fall into the crap

and that's just what the poor gap corporation did, when they unveiled their new logo.  not exactly a brilliant move to burnish their already troubled image...

oy vey.  sad thing is, most people want to like the gap, but sometimes it's just so hard...

unleashing the worst logo in decades may have been a bad move for gap inc., but it has brought out the best of the internets! in 48 hours, there have been countless press mentions of the debacle (including this one), and now there is a snarky @gaplogo twitter feed, and some smart programmer set up a site to make your very own ugly logo here:

another enterprising person claims they will be selling t-shirts:

one blog kicked off a competition to create a redesign of the logo redesign, and then gap corporation themselves got in on the action, announcing they would be "crowd-sourcing" a new logo redesign contest, open to all.  not exactly a bad PR strategy, we think- making lemonade from an uglyass lemon!

contest entry- not so bad!

personally, i'd like gap to return to it's original logo from 1969- it's been long enough that it doesn't look so much dated, as retro cool:

what do you think of the redesign, and resulting storm?

good fortune

thank you mr. panda for the good fortune with my not-so-very-chinesey chinese food (c'mon, you know you like their orange chicken- everybody does!).  kind of appropriate for a junque whisperer®, and i hope it bodes well for some planned upcoming shopping excursions!

living in the past...

maison21 never wanted to turn into one of those old people who says things like "they don't make music these days like back when i was young...", but alas, time has a funny way of making cliches come true, and while maison21 (thankfully) thinks there is still a lot of great music being made these days, he does have a soft spot for the music of his formative years...

so this rainy LA morning, m21 comforted himself during the odious task of completing last month's billing, by listening to the music of one of the heroes from our youth, david sylvian.  his voice and music will always be one of our favorite things in life, so we thought we'd make today's post a tribute to him, jsut in case you've never heard of him, or just haven't heard him in a while...

(all you youngins are given permission to skip this post- who wants to listen to grandpa's music from the olden days? ick.)

red guitar, from the album brilliant trees, 1984- after a quarter of a century, still m21's favoritist song in the whole wide world.

orpheus, from 1987's secrets of the beehive, one of the most beautiful albums of the 1980's (imho).

gentleman take polaroids, from 1980 album of the same name, by david sylvain's first group, japan.

forbidden colours, 1983, a collaboration with the amazing riuichi sakamoto and the theme song from the film "merry christmas, mr. lawrence". simply gorgeous.

ooh la la!

 

does it get any cuter then ted and richard, as captured by the talented hand of fifi flowers? and since all of fifi's original paintings are available as notecards through her site, i think we know what our holiday cards are going to look like!

thank you, fifi- we LOVE it!

if you can't have henry, get with vaughan.

no, this post is NOT a summary of maison21's dating life, but rather referring to m21's love for the work of henry moore.  in the m21 dream atelier, we would have a henry moore sculpture somewhere in the house (or on our acres of grounds), but IRL, we simply don't have the bazilion kajillion dollars for a genuwine henry moore so we have to do without (temporary cash flow issues, you understand- sure to be cleared up any day).

henry moore's vertabrae sculpture in seattle.  if it could fit in the m21 mobile, we'd put on a pair of adult diapers, drive non-stop to seattle, and snatch it!

so what does this have to do with someone named vaughn?  well, on the twitter, m21 follows the tweets from the fabulous vaughan lighting company, so when they sent out a tweet "new at vaughn", we clicked, and saw this amazing table:

so freaking purdy!

sure, it's probably a kajillion dollars, but it's not a bazillion kajillion dollars, so that makes it a slightly more realistic fantasy then a henry moore sculpture- if not for the maison21 atelier, at least for a client who doesn't have maison21's "temporary cash flow" issues.  ;-)

we also saw these other fabulous items while checking out what's new at vaughan...

amiens sconces- classically pretty, in the style of agostini. LOVE these.

colombier chandlier- whimisical, but also elegant- we see it in a chic breakfast room.

zurich lantern- perfect for an entry hall, preferably our own.

large leaf sconce- chic and a bit exotic.

biscay ceiling light.  chic flushmount ceiling fixtures are near impossible to find, so this one is bookmarked. we love that it hits the transistion between mid-century modern and traditional- so versatile.

m21 usually picks lighting after the main furniture pieces for the room have been selected, but these rock lamps are pretty enough, we'd design and decorate a whole room just around them. and we will, if the nice people at vaughn would like to ship us a pair.  we'll redecorate our bedroom around them, and share the pictures with the world. promise. ;-)

 what's your fave?