The easter bunny knows me so well, it brought me Robin + Lucienne Day, Pioneers of Modern Design. This book is amazingly inspiring, so many beautiful prints!

Lately I’ve been a little homesick for Williamsburg, and when NYLON mag covered Savior Scraps I instantly had to look them up. They are a Brooklyn based artistic collective who create works out of donated scraps of fabric and materials.

Lately I’ve had a lot of people asking me what it is that I do during my days. And my answer to that is, I direct a textile swatch studio in Philadelphia called Printfresh. Many of you are probably not familiar with this aspect of the fashion industry. The gist of it is that when apparel companies need artwork for their garments and want a fresh look from outside their artwork department they turn to swatch studios who come and show their work. It’s a great way for apparel companies to look at artwork, select pieces that suit their needs, and send it off to their production facilities right away (cutting down on lengthy artwork development stages).

All of the artwork that we as well as other swatch studios create is one of kind a kind and only sold once, this ensures that no two apparel companies will have the same artwork on their garments.

This weekend Leo and I went to check out a new men’s wear shop on 3rd Street that I totally love called Deep Sleep. It’s merchandise is slightly hip-hop inspired (BTW-hip-hop t’s are taking over whether we like it or not), and the store reminds me a bit of Colette in Paris. They also have an art gallery in the upstairs which is worth checking out. There is an exhibit by Carina Romano showing at the moment (the shot above is a piece from the show).

I saw a picture styled by Lala over at Oh Joy!, and I love her sensiblitites. The pictures feel so natural and elegantly lazy (and I mean lazy in the best way possible!).

Inspiration…I love seeing a good photoshoot, one that shows a new perspective on beauty,clothing, and character. I love Mariacarla Boscono as the model (especially as a bruenette!), and I am deeply envious of her makeup artists’s ability to wave around a little Yves Saint Laurent liner with such perfection.

Another amazing present I received this Christmas was the book, Sample, Cuttings from Contemporary Fashion. I am completely in love with this book, it’s jam packed of great pictures of some of my favorite designers, along with a bunch that I hadn’t heard of before (which is refreshing to me, as most fashion books just cover the main stream). This book is curated by many fashion greats, along with Alexander McQueen. One of my favorite finds from the book, as shown in the above pic is Mina Perhonen’s collection. The styling of the photoshoots are amazing, check out her site at http://www.mina-perhonen.jp/.

As part of the kickoff to holiday hangout time Leo and I watched the movie Clean by Oliver Assayas. I always hate to be a lover of the heroine chic look, but I can’t help it. Her outfits are amazingly casual and her hair is always perfectly poufy. The added bonus is also that Brian Eno did the soundtrack. Enjoy!

Okay, so I’m totally delighted that Eley Kishimoto finally has a functioning website. They are after all one of my favorite design teams ever (I treasure the few pieces that I am fortunate enough to own by them). And to make things even better they have a blog. Check it out here. I love this shot of some yardage for their interior projects.

Leo and I were strolling around Williamsburg this weekend doing some holiday shopping when we came across my new favorite shop. Mc&Co is a small new shop located at 57  North 6th Street. It’s a wonderful collection of home and personal objects. Everything has a very warm but pleasantly reserved feeling. It was so refreshing to step into a store full of beautiful things which I had never seen before. These days so many shops carry the same brands, but this store is absolute bliss. This shop was opened in September in by Corinne Gilbert, who is one of the most pleasant shop owners I’ve come across in a while. I advise all of you in the NY area to make the trip out there, I assure you will be as delighted as I am to have found it!

This weekend while participating in the Gift on Grand I met Ann Wood.  I am completely enamored with her beautiful aesthetic and fantastical creations.  I love these boats.  I strongly advise checking out her website to see her amazing handmade birds.  I’m deeply contemplating having some birds custom made for as our wedding cake topper.

I love the new Barneys New York holiday catalog. The illustrations by Andy Warhol are so amazingly cute. I love his illustrations so much!

All of you in the Philadelphia area should head over to Philadelphia University on Friday night (December 8th).  The show goes from 4-7 pm and is located at the Design Center (4200 Henry Avenue).  The show will be up until the 19th of December.

I was paging through Tiny Showcase and came across a print by artist Jeana Sohn which immediately caught my attention.  It’s so lovely, but unfortunately sold out.  The above image is a painting which is on her site.  I love the Russian story book feeling to her pieces.  They are minimal in coverage but incredibly narrative.

I was admiring Candy Pratt’s holiday gift guide on style.com of all things white, and came across these amazing plates by Studio Job for Royal Tichelaar Makkum. I highly recomend checking out the Royal Tichelaar Makkum site, artists such as Hella Jongerius and so on have made amazing contemporary ceramics through Royal.

(photo courtesy of style.com)