Last Christmas, I included Bottlehood’s recycled wine bottle tumblers in almost every gift guide I made. Now I have a set of eight amber ones of my own! This is the first time I’ve ever seen them discounted, so I wanted to share code DADDY for 10% off at Bottlehood.com. (In celebration of Father’s Day.) Offer good through the 19th. If you get a set, let me know! Enjoy!

Top to bottom: 1. Miscellaneous gold-toothed skulls, jewelry and wood vases + Recycled glassware and Fog Linen pieces. 2. Wood vases on a handpainted shelf — such amazing merchandising + Japanese ceramics and super-affordable Fog Linen trays. 3. Lockets by Tres Petits Points + Root bowls and burl wood serving boards. 4. Dishware illustrated by Alyson Fox + Collars and leashes by Found. 5. Small clutches by reid.damnit + One of my take-aways — a beautiful Linen Button Scarf by R&L Goods. (I couldn’t find this one on Spartan’s site, so here’s a direct link to purchase.) Click any image to enlarge. Most items available for sale at the lovely spartan-shop.com.

Janette:
What inspires the selection at Spartan? What types of products do you prefer to carry, and why?

Currie Person, Spartan owner:
The criteria for most things in the shop are: beauty, functionality and longevity. Longevity in the sense that is this something that you can own for a long time and be happy with over the years. The thing that frightens me the most as a retailer is that the things I sell would end up in a landfill shortly after purchase.

In addition, I try to stock as many environmentally friendly, recycled or repurposed, fair trade and locally made things that I can.

It has been such a pleasure discovering the people that make the things that I carry. Such an amazing group of creative, energetic, funny, enjoyable folks! Although there are a few large import companies that I use, I am really trying to shift to small artists, artisans, designers and craftspeople.

Lastly, I try to be as gender neutral as possible. I really want the men to feel like they have a place shopping at Spartan, and I am always on the look out for great thing specifically for men.

Those are a heap of words for a small question. But as a shop owner, that is the question that you should be asking yourself constantly. Your customers count on your for your unique perspective and it is should be considered and re-considered over time as you evolve and the shop evolves.

I love straws, but I hate throwing them away. Last month at the Heath sale I bought two of these (The Bends, no relation to Radiohead), and I never would have considered GLASS for my permanent straws, but Glass Dharma has a lifetime guarantee against breakage. Amazing! The straight ones start at $7.50, and the bendy ones at $8.50. Handmade in the U.S.

I’ve long been a fan of the recycled wine bottle tumblers sold by Heath, but… $19 per glass? I did a quick search and found these on Etsy, which are $33 for the set of four. They’re made by BottleHood in San Diego, who gets their bottles from shops and restaurants in their neighborhood. (They also offer nice mismatched sets and take custom orders.) These are first on my list for when I have a real house again!

(I don’t typically write about home goods here, but I do have a slight obsession… feel free to check out more of my interior picks in my account at Pinterest.)

Interior designer Kelly LaPlante’s mantra is that “green is a standard, not a style.” In interiors especially, where almost every green build you see has a modern aesthetic, Kelly has made a name for herself by doing fabulous sustainable design work that crosses all genres, from classic to country and beyond. She’s made a career of challenging people’s perceptions of “green.”

But today everything changes! (Kind of.) Welcome to the “post-green movement.”

Today Kelly launches Standard, a beautiful interiors magazine in which words like these — eco-friendly, fair trade, recycled, FSC-certified, local, organic, green — won’t appear. Every item in the magazine has passed Kelly’s standard, allowing the magazine’s editorial to take the emphasis off of eco-qualities and put it solely on style.

“I feel it is time for a publication that does not point out eco-merits,” she says. “Why are we giving brownie points for ideas and qualities that should be standard? If a product is not made with respect to the planet — and to people — it simply will not appear in the pages of this publication. Not ever.”

Pictured here is an editorial shoot from the magazine of an alternative bachelorette party in Joshua Tree. Swoon.

Click here to flip through all 104 pages of Standard Magazine goodness.

And did I mention that Kelly is one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet, which I would have said well before she became one of FLP tees’ awesomest supporters? (Thanks to sweet Jaclyn for introducing us!)

Congrats, Kelly!

Refinery 29 recently spotlighted NYC artist Francesca DiMattio, whose thrifted and artsy wardrobe (not to mention decor) is so inspiring.

“My mom raised me exclusively on thrift stores as a little girl and taught me to look for new shapes and feel for quality fabrics. It’s exciting for the eye to see something different, so I look for shapes that are not common. As a result I often find myself holding maternity wear, and clothes in my closet range from size 0-16. An outfit looks great when it’s a little unfamiliar.”

“Everything I buy is under $20 (except for shoes), but recently I found two silk Anne Klein II tunics, which are like large tank tops that I am excited about.”

“I like things to have lived a little before me. My couch is from the old cafeteria at Cooper Union; we found the stools on the street, the table is from Craigslist, the chairs are from a friend’s antique store in Hudson, and my husband made the kitchen bench from found wood on the street that he then treated and stained. Also, I love fake flowers and always keep bouquets around the house. Initially, I made them for the centerpieces at my wedding, but I made a couple more for our home.”

Read the full article, and enjoy more images, at Refinery 29.

I learned that hand-knotted rugs are so special because they don’t have a pile, which means they don’t wear down like traditional synthetic carpets, which means they can last pretty much forever. Apparently they’re most expensive when they’re either brand new or super old, but the medium-aged ones (“semi-antique”) are the most affordable. (Read: Still $1,000+ for something room-sized. That’s why I don’t have one yet.) My favorites are the old Middle Eastern ones that have a palette of earthy red, black and white, plus some unexpected neon colors. It’s like the color palettes make no sense, and yet they make perfect sense. And, even though they’re they’re covered with pattern and color, they somehow work as a perfect “neutral” in a room.

Then this winter, I started seeing a handful of Native American-inspired geometric prints, like Mociun’s awesome blanket coats:

Note that she is standing on the coolest old hand-knotted rug ever! Its patterning looks so random.

At antique stores I’ve seen lots of pillows made out of vintage rug remnants, which are a more affordable way to start my collection. The site Vanishing Textiles labels what culture each one is from, like:

Turkish,

Afghani,

Navajo.

They seem to have a cohesiveness that brings them together… and yet they’re from different sides of the world! And many are from a hundred or more years ago. It’s kind of like we’re all more alike than we realize, and we always have been.

Does anyone know how these these graphic likenesses across cultures have happened? I’d love to know more from a historical perspective. Any closet anthropologists or design history majors out there? :)

I LOVE a healthy mix of old and new. In fashion, in interiors, in ideologies. (That came out nicely… coffee table book concept, anyone? Grin.)

Images above, copyright Morgans Group LLC.

Note how the baroque-style chairs seem to draw each area’s different looks together through the consistency of the shape. Starck released his Louis Ghost Chair two years later — the traditional Louis XV shape in a modern, translucent polycarbonate.

]]> http://fashionlovespeople.com/2009/02/13/mixing-old-and-new-hudson-hotel-ny/feed/ 1 http://fashionlovespeople.com/2008/12/10/more-holiday-deals/ http://fashionlovespeople.com/2008/12/10/more-holiday-deals/#comments Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:20:37 +0000 Janette http://fashionlovespeople.com/2008/12/10/more-holiday-deals/ …while the dealing is still good.

Nau: 30% off and 10% to charity! Use code GIVE at check out. Through Dec. 15. Above left, Twisted Scarf, $68 with discount, $9.80 to charity.

EDUN: Last season is 50% off. Above center, Gertrude Cardigan, $110.

Horny Toad: An honor-based donation program — donate your lightly worn clothes to a local shelter, Goodwill or Salvation Army and HT will extend you a 30% discount with promo code SPREADTHEWARMTH. Expires Dec. 20. Above right, Limited-Edition Cashmoore Blanket, $35 with discount.

A friendly note from Nau: Air shipping isn’t only expensive; it generally uses six times more energy than sending it by ground. Try not to order too-last-minute this year!

Imagine the concept of Craigslist, with a dose of Half.com, featuring only Mid-Century Modern furniture for buying and selling (and placing want ads). Imagine Lushpad! Eames chairs for a quarter of full price — it’s like Christmas everyday. Enjoy!

Via Daily Candy. (Buying vintage = saving money and global resources!)