Paul Sietsema: The Fold: 2007

Yeah its a little premature but on the Left Coast the pre-buzz on this show is near to deafening. Plus April's W just joined the band. Expect a smash hit, because Sietsema's ability to take his paintings, drawings and sculpture to the realm of film has made him very very coveted. Wonder if he'll do a Matthew Barney thing and release the series through a conventional home video distributer ?

Laying TI out at the new work/space to figure out...what next?

Well TI has hit its six month mark and I want to thank everyone for their support, attention and kind words. TI was started as a means of free creative expression, not only for myself but for all these talented new graphic designers, writers, DJ's , artists, photographers, fashion designers and gallery curators I was starting to meet. Of course there are some strong views and strong images posted here and I expect to get a fair degree of backlash . Which is fine (and a little bit fun, if truth be told).
But those people posting the more negative comments have probably wondered why it never surfaced on the page. It's because I think its not fair to read, chop and diss someone who puts their work out there by responding in ANONYMOUS fashion. We really look forward to posting all that dissent we get to images of beautiful girls and boys with no clothes on, to the errant gossip output by the Hiss Squad, to the songs we might love and you might hate but please, please, please..make the debate really lively and put your name behind your response. Remember now, a read is not a read if you say it with your hand over your face.

White parchment sleigh bed attributed to Jean Michel Frank.

I get really emotional over the work of mid-century French designer and decorator Jean Michel Frank. He is the one visual stylist who managed to conclusively solve the conflict between modern design's fetish for reduction and the very human need for comfort and luxury in a room. Here's a man who could make a masterpiece out of varying tones of beige and his use of unconventional materials like straw marquetry and shagreen is unmatched in its perverse sense of what was and what was not luxury. What Coco Chanel did to women's clothing Frank did to rooms..that is..pared them down to chicest proposition of silhouette and finish possible.

As Eve M Kahn once wrote , "Frank would wrap spindly, minimalist tables or chairs in rarefied materials—goatskin, vellum, glittery mica—to look modern, but not icily clinical. Or he’d update demure traditional forms, fashioning turned legs and flared arms out of peasanty sandblasted oak or iron with upholstery as rough as dishtowels."

Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier has written an amazing book on this icon titled, "Jean-Michel Frank: L’étrange Luxe du Rien "(The Strange Luxury of Nothingness). This expression is one I absolutely love , though it sounds far more expensive in French.

The most exciting news is Frank's work still occasionally comes up for auction, since he tended to custom design pieces of furniture for the rooms his clients commissioned. Of course because he would use Hermes for his leather covered tables and upholstery and did lamps with the likes of Giacometti, let's just say prices are prohibitive. With Frank in mind I will endeavor to embrace the beige. It was the only tonality he could accept as a color.

Playing dress up with Jourdan on Mike Schwartz's set was so much fun!

Big jewelry on men is something I'm still learning to love, but I had to give it up to Surface 2 Air for lensing this witty promo for the Louis Vuitton "Blason" line of jewelry done in tandem with Pharell. Its like a hip-hop video except instead of pushing the song it pushes the merchandise that usually plays as backdrop in those videos. Smart.

By popular demand! The full French Playboy edit starring Lou Doillon. I really, really would love to meet this editor of French Playboy. Quite fearless, this vision.

LOU DOILLON PH:Takis Bibelas via livejournal

TI's tune du jour is also my motto in life!

Wade Guyton: Untitled: 2007

Kinga: IMG: Rick Owens: Fall/Winter 2008 via style.com

When designers reference heavy duty artists the results can sometimes be...well..gauche. Take the waltz for SS 08 between Richard Prince and Louis Vuitton. It was very clever and layered in the shrewdness thereof. It was visually witty, commercially astute, beautifully image managed but also it was literal. Richard Prince's nurses begat Louis Vuitton nurses. Prince's babe on a hot rod...translated to LV's supermodels on a hot rod. Literal is not always a bad thing but it does lessen the possibilities of prolonged looking.

Frank Gehry's 1972 Wiggle chair at Moss and retromodern.com

Frank Gehry's 1972 Wiggle Chair while ingenious and striking always seemed to have a certain self consciousness to it that might have kept it out of the winner's circle of modern design classics. (It certainly is not as common as say- a Mies Van der Rohe chair) . But as everything goes green (Wiggles are made of reinforced cardboard) and Gehry's recent architecture makes him a man of obvious historic value it makes sense to grab a Wiggle while they're still in production. Or maybe that's just me having a very sinious moment. Sinious is sexy, no?