Japan
I know what you’re going to say: 200 bucks for a dinky flash drive is preposterous. But, the boxus, sandalwood, amobna and pteroceltis tatarinowii wood drives by Bronon are slicker than any overpriced it-brand accessory…
Well, YZ and I finally crumbled under the pressure of all those Football Sunday flatscreen commercials and got ourselves a fancy-pants television. So, in celebration of the new gadget, we curled up in front of Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (タンポポ) last night with stomachs growling the whole way through…
Winter is in full-swing here in New York: with two snow days so far and plenty of biting winds. So, instead of griping about having to trudge to the bodega for a pint of milk, grab this frosty opportunity and expand your cold-weather accessory collection! I adore busting out my winter hats, and add a few more trophies to the stockpile each year. What’s more, I’m one of those lucky people who’s coiff reacts rather well to hat hair… Etsy, queen of crafty commerce, is an endless trove of caps, cloches, balacavas and berets…
We’ve been waiting for these slick iPhone accessories for a good few months now and are thrilled that Poddities straps and loops have arrived just in time for us to crown them as THE perfect stocking stuffers this holiday. Available from always-reliable Amazon, the straps come in natural and black leather or red, orange, yellow, green, blue, gray, and white seatbelt-weave styles. Get rid of that nasty case and flaunt your newly pimped iPhone!
This holiday season, whether you’re driving over the hill and through the woods or taking a transatlantic aeroplane to get to grandma’s house, the better you pack the smoother your journey will be. The comfort of long travels comes down to one essential piece of luggage: the Carry-On (or, if you’re roadtripping, the one bag you don’t chuck in the trunk). When the wonderful Jee Kim, founder of Peasants and Travelers, sent us the P&T Doctor’s Bag to test drive, I immediately knew that this hard-shelled beauty was born to make my flights to Marseille and Tel Aviv more bearable…
Just in case you think Poketo is still solely in the business of making radical limited edition art-covered wallets, this post is for you. They make other stuff. Lots of cool i-want-it other stuff, like, kawaii up the whazoo (more on that right after this, pinky swear…)! For now, lets talk shirts. $28 a pop, kids sizes are $22, and sale tees run approx. $10. The designs are by artists the world across (Tokyo, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Seoul…) with several bios on the site to peruse as well. Here are more of my favorites:
Fall weather means sock weather and there’s just no excuse for boring socks. So, if your socks need some sprucing, head over to Ashi Dashi, the Japanese-American one-stop-sock-shop, whose design inspirations range from cobs of corn to slabs of meat to cigarette butts… So, what’s up with the funny name?
“When the flowers laugh we’re all happy. However there’s always the other side, if they laugh too much. Children pick this up right away, that it’s not natural, much more than adults do. For instance, when adults buy something for their children, the boys and girls immediately know why they’ve done it and in this work I wanted to convey to the children of the world that there are places with light and places without light.”
This great new widget from Uniqlo provides for endless hours of comfortably numb relaxation. Watch time lapse video clips of dancers in a Shizuoka parade, A cricket practice warm-up in Tokyo, and lapping waves in Okinawa as well as 29 other scenes including four more Japanese cities (Kanagawa, Hyogo, Tokushima, and Kyoto) in Japan…
Some people do yoga, burn sage and eat salt crystals. When my stress levels are through the roof, I do origami. Thus, stumbling upon Hasegawa Yosuke’s global collection of currency origami was like mastering the Vrischika-asana (um, that’s yoga jargon for scorpion pose).
These Japanese fabric squares were once used to bundle dirty linens for transport to the sentō (public baths). Furoshiki (風呂敷) have been around for over a thousand years and have been given a 21st century makeover as an out of the box, eco-friendly method of gift wrapping. Some crafty folders even use the cloths as little purses!