GREY AREA

Just before New Year’s, our friends from the Mexico-based fashion label Hacienda Montaecristo took the pop-up store concept to a whole new level by setting up a safari tent across the road from Coqui Coqui, our favorite hotel in Tulum, to house what they call Caravana Montaecristo. The Italian-born founders and friends Francesca Bonato and […]

Inspired by classic Americana, Odin New York owners Eddy Chai and Paul Birardi débuted their sixth fragrance this week. Fittingly, 07 Tanoke, now part of an already impressive lineup of gender-neutral scents, is a modern approach to age-old fragrance traditions. As with the duo’s previous outings—01 Sunda, 02 Owari, 03 Century, 04 Petrana, and 06 Amanu—the newest addition to the Odin collection is marked by the exoticism of travel. A perfect antidote to winter blues, it evokes the aromas of a Northern California seaside escape—think Big Sur bungalow style, amid lush redwood forests with pristine coastal waters close by.

Feit, the brainchild of Tull Price, is launching its first luxury retail collection this spring. After a year and a half of exclusively servicing customers and retailers through the online platform FeitDirect.com—with the exception of the Sydney Feit store—partnerships are now in the works with retailers in several cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo.

The turnover at 57 Walker Street is heavy this autumn, with five different designer-architect collaborations taking their turn in the small Chinatown storefront that is the site of this year’s BOFFO Building Fashion series with barely more than a week each to set up. But despite appearances to the contrary—the taped floor, the exposed ceiling, the scaffolding, the dust—the Patrik Ervell pop-up shop is indeed open and ready for business.

The brothers behind Leong Leong Architecture—Chris, 33, and Dominic, 32—have received great attention from their peers—they won the New Practices award from the American Institute of Architects in 2010—and the fashion industry alike, collaborating with Opening Ceremony, Siki Im, and 3.1 Phillip Lim to create the spaces that help define those brands. Their most recent building, 3.1 Phillip Lim’s flagship store in South Korea, is their second project with the fashion designer (the 3.1 Phillip Lim shop in Los Angeles is also a Leong Leong design), who asked the brothers to share their thoughts on Ellsworth Kelly, the meeting place of fashion and architecture, and what should be done about Penn Station.

Climbing the steps to (3×1)’s paper-windowed storefront, I worried momentarily that I had come to the wrong place. A quick knock on the door later, however, and none other than Scott Morrison himself—(3×1) founder and Earnest Sewn alum—greeted me with a big smile. Inside, the Mercer Street boutique showed every sign of a work-in-progress, all paint cans, beams of lumber, coffee cups, and dusty floors. Exactly how far were they from opening day? “That’s on Thursday, so three days from now,” said Anna Shimonis, one of (3×1)’s lead designers. “Oh wow—that’s pretty soon!” she added with a laid-back laugh.

Precision as a theme was apparent at this year’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair, most notably in the Chassis Chair by Stefan Diez for Wilkhahn, a beautifully innovative tour de force of design and engineering—metal formed like a German luxury car, construction as tight and precise as a made-to-measure suit. Similar crisp lines and construction define the W101, an LED lamp made of formed biodegradable paper and designed by Claesson Koivisto Rune in collaboration with lighting manufacturer Wästberg and forestry group Södra. Paper sheets are sandwiched and interleaved with electronics before being molded into the elegant and simple form.

“Honestly, it was the Housewives!” insists Austrian artist Fawni Pschill as she expounds on her inspiration for the irreverent series “Packing List of a Jetsetter.” That’s right kids, Fawni is talking about the Real Housewives of Orange County—and she’s proud of it. The painter-musician-creative is as colorful as her work: electric blue ruffles gather around her neck, green and orange eyeliner frame her gray eyes, and bright flowers protrude from a freshly coiffed blonde up-do.

During Art Basel Miami Beach, The Last Magazine curated a one-day exhibition called The Last Space at the Webster Miami. Half our masthead (Aimee, Alastair, Magnus, and Tenzin) was there working hard to make the magazine come to life—carrying, building, hanging, and dressing with great help from our local friend Lauren Gil and our Intern Samantha Tobias.