Polish designer Oskar Zieta is the Tim Burton of furniture; adding whimsical, slightly surreal qualities to an industry that often takes itself a little too seriously. His signature piece, the Plopp BlowUp stool, may look like a prop from Alice in Wonderland when deflated, but add a little air from a standard bicycle pump and some mighty clever technology (earning Oskar Zieta numerous design awards) and voila! Surely this must be one of the coolest stools in the world (proof in point... its been featured in FastCompany and Wallpaper magazines). Available in a range of the yummiest powder-coated Pantene colours and loved even by Audi, who recently co-starred Plopp stools in a TV commercial to launch the lightly constructed Audi Q3. As if that wasn’t cool enough, Zieta designed little felt slippers for Plopp, in case you don’t have under-floor heating. Plopp stools come all blown up and ready to go, but you can buy Plopp coat racks and ladders as flat packs. It’s like IKEA for the well heeled.
Australian enquires for Plopp stools to Laurent at Textura.com.au
(That's the charming Laurent, co-founder of Texture sitting on a Plopp)
Cliques Couple lights have taken “intimate” design to a new level. Freshly launched at Decoration + Design 2012, these delightful opaque little LED people (approx. 15cm high) only light up when connected to each other. That’s the kind of true love I want in my bedroom. Nick, the clever young designer of Cliques, must have channeled Coco Chanel when the light bulb went off for this idea; because he designed a matching accessories range (reindeer antlers, halos, teddy bear ears) that add a touch of Classy and Fabulous. No crash over-styling for these Little Light People. At $40 per person, they don’t come cheap (you have to buy a “couple” so they light up) but that’s the price you pay for Love. (Quietly singing “You light up my life” while writing this).
Available at www.rubenandkosch.com from mid August onwards
Goose feather lampshades by Pluma Cubic
My new best friends at Textura, also debuted a celestial cloud of feathered lights. It seems the world, from Milan to Melbourne, is aflutter with feathers; Goose and Rooster feathers to be precise. Not surprising, given the gorgeousness of these handcrafted feather lampshades made by innovative German design house, Pluma Cubic. They’re the Dalai Lama of lightwear. Soft delicate beauties masking strong structures illuminate the age-old wisdom that there is “strength in fragility” (and vice versa). Each lampshade comprises anywhere between 2000-4000 goose (or rooster) feathers, concentrically positioned to accentuate the interplay between light and shade. The result is diffused lighting that would bring a smile to any room. Maybe not the lamp to light your way through Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, but infinitely suitable for 50 Shades of Grey.
Again… enquiries to Laurent at Textura.com.au
According to my furniture designer brother, Michael, one can never have enough stools. They’re so versatile; use as chair, step ladder, foot rest, telephone shelf or mooching central around the kitchen counter. Despite their perennial status, well designed stools don’t come around that often. Hence my delight at discovering the Tom & Jerry stool by Italian design house, Magis. Designed by German designer Konstantin Grcic, this multifunctional three-legged stool was launched at the 2010 Salone del Mobile in Milan. For a humble design house with no factories and an ethos of experimental plastic design, Magis sure does know how to create stool icons (think Bombo, Tam Tam, YuYu).
Now it seems that Gricic’s plastic and birch wood re-make of the humble workshop stool is becoming the must-have furniture piece of 2012. Rumour has it that Brad Pitt bought one for each of his kiddies. With such emerging star potential at its feet, surely it won’t be long before Pixar makes a Tom & Jerry movie.
Available online here or more details on Magis here
With the average TV screen getting wider by the minute and home lounges turning into mini Cannes Film Festival screening rooms, movie studio lighting was as inevitable as Mel Gibson’s swear jar. Enter Stage Left…Tribal Design’s reconditioned studio lamps; so authentically fabulous, they’d catch even Peter Jackson’s eye. When it comes to vintage industrial lights, it doesn’t get much better than the lamps on display at Tribal Design’s stand.
Behold a stunning collection of different sized polished lamp heads, resting stylishly on reconditioned, untreated wood pedestals or suspended from metal chains. They even have original stage lights from Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles. How Tribal managed to source such vintage treasures was pause for thought. That tested my brain for a few minutes until I got distracted with how glamourous it felt to be standing in the glow of spotlights that previously shone on live-action-in-animation legends, Gene Kelly (Anchors Aweigh) and Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins). If only these star-studded spotlights also came with a telephone number for Rita Wilson (co-founder of Playtone Productions), so I could finally get a movie deal (for “To Daylesford with Love).
Tribe Design Lamps can be bought online here
Rita Wilson or Tom Hanks… call me, maybe.
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