There Is No Cat

Groovy '60s Sounds from the Land of Smile!

Monday, January 5, 2004

Modern Design

Laura and I are considering remodeling our bedroom in a modern, 1950s-style design, so I've been wandering through some of the web sites out there that show this kind of stuff. I've found that I really love the work of Charles and Ray Eames and of Alexander Girard. Maharam Textiles has reissued a lot of their work, along with that of several other designers from that era. They've got a neat Flash presentation showing the fabrics and some information about the designers. Because their whole site is done in Flash, I can't point directly to it, but you'll need to scroll over the "menu" at right, click on "Featured Textiles", and then on "Textiles of the 20th Century". I love all of the fabrics that Ray Eames designed that are shown there, but particularly "Dot Pattern", which I think would make some kick-ass curtains. Girard's "Millerstripe", "Quatrefoil", and "Jacob's Coat" are particularly striking as well, as are George Nelson's "Chinashop" and "Pavement". Girard's fabrics are also well-represented at the site of his official representation, Maximo Design. The Eames' fabrics are available from the Eames Office site. The stuff is expensive, $80/yard on Eames Office, so we may not actually use it (we've got some ideas of our own to do similar things), but it's interesting to look at everything to see what we like. But the Eames Store site is the cheapest one I found on this stuff. RetroModern charges $95/yard for this stuff.

Eames Office is consistently cheaper than RetroModern on the stuff that both carry, but RetroModern seems to have more stuff. None of this stuff is cheap, unfortunately. But we may splurge on one or two pieces. I particularly like Ferruccio's Orbital Floor Lamp, for example. The multi-color version they show is really striking. I did see a few things that were more reasonably priced at Design Within Reach when I could get through to their site earlier today. They've got a few storefronts in New York City, so maybe we'll poke our heads in their next time we're in the city.

One site that's nice to look at even if pretty much everything is beyond our budget is the MoMA Store. They have pillows made with some of the fabrics I mentioned above, for example; not sure I want to spend $135 on a pillow, but they're there if we want them.

One place that seems more reasonable in their prices is House Pop Culture Artifacts. They make some interesting ottomans among the tchotchkes they list for sale.

We were out at some of the home decor stores over the long New Years' weekend, including Home Depot's Expo Design Center and Sears Roebucks' The Great Indoors. It seemed like damned near everything they had was aimed at designing for 18th century Italy or 19th century France. Bored me to tears. Laura even noticed that the two stores carried the same artwork. Bleah. I think when it comes to art, we'll make our own.

Posted at 12:31 AM

Comments

Note: I’m tired of clearing the spam from my comments, so comments are no longer accepted.

Hi,

Thanks for the plug. Pleasantly surprised to come across your site and mention of our company. Just and FYI, our fabric is $55/yard and is much more suitable for drapery than the Maharam fabric. We license the Girard patterns to Maharam and are big fans of the product, especially for upholstery use. But if you're actually considering using it for curtains, I think it might be a bit too heavy and stiff. Not sure if any of the patterns we currently have appeal to you, but these screenprinted fabrics were actually created for use as drapery. We can always send you a little swatch if you're interested. Our pillows are also affordable.

Thanks,

Matt Rembe Owner, maXimo inc.

Posted by Matthew Rembe at 8:31 PM, February 11, 2004 [Link]

I am looking for "Marlboro" printed fabric by Eames. Can you tell me if you have some or where i might be able to find some.

Thanks, Tom

Posted by Thomas at 2:39 PM, February 15, 2004 [Link]

Trackbacks

This site is copyright © 2002-2024, Ralph Brandi.

What do you mean there is no cat?

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

- Albert Einstein, explaining radio


There used to be a cat

[ photo of Mischief, a black and white cat ]

Mischief, 1988 - December 20, 2003

[ photo of Sylvester, a black and white cat ]

Sylvester (the Dorito Fiend), who died at Thanksgiving, 2000.


Stylesheets


This site is powered by Missouri. Show me!

Valid XHTML 1.0!

Valid CSS!

XML RSS feed

Read Me via Atom

new host

Me!

Home Page
Resume
Married
Photographs
Flickr Photostream
Instagram Archive
Twitter Archive

last.fm

There Is No Cat is a photo Ralph Brandi joint.


Archives

Search



Family Blogs

Geneablogy
Jersey Girl Dance
Awakening
DullBlog
Mime Is Money

Blogs I Read

2020 Hindsight
AccordionGuy
Adactio
Allied
Apartment Therapy
Assorted Nonsense
Backup Brain
Burningbird
Chocolate and Vodka
Creative Tech Writer
Critical Distance
Daily Kos
Dan Misener likes the radio
Daring Fireball
Design Your Life
design*sponge
Doc Searls
Edith Frost
Elegant Hack
Emergency Weblog
Empty Bottle
Five Acres with a View
Flashes of Panic
Future of Radio
Groundhog Day
Hello Mary Lu
iheni
Inessential
Interllectual
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents
Jersey Beat
John Gushue ... Dot Dot Dot
john peel every day
JOHO The Blog
Kathryn Cramer
Kimberly Blessing
La Emisora de la Revolucion
Lacunae
Loobylu
mamamusings
Medley
mr. nice guy
MyDD
Orcinus
oz: the blog of glenda sims
Pinkie Style
Pinkie Style Photos
Pop Culture Junk Mail
Seaweed Chronicles
Shortwave Music
Slipstream
Talking Points Memo
The Unheard Word
Tom Sundstrom - trsc.com
Typographica
Unadorned
Vantan.org
WFMU's Beware of the Blog