Featured
Design
What Michelle Obama Loves About Design
On Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at the 10th annual National Design Awards in DC, a ceremony hosted by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum to honor designers across various disciplines. Here's what she had to say about design:
What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful. A laptop, a bridge, an outfit.
Roundup: Joyeux Bastille Day!
Happy Bastille Day! While we can be grateful to the French for many things, including croques monsieur, Audrey Tatou, margarine, carbaret, etc., I'd like to applaud la France for pumping out decades of innovative and influential design. Yes, this would include la Tour Eiffel and Impressionism, but today I'm going to focus on furniture and interior accessories.
Guess Who Dreamt of Building a Grandiose Tree House?
A celebrated American interior designer, and regular on Oprah, recently told ELLE Decor of his dreams to build a tree house as a kid, saying, "At 11 I was sort of a mad Virgo with grandiose plans for a Palladio-Calatrava-Sawyer/Berson masterpiece. We never made it past attempting to hammer the two-by-fours into the trunk, but we had so much fun trying." It sounds like he started honing his design talent at a young age!
Can You Discern the Difference Between New and Vintage?
Can you tell which wingback chair is an antique, and which is currently for sale in your favorite shop? Do you have an eye for discerning the difference between a real midcentury lamp and its modern update? Put your design savvy to the test with my new game, Old or New Design.
Guess Who Is Penning a Book about Design and Architecture?
An award-winning singer and film and theater actress is revealing a little-known interest to the world by penning a memoir, to be titled A Passion For Design, about her experiences designing her dream oceanfront compound in Malibu, as well as other residences, back to her early years in New York. It'll be interesting to hear about the way it was for her back then. Can you tell me her name?
Scenes From the Milan International Furniture Fair
What I wouldn't give to be in Milan right now! For the next week, if you're lucky enough to be traveling in the area, you should stop by the 48th Milan Furniture Fair, which features the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the Milan Lighting Fair, and the SaloneSatellite, which features creative new talent in the design world. Many designs that I've featured here are featured in the fair, including one of my favorites, Maarten Baas.
Does Your Design Style Rule Your Love Life?
I recently caught a first season episode of Sex and the City, Bay of Married Pigs, where Charlotte dates a man on the marriage track, Sean. Not long after they begin dating, they find themselves looking at china patterns together, and Charlotte dumps him when she realizes his pattern of choice isn't up to her standards. Carrie narrates, "Charlotte ended it right then and there.
How Well Do You Know Your Design Decades?
These days, for good reason, it's trendy to mix styles and eras when decorating our homes. It's not unusual to see an antique coffee table next to a mid-century chair below a contemporary chandelier — and often when you do, it looks flawless. And as you'd see in fashion, or really any industry, designers are looking to the past for inspiration.
Are You a Design Fiend?
Are you a know-it-all when it comes to design? Do you know your industrial designers from your architects? Is a chair just a place to sit to you?
International Chair Design Competition Looking For Entries
Calling all aspiring designers! Suddenly "getting the chair" is a fruitful, not fatal, sentence. The 13th Annual Promosedia International Design Competition is asking architecture or design students under 40 for original, unpublished chair design submissions.
More on CasaSugar
Spring
Top Brands
Mulberry