Neasden Control Centre

Neasden Control Centre is Stephen Smith, an illustrator based in London. He works a lot with a mix of hand drawn and found elements, layering everything up in Photoshop via the use of the Multiply blending mode. Well worth a good dig.

The Wanderer - A Film for Dior Homme

Dior Homme are promoting their AW 11 collection with a short film by Willy Vanderperre called The Wanderer. If you're interested in styling or promotion, this is well worth a look.

Sally Freshwater

Sally Freshwater’s work emerges from a continual fascination with the architectural potential of textiles. Working with a combination of pliable and solid elements she creates forms where all the parts work in harmony, each reliant on the next to maintain the structure, the works relating to the body through scale and how they occupy the field of vision. The intention is to provide a focus. While the textile is for the most part treated as a sculptural material, a detailed knowledge of the inherent qualities of the fabric is necessary for the structures success.

Walter Van Beirendonck, Nick Knight and stylist Simon Foxton

Celebrating the larger-than-life talent of fashion maverick Walter Van Beirendonck and his retrospective at the Antwerp Fashion Museum, in May 2011 Nick Knight and stylist Simon Foxton immortalised the finest pieces from his archive in photography and fashion film, showcased as part of the exhibition Dream The World Awake at the Antwerp Fashion Museum and also included as a retrospective editorial in Autumn/Winter 2011 GQ Style.

Sep 13 2011 Dream the World Awake

Sandra Backlund

Jun Nakao

Brazilian designer Jum Nakao has mastered the art of paper fashion. This dress collection made its debut in 2004 at Sao Paulo’s Fashion Week, in a paper themed runway performance titled Sewing the Invisible. At the end of the show, the models were told to tear up their dresses “as a reminder that fashion is a medium and not an end in itself”. (Quote sourced from Perfect Paper)

Radical Fashion

Radical Fashion

Eleven world-renowned contemporary fashion designers were invited to collaborate with the Victoria & Albert Museum to create the unique installations which make up this exhibition.

Motivated by different impulses, and of different generations and nationalities, each designer has in common a highly influential place in the fashion world. These designers cut through ideas as well as fabric. Challenging established views, they have committed their lives to seeking ever more demanding expressions of 'beauty', with diverse and often provocative results.

Amos Tranque

A PULLING FORCE. This Collection by Amos Tranque is inspired by magnetic therapy. More specifically, the technique that places magnets on acupuncture points in order to cure and improve human health. The collection represents an exploration for connections between alternative medicine and contemporary fashion. This reinterpretation of the office suit has magnets incorporated into the fabrics and accessories in a subtle manner. In order to achieve the ideal masculine silhouette, the office suit has been deconstructed with use of magnetic forces and sharp cuts.

Alexander Verchueren

Alexander Verchueren graduated from the Fashion Department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, where she is currently based. Her work had some very graphic influences which you can see in her scrapbook inspirations. Notions of origami and architecture play a large role in the intricate pattern construction of her work.

Junky Styling

Self taught designers Annika Sanders and Kerry Seager founded Junky Styling in 1997, inspired by the prevalence of recycling in places such as San Francisco and Tokyo and the resourcefulness of the people of Vietnam and Thailand. The company began in an exposed studio on a shop floor, reflective of a completely transparent working practice. Junky is an innovative design-led label. All garments are made from the highest quality second hand clothing, which is deconstructed, re-cut and completely transformed. The New Yorker described it as ‘an eccentrically chic line of mutant couture’. A focus and belief in individuality means that no two garments are ever exactly the same, a design concept which led Vogue to describe Junky as ‘high fashion street couture’

Kate Goldworthy

Kate Goldsworthy is a textile designer and researcher, working in the area of new finishing technologies, materials R & D and design for recycling. Her passion lies with tools for sustainability in the textile world, particularly the recycling and reuse of polyesters. She is currently completing a practice based PhD as part of the AHRC funded project 'Ever & Again; rethinking recycled textiles' with the Textiles Environment Design research cluster based at Chelsea College of Art & Design. Her project explores technologies that could potentially change the way we recycle our textile waste, placing the designer at the centre of a process of multidisciplinary design thinking and enterprise. By focussing on the concept of 'life-cycle design', her aim is to create beautiful and functional synthetic materials, while preserving them as monomaterials, suitable for future recycling.

‘Still or Sparkling’ Exhibition

‘Still or Sparkling’ (9 – 25 June 2011) followed up on the two previous exhibitions ‘Fired Up’ (10 – 25 February 2011) and ‘Down to Earth’ (1 – 21 April 2011). It explored traditional elements which link all these exhibitions. ‘‘Still or Sparkling’ explores a water themed exhibition; water in its mercurial beauty was the starting point for the artists as they examine the intuitive and the emotional qualities associated with water and the special place it was believed to inhabit between air and earth in classical symbolism. The ‘five elements’ or the ‘five great’ in ascending order of power, have always been Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Void.

Find out more at: gazelliarthouse.com

Sivan Royz

Sivan Royz, a student studying textiles at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Tel Aviv, takes inspiration from the world of nature when in bloom. Building upon the geometries of nature, she relies on silk as the base fabric which is layered continuously to shape each piece. Whether it is a bracelet, necklace or a purse, each piece reacts gracefully to movement just like a living organism.

Frictions by Steven Briand

FRICTIONS mixes human live action movements and stop motion animation to create a seamless and overlapping narrative. By utilizing colored paper in different sizes, the director, Steven Briand, also known as Burayan, creates the sensation of a pixelated field that adds shimmer and excitement to the movements. From the wall, the pixel animation moves onto the body and inside it creating a rich play between elements on the screen. Moving from axis to axis, the performance comes together and interacts.

FRICTIONS from BURAYAN on Vimeo.

demoreel 2010 from BURAYAN on Vimeo.

Zimoun

Zimoun, an artist from Switzerland, uses sound in order to create magic. In his installations sound is used as an architectural element, it defines space and it makes the spectator be a part of a totally unique experience. Zimoun is a big sound lover, passionate about exploring its possibilities. In this quest he uses simple element cardboard boxes, cotton balls, plastic bags, filler wire, motors and ventilators that when combined in the correct way they form an original orchestra of sounds. These sounds all at once define space, interacting with it as well as with the spectator.

Claudy Jongstra

Born in the Netherlands in 1963, Claudy Jongstra was trained as a fashion designer. She first came under the spell of felt in 1994 when she saw a Mongolian yurt on display in Nederlands Textielmuseum. The tent had a pattern of laid-in colors. She recognized the technique from pictures, but was overwhelmed by the material itself and the colors. Jongstra quickly mastered the process of felting and started to make fabrics in which wool was felted with silk fibers or was combined with transparent silk organza. In the mid-nineties this was unheard of, but the process yielded a remarkable combination of transparency and density, of elegance and rawness, of craft and art.

Claudy Jongstra

Capriole by Iris Van Herpen

Iris Van Herpen, was born in the Netherlands. She graduated from the prominent fashion school ARTEZ(Arnhem) with a Fashion Design degree and then carried out internships with Claudy Jongstra and Alexander McQueen – whose influences pervade throughout in her style and techniques. That which distinguishes her creatively, is that she manages to create a unique type of couture that combines the qualities of hand-worked materials with the sublime effects of digital technology. In Capriole, her latest collection, the designer presented five architectural looks, which she developed using this combined technique.

Container Architecture

Containers tell the world how well or how poorly the global economy is doing. Empty container ships indicate a downturn; fully loaded container ships—or orders for new, even bigger ships—are euphoriant symbols of better times. The container itself, which is 2.44 metres wide, 2.59 metres high, and either 6.06 or 12.192 meters long, has been the globally standardized transportation module since 1956. Thirty million of them can be found on the seas and oceans of the world. Now the container is also a source of fascination for many architects. The NRW-Forum Düsseldorf invited renowned architects, designers, and artists from around the world to submit designs for container architecture. Submissions included not only existing container buildings, but also new designs that were created specially for the exhibition: original, practicable, fictitious, sensible, fantastic, minimalist, exotic, pragmatic, futuristic—the breadth of submissions was very wide. Two dozen of these designs have been reconstructed as models on a scale of 1:5 for the ‘Container Architecture’ exhibition; the highest of the models breaks through the ceiling of the museum. Over 100 designs were submitted for consideration and every one of them will be included in a frieze of pictures running around the walls of the exhibition space. A catalogue of the exhibition will be published.

Raphael Vicenzi

Raphael Vicenzi is an illustrator based in Brussels, Belgium. Raphael's work has been featured in Illustration now 3, The Beautiful, The New Age of Feminine Drawing, Computer arts, Advanced Photoshop and many others.

Anastasiya Komarova

Russian designer Anastasiya Komarova created her brand, called FORMS in February 2010. The collection offers a series of alternative accessories which have both a vintage and futuristic feel. The collection includes a wide range of designs, including leather clutches, neckpieces and armlets, all with an architectural touch.

Anastasiya says about her work: ''I have never aimed to reflect any particular architecture developed or created by myself or other architects. I am just trying to reflect some fundamental things that architecture is based on. I really admire the laconic manner and unique aesthetics of some buildings and this is what I try to achieve in my accessories. It's true that there are plenty of buildings around the world that inspires me a lot.''

Groupa Studio

Groupa Studio have produced some innovative and creative products including this Books Lamp inspired by the way Ethiopian people carry loads on their back.

Anna Lewis

Anna Lewis is a contemporary jewellery designer based in South Wales. Her work explores ideas of memory and identity of story telling and fantasy.

Ella Doran

Ella Doran transforms everyday objects into design-conscious pieces through the clever manipulation of the photographic image, either on its own, in repeat or combined with striking hand-coloured backgrounds. Ella takes her cue from the everyday world, from the close-up of a flower petal to abstract US road signage, the hustle and bustle of a Moroccan souk to simple kitchen utensils. She has transferred her vision into a wide range of products that have breathed modern life into many interiors, from London to Tokyo and even film heroine Bridget Jones's kitchen and Buckingham Palace!

People will always need plates

People will always need plates

People Will Always Need Plates is the creation of Hannah Dipper and Robin Farquhar.

Launched in 2004, they aim to use high quality, low volume batch production to create witty, thoughtful and stylish products as a direct antithesis to the current proliferation of cheap, throwaway design. In keeping with their credo that good design should be used and enjoyed, treasured and shared, Hannah and Robin try to develop products that, while diverse in style and application, always retain the fundamental values of functionality and beauty.

Digitile

Digitile

Design and manufacture of digitally printed wall and floor tiles and wallpapers. Suitable for interior and exterior use.

Carole Waller

Carole Waller

Carole Waller is a visual artist who works with colour, light, textiles, glass, enamel and paint. She uses either figurative or site specific imagery to make paintings which become glass installations, clothing, textile hangings, or live projects and collaborations.

I AM CHEAPSKATE

I am cheapskate

Enthusiastic tea drinker, musician, writer

and illustrator.

Charlotte Farmer

Charlotte Farmer

Sara Mulvanny

Sara Mulvanny

Freelance Illustrator.

John Dilnot

John Dilnot

One-off box works.

Louise Evans

Louise Evans

Jewellery, textiles, found objects and

vintage clothing.

Catherine Hammerton

Catherine Hammerton

Home accessories, wallpapers and

fabrics.

Cathy Miles

Cathy Miles

Illustrative wire objects and wall pieces.

Sharon Elphick

Sharon Elphick

Limited edition and bespoke

photographic textile prints.

Lubna Chowdhary

Lubna Chowdhary

Ceramic tiles & products.

Johanna Basford

Johanna Basford

Hand printed wallpapers and home accessories.

New York brand Mother

Mother

Lela Tillem and Tim Kaeding recently joined forces to create a line of cashmere-soft jeans called Mother.

'Our idea was to create a brand that captured the excitement of our own newfangled denims. We are able to add a new element to the way people wear jeans in fit fabric finish and now feel.'

They discuss choice of name...

'We also like the various ways the word mother can be used in popular culture – the rocking ‘motha’, the bad mother, the tattooed biker mother, the domineering mother in Hitchcock films. The name really just stuck a chord, it sounded so powerful and tough.'

The website presents great video clips of the 'Mother I'd like to Film' summer 2011 collection. You can download a look book presenting stills of the videos and collection as a pdf file. Also,check out the link to their bedroom stories which presents both video and MP3 clips to help tell stories and discuss what going on in their world.

Product’s physical longevity

Emotional attachment: Developing lasting relationships with our belongings. These days, a product’s physical longevity will not prevent it from being thrown away if the owner no longer wants it. To avoid unnecessary waste of otherwise useful goods, is it time we should start to form emotional bonds with them? An article by Jonathan Chapman (a Senior Lecturer at University of Brighton, UK) discusses how waste is produced by products failing to sustain an emotional attachment to their users.

Design and Emotions

A teacup that shivers in response to its tea going cold. A chair that warms when you sit in it, revealing its aspirations to be soft and comfortable. A pan whose handle becomes impossible to grasp when it becomes hot to the touch. The animate characteristics of these everyday objects allow them to facilitate meaningful interactions with their users by actively responding to their environment and evolving through their conditions of use. Tara Mullaney

Emotions guide, enrich and ennoble life – they provide meaning to everyday existence and render the valuation placed on life and property. Moreover, with the power to entice us to select one particular item from a row of similar products, emotions have a considerable influence on our purchase decisions. Not only are emotions involved in our reasoning about what product to buy, but they also have a significant effect on post-purchase satisfaction and product attachment. In addition, the emotions we experience daily, including those we experience in response to the designed objects that surround us, have been shown to be main determinants of our general well-being. (Marco van Hout)

Through interviews with designers and experts Design and Emotions discuss the emotional content and effect that products, brands and design have.

Keep Calm Gallery

Keep Calm Gallery is an online gallery with prints available from a selection of artists, designers and printmakers from around the world.

In addition to the prints they have a growing collection of unique pieces of original art, postcards and screenprinted cards and a selection of screen printed cotton tea towels.

Gallery Blog Spot

All Tea Towels

All Tea Towels

Online company selling a wide range of cotton

and linen tea towels.

To Dry For

Todryfor

ToDryFor.com is an online boutique specialising in designer tea towels - a husband and wife team based in Oxford, England, sourcing over 100 tea towels from numerous designers.

In addition to acting as a retailer, they also produce their own ToDryFor range of artist-commissioned tea towels, promoting work by both prominent and up-and-coming artists and illustrators.

Teresa Green

Teresa Green a unique range of printed textiles designed and hand printed by Teresa Cole. The company was set up in 2000 after graduating in printed textiles from Loughborough University school of art and design. Fabrics are sourced from within the UK. Linen used comes from Ireland and inks used for printing are all water based.

The importance of the range having a function is also key- the utilitarian, functionality and the design play equal roles.

The items are a canvas for the prints, and are designed around the shape and layout of each object.

Teresa confesses to having a passion for antique kitchenallia- especially kitchen scales and ladle shaped spoons. Her grandparents have also fed her imagination with crammed sheds full of old garden objects and treasures.

Suzanne Lee

Suzanne Lee, London based Senior Research fellow in the school of fashion and textiles at Central Saint Martins in London and creative director of BioCouture, creates garments from cellulose bacteria which grow in a bathtub using only green methods to address ecological issues and to explore the future of fashion design in conjunction with technology. She mixes a green tea solution with sugar solution and introduces yeast which then produces fibers, which in turn form a compact leathery like layer. This layer is then taken and dried out to take the final form. Lee also uses fruits and vegetables like blueberries and beetroot, completely natural products in order to make stains onto the fabrics creating patterns and designs.

''Zombie boy'' face of MUGLER

Rick Genest, the Canadian born Zombie boy as he is most commonly known, is the new face of MUGLER's premier men's collection and the Muse of creative director Nicola Formichetti. Chris Roome from London based creative company Happy Finish has retouched these black and white images by top fashion photographer Mariano Vivanco, which are running as part of a larger campaign that include an online video launch featuring an exclusive new track fromLady Gaga’s new Album ‘Born this Way’. The new MUGLER campaign images are the brainchild of Nicola Formichettiwho is also the stylist of Lady Gaga.