Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell at Moss were so excited with their latest exhibition, Poetic License, that I asked Franklin to send over some pics. The show, which celebrates rule breaking, envelope pushing, and taking chances—everything a designer should be doing—showcases works that push the boundaries of what’s been done before in a variety of media. You’ll see some launches by young European designers like Michael Anastassiades, Mathias Bengtsson, Finn Magee, and Oskar Zieta, as well as work by standbys like the Campana brothers, Michele De Lucchi, and Patrick Jouin. The show opens May 16, and is a nice kick-off to ICFF. And if you miss the show this weekend, it’s open until June 26. Read more…

Last month, I fessed up about my wallet-zapping Muji addiction, which has grown substantially worse since the Japanese retailer opened its latest New York store only a few blocks from Metropolis HQ. Well, now I’m really in trouble—the “no brand” brand announced yesterday that its has a new online store. Naturally, Muji-holics living outside of New York are thrilled—even though, at the moment, there are only about 300 products available for North American customers. Still, I can tell you from experience: all those pen refills and cute PET travel bottles start to add up fast…

See also: Metropolis’s April story on an unlikely new collaboration between Muji and Thonet, with designs by Konstantin Grcic and James Irvine.

The Droog store on NY’s Greene Street opened in fine style last night. When it comes to festivities, the Dutch do not disappoint. While one has to wonder about how well this kind of design-shop-as-art-gallery is going to fare, the bleak economic forecast certainly didn’t dampen spirits during the store’s premiere. Pinch hitting as tour guide for wife Renny Ramakers (a co-founder of the design collective), Leon Ramakers responded to a question about the space’s central feature, a blue foam house, with this out-of-the-blue quip: “I’m the husband. I just sleep with her. It’s been 32 years, and I’m not bored yet!” Read more…

Sure, U.S. retail sales might have just dropped by a record 2.4 percent in October, with clothiers among the hardest hit, but things are still groovy, right? That’s the message, anyway, of this season’s window display at Barneys New York, where the theme is “Peace and Love: Have a Hippie Holiday.” Read more…

Photo of early voters at the Galleria at Sunset Mall, in Henderson, Nevada, by Isaac Brekken for the New York Times. Read the associated story.

In my recent survey of high-design malls, I didn’t get a chance to touch on an interesting feature in the American shopping landscape: the migration of municipal functions to private shopping centers. It’s becoming increasingly common to find a local DMV branch at the mall—and this election season, many counties have even opened polling places at shopping malls. Read more…

With its first Tools for Living store opening tomorrow in Soho, Design Within Reach has effectively cornered the market on products for what seems to be a growing subdemographic: rugged obsessive-compulsives (mostly men, to be frank) who prize a beat-up Barbour wax-wear jacket as much as a neat line of color-coded Muji pens. The shop might as well be named Tools for the Stubbly Urban Dandy. Read more…

The MoMA Design Store’s fall catalogue hit my mailbox this afternoon, and, as usual, it’s got a lot of great new stuff to drool over. There’s a rubber-encased Seiko alarm clock that’s quietly enthralling, and a ribbed-aluminum side table that manages to evoke corrugated cardboard without looking cheap (or channeling Shigeru Ban). And Mark Sanders’s foldable Strida bicycle makes a lovely cover model, decked out in MoMA-exclusive safety orange. But there’s something amiss here. Dear reader, please turn to page 31.

Read more…

Let’s be honest. Your exfoliating face wash is hurting the whales. The plastic bag it comes in is contributing to the giant floating garbage island in the Pacific Ocean. (Think buying a sanctimonious canvas tote makes a difference? Maybe, but you could end up spending as much as $275 on eBay. Plus, if you’ll forgive us, you’ll look like a dork.)

Thankfully, there are small acts of penance that can help (or at least make you feel like you’re helping) turn the tide of plastic. Read more…

William Eggleston, Untitled

The Harvard Design Magazine Readers series can usually be counted on for lucid, readable discussions of contemporary design issues, and its latest title is no exception. Nature, Landscape, and Building for Sustainability, released last month, collects 15 short essays from the magazine, casting a keen and critical eye on a topic that is all too often mired in fuzzy thinking and marketing hype.

Several of the essays offer pragmatic advice for effective ecological design, while others frame the issue more broadly. Perhaps the most entertaining of the bunch is John Beardsley’s 2000 piece, “Kiss Nature Goodbye: Marketing the Great Outdoors,” which can also be read online for free. Read more…

J. Crew shot its recent catalog at Richard Neutra’s iconic Kaufmann House.

Last spring, Banana Republic launched an advertising campaign featuring architects at work—or at least vaguely intellectual-looking twentysomethings sitting in Eames chairs near architectural models. Read more…