A lot of the non-furniture things on display in that area were just stupid, like this one-slice-of-bread-at-a-time toaster. No doubt it was touted as "green design" for being stubbornly inefficient at toasting for any more than two parakeets.
If I want to look at sweet japanese product design, I just head over to MUJI in soho. I own all sorts of muji stuff and suprisingly, I use almost all of it on a daily basis. All those miniature office supplies they make are perfectly suited for bike commuters. Everything that's in my messenger bag and not clothes, bike parts, or an Ipod, is from that store. Now if only I could secure some kick-backs for my glowing review...
While waiting for the woah-man to use the facilities, I spied what I think has become my favorite part of the show.
Bernhardt Design's booth was filled with very neatly detailed armchairs and benches, along with some mediocre couches. Some versions of the chairs had orange suede piping around the supple leather padding, which I thought was a little much, like they were reaching for a prada-esque hipness. Just the plain white leather on wood is seductive enough for me. If you can't see it in the shitty photo above, the armchair is called Atlantic by CuldeSac design collective out of Valencia, Spain. I think it's priced at under $2000 (take that, herman miller) so theres no excuse not to use this in future residential designs.
There were all sorts of other things that at least made me, instead of ignoring them entirely, utter a token "meh" ...For instance, the rubberized coffee table for those of us that require shin-safe furniture in our space stations:
... the bunny desk-chair:
... and we definitely can't leave out the vagina inspired stuff that ironically, doesn't look terribly comfy or attractive:
Of course, what gathering of designer types would be complete without some bizarre approaches to bicycle design?
What is interesting about this bike isn't so much it's exaggerated top tube that looks primed to carry a billyburger's bike polo mallets, but moreso that it's held aloft by a chubby plastic sand pail. There was another of these bike pails holding up one of those dumb fucking Strida bikes. I haven't seen anyone actually ride one around in new york, and I'm interested to see how this mutated p-far measures up given this city's traffic circus.
Bewildered by the questionable utility of the day's sightings, we left to go buy a vaccum from bed bath and beyond. But before we had even crossed the street, I saw one clever fellow who apparently decided he'd had enough of this furniture crap, and re-purposed a foot rail, creating some attractive bar grips that are no doubt of the most comfortable design:
and zooming in for clarity:
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