Wear What When

Give It Up: Handcrafted Modern

The new bible for lovers of modern architecture and neo-traditional craft.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Dec 19, 2011 at 07:25AM 0 Comments

Talk about apartment therapy. This photo-heavy text takes readers inside homes and worlds that really inspire—whether they’re wooly Fremont types or high-rise design specialists.

Who gets it: Friends who live in a tree house like four-plex in Fremont, or the friends who reside in a slick Belltown condo. In fact, your friend of family member could be a couch-surfer or a nomad, as long as they’ve got an appreciation for handmade artisan aesthetics and architecture, they’re fair game. (Though it would be nice if the giftee has access to a coffee table, for displaying their new bible.)

Why: Leslie Williamson’s image-heavy text brings them inside the homes of architecture giants such as Russel Wright, George Nakashima, Charles and Ray Eames, and Walter Gropius, where the interiors are not as clean, minimal, and sparse as you might imagine. They’re the homes of magpies, really, and the collections reveal a rough-hewn, tactile, artisan-touched world of natural fibers and daydream design.

The architects who live in these rooms truly live inside the world. It’s such an an inspiration. I bought the book for myself last year before leaving San Francisco; by the time the plane landed in Seattle I sort of felt like I had discovered a new way of life.

Where to find it: Blackbird or the Field House in Ballard, where it’s less than $50. The linked shops’ joint book collection also includes a Ralph Lauren tome for classic America types and a couple of volumes on traditional tattoos of Russian criminals. I once spent a whole sleepless night in a friend’s Brooklyn loft reading the latter. Insomnia introduces a person to such interesting subjects, huh?

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Tags: Blackbird, Gift Guide '11

Give It Up: Stainless Steel Safety Razors

We went to the brand new Ward and Co. Grooming to ask what to give the men in our lives—brothers, dads, boyfriends, husbands.

Posted by: Allie Oosta on Dec 16, 2011 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Old school razors at Ward & Co. make great gifts; they’ll last the dude on your list about ten years, and he’ll feel cool using one.

Who gets it: Facial hair-growing males, especially ones who like throwbacks and classic style. Smooth-movers. Metro gentlemen and rough-and-tumble types.

Why: Stainless steel safety razors are eco-friendly, well made, and save money, skin, and natural resources. The average disposable razor blade costs $4 per blade, which amounts to about $96 dollars a year. Stainless steel razor blades, on the other hand, last for a month, and only cost 80 cents each. Plus, just compare a plastic Bic with one of these weightier, more serious instruments.

Where to find it: Ward and Co. Men’s Grooming, the tie tack–size shop that opened a month ago not far from the Fairmont Olympic on Fourth Ave. The shop’s highly knowledgeable manager, Michael Scott, peddles stainless steel safety razors for between $40 and $100. All the accoutrement to go with? And/or package together, perhaps in a handsome dopp kit? Yes, of course, Scott has that, too.

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Tags: Gift Guide '11

Give It Up: Object’s Porcelain Fortune Cookie

To open or not to open? That’s the question. But get this: Charlie Schuck’s gift gallery is open Christmas morning.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Dec 15, 2011 at 12:12PM 0 Comments

To break or not to break? Porcelain fortune cookies at Object are perfect for drifters and wayward souls. But design freaks, craft collectors, and artful modernists would appreciate them also.

Who gets it: The drifter. The lost. The unsure. The one who obsesses over his/her horoscope while they’re reading tea leaves and consulting ancient runes and insisting that they’re just really having a hard time finding themselves.

Why: Aleksandra Pollner’s porcelain fortune cookies, made in collaboration with photographer, collector, and all-around enthusiast Charlie Schuck for Object, his art-and-gift gallery-and-shop, offer a kind of delicate, durable clairvoyancy. The rough-smooth, smashable-savable rendering of the American icon (I mean, we know these things do not exist in China, right?) sets up an existential dilemma (to break or not to break?) that ought to smack that wayward soul right into a steady job, a heated apartment, and a healthy, plant-based diet.

And yes, there is a fortune in each porcelain ‘cookie’, should your drifter go that route; the artist commissioned an ‘actual psychic’ (I’m not totally sure what that means) to write them.

Oh, and they’re 12 bucks each.

Where to find it: Object, which, it must be noted, is no longer a pop-up shop that you have to be friends with someone on Facebook to get invited into. It did start that way, and the opening parties in Schuck’s loft were pretty much epic, which is another word for ‘a who’s who of Seattle design, culture, fashion, and art.’ It’s also another word for ‘crowded and impossible to actually shop at’, which is why it’s great to see the locally and internationally made objects gathered in a ground floor storefront. (Recognize it? The space was previously occupied by Screaming Trees’ Mark Pickeral, who set it up as a sort of uber-record shop but it didn’t quite fly.)

Photo: Charlie Schuck

The interior of Object on Second Ave across the street from Tavolata.

Find exceptionally well made, smartly conceptualized products from Seattle artists like Grain, Iacoli & McAllister, and Meet Me Here as well as cult Japanese designers and found treasures at this Belltown stop, but keep watch for artist/Object collaborations. There’s something inherently “us” and imaginatively descriptive about what comes from Schuck and his cohorts when they get specific and targeted.

Special note to procrastinators: This is kinda insane but Schuck pledges to be at Object on Christmas morning from 6:30 to 11 in order that you might set off to your holiday gathering with some really lovely and special gifts for your friends and family, instead of the windshield scraper and tube of Blistex that you would have to settle for at 7-11.

(Full disclosure: Among the objects at Object is a small chapbook of sorts that contains work by Lily Raskind, Izzie Klingels, Justine Ashbee, and me; it was designed by Seattle Met art director Andre Mora.)

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Tags: Locally Designed, Made in Seattle, Gift Guide '11

Give It Up: Polaroid Cards

Get them off their iPhone and into the real world for less than $20.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Dec 12, 2011 at 09:30AM 0 Comments

Who gets it: Your friend who might have a slight “problem” with his/her Instagram or Hipstamatic app.

Why: It’s time to get with the real world. From Chronicle: Sweet designs that anyone can feel good about.

Where to find it: Meadow on Queen Anne, a lovely little surprise of a place where gifts and women’s separates are always sunny and cheerful, and remarkably inexpensive. These highly giftable notecards, for instance, a cool $14.95.

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Tags: Gift Guide '11

Give It Up: Seletti Dinnerware

Brilliant. A stylish tabletop piece that really functions as dinnerware, too.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Dec 09, 2011 at 08:15AM 0 Comments

Who gets it: Haute cuisine types, homey comfort food specialists, and whomever else thoroughly enjoys a square meal. Seletti’s Palace series consists of modular non-round plate, cup, and serving dish sets that stack or otherwise easily assemble to form architectural models that look good enough to eat off of.

Why: Imagine, if you will, a condo with limited cupboards. A dinner party in need of a novel approach to tabletop design. The truly two-in-one punch of well-designed, Italian-made, great looking decor and functioning serving pieces makes this a great gift idea.

Where you’ll find it: Velocity Art and Design, which actually has an outlet store, too. Did you know? It was news to me. Check it out on weekends between 10 and 4 at 426 Yale Ave N (that’s two blocks north of their storefront). The discount off-shoot only takes credit cards, will not issue refunds or exchanges, and offers 40 to 80 percent off past season goods. No, you won’t find the Seletti collection there, but who knows what you will find.

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Tags: Home Decor, Velocity Art and Design, Gift Guide '11

Give It Up: Tough Rain Boots

It’s like these rain boots that pose as biker boots were custom made for Seattle.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Dec 02, 2011 at 08:00AM 2 Comments

These are not stiff leather biker boots, these are Däv’s soft rubber, nicely lined waterproof rain boots.

Who gets it: Any female with feet. I’d say that more women ask me about rain boots than anything else (especially since these three pair where featured in our list of 77 stylish and practical Seattle essentials), but I’d be exaggerating. I wouldn’t be exaggerating a lot though. We ladies are fairly concerned with keeping our feet dry but not stupid looking.

Why: Däv’s rubber motorcycle-styled galoshes and lace-up equestrian-inspired models are not stupid-looking at all. They’re remarkably cool looking, actually. I mean, I wouldn’t get on a Harley in them or anything, but I wouldn’t get on a Harley anyway.

Paired with a pair of black jeans and a big comfortable sweater, on the other hand? Well, you’d really be on to something there. Or rather, the female with feet on your holiday shopping list would be on to something.

Where you’ll find it: Endless Knot in Belltown, for less than a $100.

Lace-up, ribbon-tied rain boots—for special occasions?

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Tags: Gift Guide '11

Give It Up: Lady Gaga Giftables

Barneys has a Lady Gaga themed shop-within-a-shop. There are stiletto stockings (like, the hung-on-the-chimney-with-care kind) there.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Nov 29, 2011 at 02:00PM 1 Comments

Goodbye Santa Claus, hello Lady Gaga. It’s a whole new season at Barneys New York.

Who gets it: The Gaga lover on your list.

Why: Life is better with an anthem—and a few related accoutrements—and it’s probably not their fault that they were born too late for Madonna.

Where you’ll find it: Barneys New York across the country, or, you know, the one downtown. It’s a very Gaga season as far as the well-humored high-fashion department store is concerned, and they’re dressing up windows and peddling spiked jewelry, fingerless gloves, and weird makeup in its honor.

The Seattle shop-in-shop isn’t much more than a card table set up between the cosmetics counters and the designer shoes, but it’s worth a visit.

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Tags: Barneys, Gift Guide '11

Give It Up: Design House Robe

And so begins our holiday gift giving ideas.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Nov 25, 2011 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Who gets it: The laziest yet most stylish person you know. Male or female. This gift goes both ways.

Why: It’s no crime to be comfy, and Stockholm’s Design House manages to make comfy look cool.

I can personally vouch for these wraps; the one on my bathroom door sees plenty of action (am I trying to say I’m lazy and stylish???). The cotton is thick and warm but super soft, and it seems to conform to four seasons of Seattle weather.

Besides, robes are a classic winter gift, and this is about as sophisticated and well-made a model as you’re going to find.

Where you’ll find it: Charley and May Co. on Queen Anne; it’s tagged at $240, but you can take 20 percent off through Sunday, November 27.

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Tags: Gift Guide '11