POP 286 Tuesday 11 May 2010

Today's POP is Isabelle. Not only did she get some great stuff at the latest Dover Street Market sale – she gave us this.

How cool? Very cool! Americana takes a trip to Dover Street market this week as Tommy Hilfiger announces the pre-launch of it's limited edition footwear collection featuring Keith Haring's iconic artwork. The Haring-heavy window display was designed by Studio Andy Hillman, and the selection features mens, womens AND children's styles, starting from £49.00. Fashion forward families take note!)

POP 285 Monday 10 May 2010

Today's POP is Max. He's in love with this Japanese girl.

Established by designer Chitose Abe in 1999 after eight years of working with the Junya Watanabe collection at Comme des Garçons, Japanese label Sacai is a little favourite of ours here at POP. Abe has even branched out into loungewear, a men's collection, a capsule collection called Sacai Gem, sold at Dover Street Market, and has just designed a mini-collection with Moncler available from the current SS 2010 season. PHEW! And we thought we were organised, replying to every other email we get… 
 

Delicate, feminine and thoughtful, we thought you might like a peep at the FW10 collection, leather and all, and if you imagine wearing a few pieces hard enough, you might even warm up during this shocking summer we're having.

Bye! (Buy!)

POP 284 Friday 7 May 2010

Today’s POP is Becky, writing from the bottom of Soho House’s swimming pool in Berlin.

The whole office decided to take the weekend off and fly to Berlin to celebrate the end of the ash (or is it?) and go see some great art at the Berlin Gallery weekender. First stop was at Haunch of Venison gallery for Damien Hirst and Michael Joo’s  Have You Ever Really Looked into the Sun? The after party and dinner was held in the brand new Berlin Soho House which opened for one weekend only to entertain Hirst, Joo and their guests.
 

There was a beautiful and international crowd, a rocking DJ, champagne on tap and a few of us managed to end up at the bottom of the pool. This is where I stayed  for the rest of the weekend. Can someone please come and help me out?
 
Before the fall I managed to catch up with Michael and Damien to ask them some pure POP questions.

 
POP: Can you tell me why you decided to collaborate together?

DH: I’ve known Mike for 20 years and we have always talked about doing a show together, usually in the wee hours, drunk out of our minds. It was a long time coming but had to be done.
 

MJ: I think we were both thinking about it last year when Harry (Blaine) saw my show in New York at Anton Kern. In the end, Damien suggested it to both of us and we curated it together. 

POP: What is your affinity with Berlin?

DH: I had a great time there and my eldest son Connor was made in Berlin. Before Berlin, I lived in a council flat in London, and when I went to live in Berlin it was for a fellowship where they put me up in a big beautiful house and two studios, one for

POP 283 Thursday 6 May 2010

Today's Pop is Laura. She just loved the wonderlamps from her round up of Salone Del Mobile so much she had to give it a blog of it's own…

It has occurred to me that just the one image of the Wonderlamp's in my previous design posting might have been unnecessarily stingy. Especially since this collection of bizarre products are just the kind of things you might want to luxuriate in. So feast your eyes The Pop readers – here is the full collection.

Studio Job have been at the forefront of fantastical Dutch design for some time. Hyper-craft, monumentalism and archetypes are their bag. Pieke Bergmans is a rising star on the Dutch design scene and hand-blown crystal has featured heavily in her past collections. Together they have created the 'Wonderlamp' collection which is a meeting of Job's monumental everyday objects, here in cast bronze, and Bergman's freeform blown crystal. Although giant, the lamps are working lights, thereby lending these follys a genuine function.

READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY ⎯ ⎯ >

POP 282 Wednesday 5 May 2010

Today's Pop is David. He's been looking forward to today for quite some time. Mostly because his waiting is finally over. Pop of the Trench baby!

For the last couple of months, we – together with some very, very nice people at Burberry – have been planning our very own version of Artofthetrench.com.  We call it Popofthetrench.thepop.com. Together with lots of our wonderful P.O.P's, we've set out to interpret the iconic Burberry trench. And as you might know by now, our P.O.P's are an eclectic bunch that bring all kinds of creativity. Think they don't? Have a look.

For the next month we'll be adding unique contributions from our Partners onto Popofthetrench.thepop.com on a daily basis with Burberry's Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey keeping a close eye – he'll add the ones he likes to Artofthetrench.com and the best of those will end up as a feature in the next Pop.

Follow our blog, Popofthetrench, Artofthetrench and all our partner's blogs to stay in the loop.

PS. Can you decipher the text in the picture?

POP 281 Tuesday 4 May 2010

Today’s Pop is Laura who is back, for your pleasure, with more tales from the Salone de Mobile in Milan.
 

Five full days just wasn’t enough to see the hundreds of exhibits by designers, manufacturers and brands at the Salone de Mobile. Thankfully, quantity did not mean quality was diminished – quite the opposite, with young designers and established brands both pulling out all the stops. There was more of a leaning towards (no real surprise here) commerciability than usual with products being marketed as affordable, economical and, in some cases, available for immediate purchase. Creative innovations were plentiful too and everything from man-made clouds (Toshiba) to robot lights (Ingo Maurer) provided some real spellbinding moments. Design for 2010 is about seamless, quality manufacturing (craft or mass), efficiency of design and beautiful materials. Get into lighting, watch-out for the Norwegians, you cant have enough wood.

Here is my top ten:

- Aldo Bakker’s ‘Copper Collection’ from Thomas Eyck was just stunningly made. No-one does contemporary craft better than Mr Eyck.

- The Join collection of graphic screens by design duo BCXSY is made by a Tategu master in Japan.

-  Michaël Verheyden is a new name. His ‘Coupe’ collection for When Objects Work are each made by specialists in wood, leather, stone.

-  ECAL provided the best student exhibition (again). Linn Kandel’s ‘Pylone’ tables are representative of the commercial-cum-beautiful pieces on show there.

-  ‘Wonderlamp’ at Dilmos by Studio Job and Pieke Bergmans really wowed us. This was a great, unexpected, collaboration.

-  Every year I think I will have had enough of Swarovski’s Crystal Palace but every year I’m proven wrong. Yves Béhar’s ‘Amplify’ was great in

POP 280 Monday, 3 May 2010

Today's Pop is Ashley. Yes, after a "strange siesta" he's back… and backstage with Vika Gazinskaya.

Highlight of Moscow's Cycles & Seasons fashion event, Vika Gazinskaya is less 'one-to-watch' than the lady you just cant ignore right now. From the Sartorialist downwards, every fashion blogger loves this Moscow-based designer and her trademark striking take on a non-vulgar modern chic. What is it with these Russians?
 

Here's a THEPOP.COM quick fire five. Bit rushed and bit drunk, so forgive the off-the-cuff questioning.

1. Vika, what were the moods and inspirations for this latest collection?

The ideas came from working with the fabrics; the new ones I researched at Premiere Vision. In every collection I try to explore the volume, the
shape. So basically this collection was about a new silhouette for me. I felt that the rectangle shape that dominated for the past 2-3 years was over-used
and I wanted something new. Fashion to me is like architecture in a sense that it always demands new solutions in form, and architecture was the main
drive for me this time. I worked the feminine silhouette but tried to find new proportion.

2. You seem to be a very big admirer of Stefano Pilati's tenure at Yves Saint Laurent. Explain how and why this designer inspires you so much.

Yes, I do love Stefano Pilati's work, but he is not the only one for me. There are 5 or 6 designers that I really follow and feel are very mordern and strong. Among them are Alber Elbaz, Raf Simons, Phoebe Philo, Hannah MacGibbon and Miuccia Prada. But yes, I admire Stefano and the way he works with the Saint Laurent archives. And, for me, his work defines a refined French chic.

READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY ⎯ ⎯ >

POP 279 Weekend, 1-2 May 2010

Today's Pop is The LDN Crew. Everyones' head says OW

With the Pop team currently evenly split between Berlin Gallery Weekend and some Camden Crawl mayhem, it has to be said that London can still more than hold its own when you just cant face – or afford – the easyJet. Pop's LDN Crew are pleased to announce that this weekend has rocked… and that drinking champagne with Andreas Gursky is surely overrated now that every glossy mag ponce does that well-worn social scene.

Three things that Berlin hasn't got this weekend:

1. The brilliant Dover Street Market sale. Thanks to Nancy at Purple for smuggling Pop in pronto. Max got a killer Comme coat in rainbow colours to dazzle all his fashion PR fans. Ashley added more Lanvin evening wear to his shockingly louche wardrobe. Us girls got lots of perfect Margiela and Junya for about £20 a throw. 

In Berlin they have shops in Mitte where Raf Simons costs a couple of grand. At this sale a beautiful mens suit was £95. Hmm…

2. It's not just about The Camden Crawl indie mosh anymore. With the establishment of Primrose Chill, you've now got the option of hanging with Ewen McGregor, Daniel Craig and the rest just over the Chalk Farm bridge in sexy, scandalous Primrose Hill. The new, unsigned bands here yesterday were if anything more of a delight than the Camden big names (Sugababes etc…) Nice to wander from pub to pub in the same street that 007 James Bond now lives and dance away a Bank Holiday afternoon. Was there any "Promiscuous Hill" action on show? Not really, they've all gone and got too many kids now, right? Although Anya Yiapanis of Intrepid agency was showing off tres Givenchy cleavage in The Lansdowne as some teenage band got everyone dancing to a cute version of MIA's "Paper Planes". Did Jude Law spot you then, Anya?

3. The highlight of Camden this weekend? Has to be Friday night's Gorillaz show at The Roundhouse which was, let's make no mistake, AMAAAAAAAZING! The Pop team got snuck in at the last minute

POP 278 Friday, 30 April 2010

Today's POP is David. He's just about to reveal a Gagosian secret.

There are two hardcovers of the last POP that are exclusively available at the Gagosian Gallery in NYC. Go-on, make the trip, buy it. We're talking collectors items – really worth anyones while.