theirs. With help from friends I built a website and kept the company going as a hobby business while living in Sydney and working in architecture and urban design. In 2008 I decided I wanted to be my own boss and see if this hobby could be something more, I moved back to the States, set up shop in Los Angeles, and gave myself a year to get Apliiq off the ground. We’ve been running ever since.

What makes a good/successful Apliiq fabric?
Sometimes we can tell when a fabric is going to be a hit, and other times it’s a mystery what takes off. We try to vary the library, but I definitely skew towards bold, simple prints that clearly convey a story or message. Right now animal prints, native, southwestern, and African fabrics are seeing a surge in popularity. It’s often a combination of pattern and motif as well as a particular model and example garment we show that contributes to a fabric’s success.

What are some of your favorite recent additions to the Apliiq fabric library?
I’ve got a bunch of new faves. We have this beautiful vintage soft striped woven fabric that has a linen texture called right stripe that we have only a few yards of. We also just picked up some amazing African fabrics of which Oduele may be my favorite. I spotted it across the shop, and we took it down from the window display—got the last four yards! I’m freaking out on ikats. A friend from Indonesia sent us one a few months ago, and we’ve recently come across an amazing stockpile of Indian ikats that are really fresh. I love how the weave of these fabrics are so engrained in the aesthetic. Lastly, we recently discovered a crazy vintage abstract print online that totally reminds me of Kandinsky, thus named after the man himself.
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It is with great sadness that we relay the news that architect Peter Shelton has died of cancer at the age of 67. A star distiller of big ideas into simple gestures, he formed a dynamic duo with Lee Mindel (the two had been classmates at Penn) in 1978 shortly after graduating from Pratt. Their firm, which now spans planning, architecture, interiors, and product design, quickly built a reputation for its thoughtful modernism and knack with rich materials. You may also recall Shelton’s cameo on Project Runway, when he and wife Laura Bennett (a season-three finalist) welcomed Tim Gunn into the Manhattan loft they shared with six children and and several pets, including a memorably recalcitrant turtle. Last year, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum presented Shelton, Mindel & Associates with the National Design Award for interior design. Shelton called the honor “an invigorating kick in the butt, for me especially, because after thirty years I could use one.” Here are Shelton and Mindel accepting the award from Architectural Digest editor-in-chief Margaret Russell (Shelton’s remarks begin at 3:44):

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Pause for a moment to join New York photographer Tim Barber on an urban skateboard adventure in this dreamy wisp of a film from Native Shoes. The Vancouver-based makers of foam-injection molded-EVA (read: ultralight) kicks—we like the Jimmy boot in Shuttle Grey—tapped Barber for the first installment of “The Natives,” a series of shorts by Corey Adams and Alex Craig (Machotaildrop) that aim to “capture the spirits of a variety of humans across the world, each selected for their creativity, uniqueness, and innovation, showcasing what sets them apart from the other seven billion people on this planet.” New films spotlighting passionate people from Los Angeles to Budapest will be posted every two weeks on Nativision and YouTube.

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