Arianna says...

"That's a huge thing we're dealing with, as a culture, individually. We call it How To Learn To Disconnect in order to recharge. And connect with ourselves. Otherwise you can really lose yourself on the surface. We want to uni-task - if we are in love or reading a great book or absorbed in a creative project, multitasking is an enemy of that."

Arianna Huffington in The Guardian's Weekend magazine from 10 October 2009.

5 illustrators

The Guardian has been publishing a series of books with fairytales this week. They focus on themes such as Wicked Parents, Love and Quests. They are beautifully illustrated by a variety of artists.

My personal favourite is Finnish illustrator Pietari Posti who worked on the theme of Wisdom and folly. More images below.





















Laura Barrett
Wicked Parents













Pietari Posti
Wisdom and folly









Rui Tenreiro
Quests and riddles



















Emily Forgot
Love
















Heisuke Kitazawa
Raga to riches

A dream come true

This morning started with a bit of a disappointment and ended up on a high and on both occasions Ms. Jil Sander was to blame.

The morning wasn't great, as I couldn't buy anything from her collection for Uniqlo. I was hoping for the Uniqlo on-line store to carry some of the items, but that was not to be.

But then the new issue of T Style Magazine (published by the New York Times) appeared on-line.
Now, for a long time I wanted to catch a glimpse of Ms. Sander's private life (not in a crazy stalker-ish way, but in a 'I wonder how a creative person with a strong sense of aesthetics lives' kind of way). In the past I heard about the uniform, I read about the 35 identical white shirts and I knew about a period residence near Hamburg.

And now I know. The Fall Design issue of the T Style Magazine published photos (taken by Ms. Sander herself) of her studio and of her private residence. The buildings stand side by side near Aussenlaster lake near Hamburg.

The studio (designed by Michael Gabellini) looks as I expected: parquet floors, white walls with expensive-looking minimalist white-on-white art, huge windows and a sense of efficient serenity. It aslo looks like a space where hours can be spent on deciding the exact shade of white or the right texture and feel of cashmere.

The photos of the private residence, however, tell a different and at first glance unexpected, story. Designed by the legendary Renzo Mongiardino the house looks opulent and almost theatrical, something I wouldn't expect from Ms. Sander. But I also think on some level it all makes sense. Ms. Sander says in the interview about her dislike for the word minimalism. She is not about minimalism, but about purity. She explains: It's an ethic. The courage not to fill a room, to know where to stop.

Photo of Ms. Sander's office from the T Magazine article.

NZZ

Mike Meiré redisigned the Neue Zurcher Zeitung*. It looks absolutely amazing and just how I imagine my (nearly) ideal newspaper to look like. Serious, elegant, understated, trustworthy, modern(ist) and not like a web site. I have the previous incarnation of this newspaper in my small archive and I hope I'll get my hands on an edition with the new design soon.

* 'The most serious newspaper in the world' according to one of the editors at the Guardian (via Mark Porter, who also has a fascinating review of the redisign).

Fall

The look for this Fall, according to Fantastic Man.

J+

It looks like I might not be wearing a cashmere Jil Sander for Uniqlo scarf this autumn. I was hoping to buy on-line, but the Uniqlo web site is very slow at the moment and I don't think any of the pieces are available on-line at the moment anyway. On the main Uniqlo web site there is information about 'one piece per customer' policy. So will it end up being yet another designer/high-street collection you cannot get hold of?

To cheer me up I have this picture of Ms. Sander's library (via T Style Magazine Blog).

Demand

This is a good month:
Arena Homme +
A10
032C gives us a blueprint for the NEXT decade's magazine
Fantastic Man
AnotherMan

Looking good when it comes to the crunch

Looking goods a state of mind



Ms. Neneh Cherry made an appearance a few posts below and then yesterday I picked up the latest Arena Homme + and she's there too. I've only cracked open the magazine this morning, but it promises to be one of the most exciting issues ever. It's a tribute to Buffalo and to Mr. Ray Petri and it's tough. And the cover is an ode to The Face.

A cast of thousands includes Ms. Neneh Cherry and her daughter Ms. Tyson McVey, Ms. Naomi Campbell, Ms. Talisa Soto, Mr. Nick Knight, Mr. Juergen Teller, Mr. Neville Brody, Mr. Raf Simons and Felix.