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Scott + Cooner
First to recommend
Description
This small Texas-based chain carries over 15 Italian brands, including Acerbis, Baleri Italia, Casa Milano, Dema, Fiam Italia, Flexform, Foscarini, Matteo Grassi, Porada, Tre-Pui and Zanotta. The retail store was founded in 1995 by architect Lloyd Scott and interior designer Josette Cooner. The company carries modern European-designed furniture that ranges from well-known brands such as Poliform to ones still fairly new to the US market like Tre-Pui. Scott + Cooner has retail stores located in Austin and Dallas. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 13, 2006
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Boffi Los Angeles
First to recommend
Description
When it comes to clean, timeless Italian design, nothing compares to Boffi Los Angeles. “I incorporate Boffi products into my designs because they are unique,” says Arizona-based architect Peter Magee. “When I first saw their Po tub, it blew my mind. It took me two months to track it down—and after it was delivered, I saw that the pictures didn’t do it justice.” Named after Italy’s Po River, this gorgeously simple tub is carved out of pure limestone and weighs an awesome 1984 pounds. It usually has to be delivered by forklift—but it would be the center of attention no matter how it arrived. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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Flos
First to recommend
2 people recommended this item
Description
Although she’s a bit computer-shy, interior designer Sally Sirkin Lewis of Inglewood, California, favors lighting easily found on the Web from the Italian firm Flos. Recently Sirkin chose Flos’s Parentsi lamp for a private residence. “It’s sleek and minimal,” she says—a perfect match for her understated style, which mixes classic design with soft, modern, natural materials. “Spending time in Rome, Milan and Florence turned me on to Italian task lighting—I use it almost exclusively in my work,” Sirkin says. Now, if she’ll learn to love the computer, she won’t need to make the trip again. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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Orange Skin
First to recommend
Description
Wrapping up a recent project for the offices of Invisalign, Chicago-based architect James Papoutsis didn’t have to look far for the finishing touch: The local pros at Italian-design-crazy Orange Skin had just what he needed. White lounge chairs and Philippe Starck’s clear plastic Ero[s] seats made the offices clean and spare, adding a subtly stylish nod to its functional, transparent product: contact lenses. Even Papoutsis was impressed. "Orange Skin’s owners and operators, Giuseppe Cerasoli and Obi Nwazota, are two accomplished designers who are able to understand the particular language of my projects," he says. "They are able to make informed recommendations, saving me endless amounts of time. It’s like having my own personal design department." Striking contemporary Italian furniture and modern design objects can also be seen on the company’s website. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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Atmosphere Furniture
First to recommend
2 people recommended this item
Description
Atmosphere is one of the US firms that has its high-quality custom designs manufactured in Brazil; Shelly Baduay, who heads the Los Angeles–based company, calls it a symbiotic arrangement. “We work only with wood certified by the Brazilian government,” she says. “That means we never use any tree until it has completed its life cycle, and we’re proud to be able to produce 300 pieces of furniture from a single tree. It also means that it may well be five more years before we receive another such specimen of a particular tree.” (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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Artefacto
First to recommend
Description
Artefacto, a world-renowned manufacturer of luxury furnishings, sells its goods domestically through its own stores and grabs attention with a substantial marketing ploy: an annual interior design contest using Artefacto furniture and accessories. The winning designers create model rooms for customers to wander through on the second floor of each store. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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Design Public
First to recommend
3 people recommended this item
Description
When “design nuts” Drew Sanocki and Sina Djafar launched Edge Modern, a Web-based company dedicated to modern furnishings and bedding, their well-edited offerings quickly won the attention of modernist design devotees like Sherry Black. “I was trying to track down a specific rug for a restaurant client and I needed it in short order,” says the Wilmington, NC, interior designer, who discovered Edge Modern during her search. “After one conversation with Drew and Sina—and no luck with the rug—I trusted them to help me choose another one, which turned out to be perfect.”
Now the pair are flinging open the “doors” of their cyber store to hold an ongoing design town meeting. The expanded and renamed site, www.designpublic.com, will continue to offer selections from both well-known design sources (Blu Dot, Dwell, Angela Adams) and lesser-known ones (Variegated, John Kelly Furniture). But users can also click their way into forums, photo galleries, chats with guest designers, blogs on new products and primers demystifying such subjects as thread counts. “I want the site to be as interactive as possible, one where customers can share information, opinions and resources with one another,” says Sanocki, who has been known to direct clients away from his site and to Ikea for certain products. This kind of openness may explain why Sherry Black and other designers and architects plan to keep up with the ongoing designpublic.com conversation. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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Contemporary Cloth
First to recommend
Description
As a child, Sondra Borrie spent hours watching her aunt, New York abstract expressionist painter Margaret Milliken (above), apply oils to canvas. “I was just mesmerized by her work,” Borrie recalls. But her admiration didn’t stop with her aunt. “Being around her opened my eyes to abstract art and contemporary design,” says the former occupational therapist who, after struggling to find the right retro fabrics for her own design projects, launched Contemporary Cloth.com, a Cleveland-based website, in 2001. The site reflects Borrie’s love for mid-century-modern textiles and features a selection of striking but affordable fabrics for upholstered pieces—a welcome source now that the designs of the 1950s and ’60s have taken off, with the soaring prices to prove it.
When visiting Contemporary Cloth, head for the Interior Design Textiles section, where you can choose from an assortment of medium- to heavy-weight retro fabrics. For help with selecting patterns and colors, click on Continue Shopping after fabrics have been placed in your cart and go to the Interactive Design Wall, a handy tool for mixing and matching digital swatches. When done, you can feel virtuous about virtually shopping here: Borrie donates 1 percent of her profits to a local homeless shelter. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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www.1stdibs.com
First to recommend
3 people recommended this item
Description
When planning the guest bedroom for the owners of a log-and-stone home in the Colorado Rockies, Vail-based designer Melissa Greenauer wanted to create a cozy seating area where visitors could relax, read and soak up the spectacular mountain views. She turned—as she often does—to 1stdibs.com, a designer’s dream resource of antique- and contemporary-furniture dealers in markets from Paris to Los Angeles. Launched by Web entrepreneur Michael Bruno in 2001, the site features seating, lighting, tables, mirrors and other furnishings that are high-end and unique, says Greenauer. Prices are negotiable, she adds, and most designers purchase directly from dealers. For her clients’ guest bedroom, she found two Art Deco chairs with soft rolled arms, a pair of Murano glass sconces and pendant fixtures that lend the space the warm, inviting look she was after. Visitors to the jam-packed site can search for furnishings by city, country of origin, century, dealer, category, designer or price, then store items for purchase in a virtual stockroom. New items are posted every Wednesday. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
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The Brass Knob
First to recommend
Description
“I recently restored two mantels I found at the Brass Knob, and underneath years of paint, there were two bisque angels and an incredible amount of detail,” says Washington, DC, interior designer Beth Peacock. “It’s impossible to find that kind of artisanship in new pieces today.” Peacock relies on the DC shop—and its 9,000-square-foot sister, The Brass Knob Back Doors Warehouse—for many of the projects she oversees, including a recently completed renovation on Capitol Hill for which she tapped the store for five fireplace mantels, not to mention lighting fixtures, door knobs and other hardware for nearly every room in the house.
Those of us outside, or even way outside, the Beltway can go online to view roughly 60 percent of the Brass Knob’s store inventory of architectural antiques. The Web catalog includes hardware, several types of lighting, decorative tiles, ironwork, columns, bath fixtures and stained glass, among other categories—items that date mostly from the mid-1800s through the 1930s. Owners Donetta George and Ron Allan—who Peacock says “could not be more knowledgeable or helpful”—are happy to answer questions, provide detailed digital photographs and ship anywhere. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 12, 2006
