SOPHIE'S STREET FINDS

Best thing about living in Brooklyn- finding awesome free shit on the street.


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The other day while on a jog to visit junk stores, I found some amazing vinyl on a Carroll Gardens stoop. A handwritten sign read "free". I love anything free, especially early Steve Martin Albums. Here's a little list of what I found..

Steve Martin, Let's get Small. 1977
Balloon animals are featured all over this album.

The Steve Martin Bros. 1981
The Album shows two sides of Steve.
Side A: The rich comedian.
Side B: Hippi banjo player
This is his lowest selling album to date.

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Diana Ross, Diana. 1980
Classic Album. Classic outfit.
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Martha Valez, Escape From Babylon. 1980
Martha has great overalls on the cover. What's better is her soulfully styled vocals mixed with Marley's Kingston rhythms. Bob Marley and Lee Perry both produced the album. It's a rare gem.
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Neil Young, Trans. 1982
The electronic album, made for his son. Beautiful. A Vocoder is featured in almost all of the tracks.
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Andreas Vollenweider, Caverna Magica. 1983
New Age sounds from within a cave. Andreas plays the electro-acoustic harp.
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And also...

Randy Newman, Trouble In Paradise. 1981
80's Newman, glossy synth pop. "My Life is Good" and "I Love L.A".

Clockwork Orange, 1962
We were very inspired by the sounds of Wendy Carlos when we designed our Cystalarium collection so i was phyched to find this one.

Spirits of Life, Haitian Vodou. 2005
Mystical motivational music. Focuses on some of the many rythms found within the music of Vodou.

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90'S INTERVIEW MAGAZINES
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Also found a bunch of late 80's and early 90's Interview magazines on the street. All of the advertisments for Swatch Watch, Barney's, Chipendale's, and Inochine are incredibly well designed. They also make amazing wrapping paper for gifts.
The Limelight add is particularly intriguing. Also, Pee Wee Herman for L.A. Eyeworks.

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WE ANSWERED SOME QUESTIONS...

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Our friend Christina put together some questions, classic questionnaire style, and here are our answers, a little peek into our brains!

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LISA

(little lisa )



Where is the most beautiful place in the world?

The past.

What item that you don’t currently possess would you most like to have in your home?

A working fireplace. Or an ice-cream maker.

What is the most memorable experience you’ve ever had on an airplane, train or bus? Or on any form of transportation except a car.

Tilting my head up in a an extremely crowded subway and seeing the tall man squeezed in next to me trying not to vomit on me. I think he swallowed it.

What is the best meal you've ever eaten?

Jaipur, India. July 2nd, 2008. Its hard for me to remember the exact combination of foods- there were so many courses and so many things that were foreign to my mouth- but I do remember savory pineapple with ground lamb and cardamom ice cream.

How do you take good care of a plant?

Make sure to play music that the plant likes. Most plants like classical music.

If you could have an entire wardrobe designed for you by any one designer who would you choose?

Jean Muir.

What are the most uncomfortable shoes in your closet? what are your favorite shoes?

The most uncomfortable shoes are a pair of black patent leather creepers. They are deceptively cushy and cozy looking but cut into my ankles.
My favorites are rainbow colored Guatemalan socks with leather soles sewn onto the bottom. Not sure if those count as shoes, but they make me so happy.

Do you like reptiles?

Like? LOVE! Leopard spotted iguanas are my current favorite.

What is the most memorable smell that you recall?

The movie-theater-popcorn-fake-butter smell. Its revolting.

What's the best thing you ever found at a garage sale or flea market?

A long sleeved, high necked Dior leaf print wool gown with a matching belt- for $10.

Where can I find good socks?

In Guatemala, apparently. I imagine it as a sanctum of brilliantly stocking-ed lower legs.

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Sophie

(baby sophie)


Where is the most beautiful place in the world?

Right now I'm sort of fascinated with the Petrified Forrest even though I've never been. It's a national park with the worlds largest concentration of petrified wood. Basically it's a fossilized Forrest. Nation Park of Darkness! It contains the Painted Desert as well as other haunting and mesmerizing moonscapes. There is even a Native American building from the 1930's made entirely of petrified wood.

What item that you don’t currently possess would you most like to have in your home?

A Sanyo R277 Internet alarm radio! It's the coolest gadget I've recently been excited about. It functions on a wireless network and has access to thousands of ultra-niche radio stations around the world. Classical music stations from Lithuania anyone? It's also got a classic design that recalls the black bakelite radios of the 1930's.

What is the most memorable experience you’ve ever had on an airplane, train or bus? Or on any form of transportation except a car.

Probably the train ride from NYC to DC for the Obama Inauguration. There was a pretty epic party in the snack bar car. Everyone was connected as if it were a Grateful Dead concert. I think it was probably the most spiritual snack cart experience I'll ever have.

What is the best meal you've ever eaten?

My moms spare ribs. Or any meal at The Palm.

How do you take good care of a plant?

Pet it and read it Shel Silverstein poems.

If you could have an entire wardrobe designed for you by any one designer who would you choose?

Well if i really had the access.. I would have to say Yves Saint Laurent risen from the dead doing his late 70's Le Smoking era.

What are the most uncomfortable shoes in your closet? what are your favorite shoes?

The most uncomfortable are my favorites- black sued lace-up the leg ballerina shoes. they are classic and elegant but one size to small.

Do you like reptiles?

I like when my friends function with their reptilian brain.

What is the most memorable smell that you recall?

My mother kissing me goodnight in the 80’s smelling of the perfume Opium.

What's the best thing you ever found at a garage sale or flea market?

An octopus in a jar.

Where can I find good socks?

At the Clipper's gift shop at the Staples Center. Sports socks of your favorite team are the ultimate fashion accessories.
Exactitudes is Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek's ongoing project to document the dress codes of various social groups- theyve been working on it together since 1994.

Viewing this project feels like youre seeing your entire life - from childhood to old age, in every big metropolis and tiny town all over the world- all at the same time. Do individuals actually exist? Or do we consist of a collection of reactions to every other person we come into contact with?

the link:
http://www.exactitudes.com/serie.php?nr=17

Best Pranks Ever





So simple, so effective and strangely beautiful in their simplicity.
The only way to top this would be to add costumes.

The Crystalarium! Fall 2009 Presentation







The sets for our presentation were created by our dear friend and artists Marisa Tesauro.
We were inspired by the cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon and glass installations by the artist Robert Smithson.


We asked Marisa to talk a bit about her inspiration and experience working with us on this project, and here's what she had to say:

"When I first sat down with Lisa and Sophie we talked about what their inspirations were for the collection and they showed me some of the fabrics they were using. We were looking at these beautifully intelligent Olafur Eliasson installations, a natural crystal cave in México and thinking about laser light shows. They mentioned Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, which is one of those monumental pieces on my list so we went from there working with the title of the show ‘Crystalarium’.

The idea for using cds as a material came about after one of my trips to Staples, which is next to the studio. I often go there and to Lowes to look for inspiration. There is a display for paper shredders and to prove their strength they shredded some cds and left them in the plastic receptacle. I should also mention that we thought about using glass for the inside of the triangle platform, but glass doesn’t reflect light so it didn’t make sense. After doing research I found a company, GreenDisk in Seattle, Washington that recycles cds and I spoke to the director David Beschen who was very willing to help us and after convincing everyone that it would be a really beautiful installation and not a high school art project the cds arrived at the studio-1 ton of cds!

The cd fragments were a great way to create a light experience without using a lot of external light sources and really transform the material, which is a familiar element in my work, but it wasn’t until the day of the show when we were installing the piece that I actually realized how the scale of the installation had such an impact. The installation process was like playing in a giant sandbox texturally and driving into a mirage visually.

As for working with Sophie and Lisa the collaboration really made sense since their work has always inspired me and there was such ease in the process, not only due to a friendship but a mutual understanding of aesthetics. Hopefully we will have the chance to collaborate again!"





PLAYLIST

Our favorite DJ, William Raucher aka Gem Hunter, put together this amazing playlist for the show. We worked with him to create the perfect neo-new age playlist. Think Shirley MacLaine and the Harmonic Convergence of 1987. In the studio we were designing while listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins, Jeans Michelle Jarre, Tangerine Dream, and Kate Bush. Billy helped introduce us to deeper goth-spiritual beats.

We fell in love with Eloy.
THIS is one of our favorites.

Thank you DJ Gem Hunter.


Andreas Vollenweider, "Caverna Magica"

Amorphous Androgynous, "Mountain Goat"

Brian Eno "Golden Hours"

Throbbing Gristle, "20 Jazz Funk Greats"

Der Zyklus, "Quasar"

Cocteau Twins, "Beatrix"

Kate Bush, "The Dreaming"

Gang Gang Dance, "Bebey"

Andy Summers & Robert Fripp, "Bewitched"

Etienne Daho, "Arnold Layne"

A Mountain of One, "Can't Be Serious"

Eloy, "Horizons"

Oppenheimer Analysis, "Radiance"

Holger Hiller, "Das Feuer (Pilooski edit)"

Cerrone, "Supernature"

Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, "Black Spring"

Tangerine Dream, "Thru Metamorphic Rock"

Jean-Michel Jarre, "Oxygene Part 3"

Vangelis, "Heaven and Hell, Part 1"

Claire Hamill, "Sleep"


Check out Billy's blog, and this post for some of his inspiration. Enjoy!

Fall 2009 INVITE



This is the invite to the show. The Fall 2009 collection was inspired by the Hall of Gems and Minerals at the Museum of Natural History. We used a number of different layered materials, velvet, metallic fringe, tie-dyed wool, rainbow sequins, holographic leather, chains, mohair and chiffon, and two new prints, include a photographic print of rainbow obsidian and a hand drawn stalactite print, that echoed what we saw at the museum.
We like to call the mood of the collection "Neo-New Age", as we listened to a lot of New Age music while we were designing, especially Elisabeth Frasier of the Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush, and Enya.


HAPPY VALENTINES DAY




Peruvian Long Haired Guinea Pigs, I love You.

CASTINGS









Jewelry by Robert Lee Morris
Makeup test with Vicent Longo
Photographs by Marilia Destot
See more here