My new products for IKEA....

....is for small kids....for eating, washing and sleeping...

Isabella Blow-a sad, sad but amazing story...

Isabella Blow…..what a sad, sad story, but amazing if you see to style and decor of your body…. She was a British magazine editor and international style icon. The muse of hat designer Philip Treacy. She is credited with discovering the models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl as well as the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. She was introduced to the fashion world by the director of the U.S. edition of Vogue, Anna Wintour. While working in New York, she befriended Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1993, Blow worked with the photographer Steven Meisel producing the Babes in London shoot featuring Plum Sykes, Bella Freud, and Honor Fraser. Isabella Blow had a natural sense of style and a good feeling for future fashion directions. She discovered Alexander McQueen and purchased his entire graduate collection. She also was responsible for the resurgence of the crystal-rhinestone firm Swarovski after convincing her designer friends to use the company's products in their fashions and accessories. Blow was the fashion director of Tatler. In 2002, she became the subject of an exhibition entitled When Philip met Isabella, featuring sketches and photographs of her wearing Treacy's hat designs. Toward the end of her life, Blow had become seriously depressed and reportedly was anguished over her inability to "find a home in a world she influenced". On May 6, 2007, during a weekend house party, Blow announced that she was going shopping. Instead, she was later discovered collapsed on a bathroom floor by her sister Lavinia and was taken to Hospital, where Blow told the doctor she drank the weedkiller Paraquat.

Incredible hats, fruitcakes and Tokyo harbour...and a chinese snakefish...

There are so much that inspires me at the moment.... Like the incredible hats made of beautyful fabrics with fantastic decor, or the cakes that make you dream....I have to do a lot of running when eating all these sweet things...and I went on a boattrip looking at the very futuristic harbour of Tokyo...and last thing the Tokyo Seaworld where I met a Chinese snakefish for the first time...

Amazing Tokyo!

A very short note on my tripp today.... I saw 10 CorsoComo had nice wrapping paper(now also in red)/wonderful designs, nice pattern on the wall to Cynthia Rowley...Collex was a really nice place in Daiqiamayan(wrong spelling I know) -lots and lots of scandinavian design...
And just behind the corner you´ll find small and calm streets, it feels like to be in the countryside....amazing! I wanted to see the flagship store of Agnes b. but I had to hurry home to my son with fever....poor little thing!

Annika Huett is stiching her messages...

In Stockholm right now in the House of Culture, Sergels torg, my friend Annika Huett ( illustrator/artist) is showing her new book about her messages on textile. It is very much up to date. I really like it. I would have liked to be there... Imagine the apron with the message "Your mother doesn´t work here"...Good work!

I am searching for wabi-sabi objects...

Wabi now connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects, or understated elegance. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object.
Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs.

“ Since we already know what the “correct” design solutions are, wabi-sabi thoughtfully offers the” wrong” solutions. As a result, things Wabi-sabi often appear odd, misshapen, awkward, or what many people would consider ugly.” (Leonard Coran)

Western and Japanese notions of beauty, for example, lie in fundamentally different world-views that lead to distinct values and differing ways of defining aesthetics.

According to Leonard Koren in his book "Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosopher."

Japanese graphic design and designers...2007

For four years, editor Tomoko Sakamoto of Spanish publisher Actar, dug through amounts of artful paper works - to present a wider picture of the Japanese graphic and illustration scene.
The book info talks about “How the work of young professionals have been affected by Japan`s economic, social and cultural changes.” In what way can graphic design reflect Japanese society?

Four years ago, graphic designers was selected who happened to work for big clients. However, intentionally selected independent designers with very small customers. In 2002, everything was about commercial work. Now we get to see more and more of the designers’ own intended, original works of the artistic kind. For example, they are doing exhibitions or customising products in small quantities instead of producing 5,000 copies. Maybe it’s because four years ago the economic situation was better and with less big clients they are dedicating themselves to this…

Tokyo modern buildings...

Tokyo has incredible diversity in its modern architecture. It is amazing towalk around in certain areas of the town. You can see everything from smallpolice boxes and capsule hotels, to the Mori Tower at Rappongi Hills. Many Tokyo buildings are very unique in design and shape, as compared tothe propensity to build plain rectangular glass bricks in many other worldcities. Tokyo is a good place to view the work of Japanese architectural firms,but the good work onview is not just Japanese. Tokyo offers opportunities toarchitects from all around the globe, so it is a great place to view a strong representative collection of modern buildings.

My favorite place-cafe 268.

What a cool place. Amazing inside, nice jazzmusic and reaaly good food...and interesting people to watch....I had a pasta with tuna and melanzane...mmmmmm...nice!

Shibuya life....

....you need some days to go through these shopping streets- and this is only one area among many others....I am already exhausted...just looking at the map... and after Shibuya....
daikanyama.....

Glamorous japanese women and fashination over japanese workers clothes...

I have been sitting having coffee in the new complex Midtown, at the very nice café Dean and Deluca. It was so interesting to just sit there and study glamorous japanese womens style. I will draw all these women with their wunderful shoes and very personal style.

I am also fashinated by the uniform/working clothes of the contructive workers here in Japan. Look at these stylish clothes.....Work clothes have wide-ranging designs and colors. Even their catalogues are so glamorous and slick, that they could easily be mistaken for fashion magazines.
As an example, have a look at the catalogue from Tobi clothes maker Kaseyama featuring actual Tobi workers as models. Believe it or not, but workers’ clothes were even featured at the Paris fashion week in 2005. Inspired by these Japanese construction workers, German designer Bernhard Willhelm used Tobi-like characteristic in his Spring/Summer collection.

workingplace in Tokyo is getting ready...

Now I am getting ready to start working again. That´s really great. I am short of time, next week I must prestent new ideas for IKEA....so now I am woooorking. I love my new space with a big window and lots of light-though sometimes too hot! I found a wunderful book for kids in Sweden last spring-"pomelo is in love"-big inspiration!!!!

Adidas Deconstructed By Yoshiaki Kaihatsu

Japanese sculpture and performance artist Yoshiaki Kaihatsu tears apart Adidas tracksuits - to sew cute little pets out of them for his GIFT project that was exhibited this summer at Berlin’s Galerie Tristesse. The project’s title, ‘GIFT,’ is meant to be the artist’s present to kids - literally: Fashionistas always tend to buy their own mirrors, which last at least until next season’s trend, whereas Kaihatsu tries to remix existing designs by recycling clothing into cute pets for children to display the fashion style of their parents.