Even as we dive headlong into 2009, I still just had to squeeze in a word on these quite lovely window displays by Nendo for the Italian luxury leather brand Tod’s. ”Bringing a Christmas spirit out of the wintry darkness”, the Japanese designer happily shirks the classic yuletide mantle in favour of an utterly compelling nightsky blue. Dead simple display cases made from light-reflective panels, specially printed with stars and snowflakes, are sweet and disarming, having something of the fascination one feels peering into a dolls’ house. Nendo gets the balance just right between a big first impression, even (or maybe especially) from a distance, and leaving room for the bags and boots to take over and shine (literally), once our potential punter is at close range on the other side of the glass. And how he does it, for me, is all down to the perfect shade of BLUE.
Skin is the Florence address in a new network of cutting edge cosmetic surgery clinics in Asia and Europe. The work of British designer Michael Young, the Borgo San Jacopo clinic, like the Taipei branch before it, is fruit of a close collaboration with Icelandic artist (and Young’s ex-wife) Katrin Olina. Interior design and surface decoration are one and the same, with the team using new glass printing technology by Dupont to quite literally fuse Olina’s playful diamonds and luscious florals with the austerity and ice cold glamour of polished glass. But the designers, it might also be said, go further. Merging the dual authorities of contemporary cosmetic surgery, medicine and fashion, in spirit at least. And doing so with great aplomb.
