August 28, 2009 | New Design | by Anna Sutton |
I get a lot of junk sent to me by email, but every once in a while I get a real beauty, something that makes me laugh out loud at how funny and absurd life can be. The phenomenon of creative canine grooming shows has its home in, you guessed it, the USA. Poodle owners dye, shave, clip and accessorise their pets so they resemble chickens, fairies, underwater sea themes, even American football players. As photographer Ren Netherland has discovered, the extremities of canine grooming have attained cult-like status. Read more
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July 11, 2009 | New Photography | by Anna Sutton |
All you photographers out there, a word up on one of the most prodigious emerging photographers in Australia. And if you’re nursing an inadequacy complex, seeing Nirrimi Hakanson’s folio might propel you to briefly flee your aspirations and think about getting a job at the local supermarket. Hopefully, it will inspire you. The self-taught sixteen-year-old Hakanson has been taking photos on a digital SLR since the age of thirteen, after starting out on a disposable camera. Her distinctive style is ethereal and reminiscent of photo albums filled with enchanted childhood memories. Read more
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May 26, 2009 | New Events | by Anna Sutton |
Piet Parra’s vividly coloured and voluptuous lemming-people get down to Italo Disco in the Amsterdam-based artist’s latest exhibition in Milan. Parra’s new works feature sensual and surreal figures busting raunchy poses to soundscapes from the electronic dance music movement that began in Italy and Europe in the late 1970s. Read more
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April 20, 2009 | New Art | by Anna Sutton |
Melbourne artist Joanna Mortreux’s oil painting, Looking Back Undoes Everything, is peopled with otherworldly anthropomorphic creatures in various states of flight. Inspired by illustrated encyclopedias of animals, these strange life forms possess a dynamic duality that captures the tension between evolution and de-evolution. Read more
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March 11, 2009 | Cool Travel | by Anna Sutton 
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What’s with Airport Hotels? Due to foolishly booking a 6am flight, I recently had the dubious honour of my first Airport Hotel experience, and it just so happened to be in an industrial suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. Or, more specifically, the Airpark Business Centre. When my friend and I pulled up in the taxi, we found that the ‘hotel swimming pool’ was not set amidst a verdant tropical garden, as suggested by the website photos, but was smack bang in the middle of a deliriously circular roundabout. It was a strange sight: a suburban swimming pool and spa surrounded by newly potted palm trees and a safety fence, looking out onto a vista of shiny Japanese cars, the industrial estate looming bleakly in the distance. Read more
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February 3, 2009 | Cool Travel | by Anna Sutton |
When I read Robinson Crusoe as an Australian child, I had no idea that New Zealand was a place harbouring secret beaches where real life castaways could hide from civilization beneath the shade of cool ferns and caves, on beaches overlooking mysterious islands out at sea. The main difference between Coromandel Peninsula’s New Chums beach and the shipwrecked settings depicted in Defoe’s novel is that the only things running riot here are the crimson blossoms of the native Pohutukawa trees. Instead of toothless mutineers, there are placid dotterel birds nesting beneath the sand. Read more
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January 15, 2009 | Cool Travel | by Anna Sutton |
As a child, gold mining towns were exemplified in my mind by boring theme parks populated by out of work actors in naff colonial costumes. My parents used to drag us along in our overheated datsun because they couldn’t afford to take the kids to Disneyland. As often happens, I now appreciate the destinations whose mentions used to prompt a whole lot of whingeing about seatbelt buckle burns and compensation payouts of McDonalds. Walhalla is one such beauty. Set in the misty foothills of Australia’s Baw Baw ranges, it was once a gold era boom-town, but is now home to less than 20 residents (not counting the ghosts). Read more
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January 8, 2009 | Cool Travel | by Anna Sutton |
It’s a Sunday morning and I’m cruising the long desolate stretch of road outside of Geelong that was featured in the Mad Max car chase scenes. Stated destination: Fairy Park, Anakie. I try and imagine Snow White coming to life in this desert wasteland where apocalyptic road warriors once roamed. Up ahead, a giant statue of Gulliver beckons from the base of an extinct volcano. Passing go, we cheer in helium tones as we ascend to a giant pink castle rising above the gum trees. Created by two Germans in the late 1950s, Fairy Park is Australia’s oldest theme park. While it’s easy to cynically dismiss the concept as a gaudy family hell hole rather than a fun spot, on arrival I am immediately reunited with my sense of childhood wonder. Read more
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December 11, 2008 | New Products | by Anna Sutton |
Where plastic roses everywhere remain a testament to the gifts of spring or the virtue of 80s romantic cliches, Astro Turf offers one of Kitsch’s more useful incarnations. It’s a grass is greener artificial nature strip that brings to mind Alice in Wonderland putting on a ’50s Miami golf course while making friends with the pink flamingos. Like flocking, Astro Turf can be used to cover all manner of surfaces: concrete verandahs, carports, handbags, kitchen cupboards, even the car dashboard (whence daisies and mushrooms spring). And considering the poor state of many inner-city gardens (resulting from neglect and water shortages), a piece of fake greenery adorning your balcony or living room gives a welcome respite from modern life. The best thing is it will remain a Soylent shade of green while the summer sun parches the surrounding landscape until it’s as thirsty and wilted as a party without beer.
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November 10, 2008 | Cool Travel | by Anna Sutton |
The Atlanta has the kind of charm and character most tourists wouldn’t expect to find amidst the rambling chaos of modern Bangkok. In contrast with the debauchery of the nearby sex district, this secluded 1950s hotel harks back to more civilised times. As you sip your icy tropical libation at the check-in desk, the quiet grandeur of the art-deco-style foyer takes precedence over your fleeting obsession with passports and heatstroke. Before you know it, the porter is beckoning you to follow him as he carries the luggage to your laidback room. Read more
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I’m so digging the work of Copenhagen illustrator Michael Rytz, with his spontaneous, sketchbook-like work. Characters, like vintage cartoons, parade around, fleshed out through glorious textures and scribbles punctuated with the occasional clean, bold, illustrator-like element for contrast that hits the spot.
London-based DJ, Kelpe, has just recorded a diverse electro mix for the Allez Allez blog, which you can download, turn up to eleven, and nod yo’ head to. It’s just the tonic for an early afternoon kickstart.
Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film. Read more
If words like twentieth century, architecture, salvage, furniture and hodgepodge turn you on, then Retrouvius will enter into The Hall of Fame when it comes to showing off your new digs. I am quite partial to the Central Line Tube Table, being that I take the line everyday. ’Dining on’ instead of ’schlepping in’ could expand relations with the city. You also might enjoy poking through their project page for home inspirations.
How old must Kermit be now? Not to old to collaborate with skater-friendly retailer Supreme and photographer Terry Richardson. Kermit, who usually wears nothing, has been hooked up with some new threads to advertise the brand. It seems Kermit and Terry are the perfect work partners: they’ve even released a video clip documenting the shoot.
The My Town In My Home collection of hand-knitted fashion by Yoshikazu Yamagata and Mafuyu was exhibited at this year’s Amhem Mode Biennale in Amsterdam. Sure gives a new twist to the saying, ‘wherever I lay my hat …’ [see also the Brain Bag by Jun Takahashi]
The duo of Brendan Monroe and Evah Fan are one of those creative, powerhouse couples. Though two entirely individual artists, the influence they exert upon one another is subtle yet undeniable. Both create the kind of art that that makes you giddy with pleasure, while the lack of pretension puts you completely at ease. You get the undeniable sense that these are two people who simply live and breathe creativity and love every moment of it. Two amazing artists with a wholly individual take on life and the world around them. I had the pleasure to grill them both. Read more
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Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film. Read more
Yum, yum, cupcakes are fun. These creations are so clever, so arty, so damn bizarre that it would almost be a shame to eat them. Almost! Read more
Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.
Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
There is not a medium that UK illustrator Lizzy Stewart cannot wrap around her little finger to make the most beautiful, whimsical images. Read more
Wolfmother. Rock n roll. Mystical lyrics. Heavy riffs. They have a new album out, Cosmic Egg, and we have five copies to giveaway, along with their debut album. To enter, tell us your favorite Wolfmother song and the city you live in. Yo! Two fingered salute. Read more
The Offering t shirt by New York-based designer Ryan Sullivan is printed by hand, one at a time, using a dye-based print. Printed on cotton/poly blend tees. Size is true to fit. Read more
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