We are very grateful for everyone who had a share within the very first Our Current Obsession as without them we couldn't have realized it. Having introduced the main collaborator GERTRUD & GEORGE, some of the artists involved (with more to come), and ,The World of Black' in our space has been extended long and wide onto the online Our Current Obsessions environment, now it is time to give a proper insight into the other partners with which we’ve created the core of the extraordinary black selection of products for sale in our space on the Schippersgracht in Amsterdam. As these stores offer only the finest in their particular specialty we’ve named them Holland’s Finest, to which we owe a sincere debt of gratitude and feel honored to have collaborated with. [ Continue reading ]
We have written about the incredible Athens-based webstore named Daphnis and Chloe when we found out about it in July of this year. The elegant and exquisite project was founded by Evangelia Koutsovoulou who divides her time between between Athens, Milan and Barcelona. The webstore which was funded through Kickstarter focusses on culinary herbs and spices for chefs and home cooks who are looking for Mediterranean ingredients of the finest quality. Last week Evangelia and her team released an all new offering in the form of their caffeine-free alternative to normal tea which they named ‚The Office Blend’. Next to the new premium tea, which comes in a colorful all new container, the store has released this new packaging for all its herbs ensuring the best possible use for their fine herbs in the area where it matters most: the kitchen. [ Continue reading ]
Mikael Kennedy is a New York City-based commercial and fine art photographer, which we have been following since the very beginning of our online endeavors. We first noticed his extraordinary work through his internationally acclaimed Polaroid travel blog; Passport to Trespass, which documented his 10 years of wandering the United States with a Polaroid SX70, concluded by the photographer in 2011. Now a days Kennedy’s Polaroids are part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, as well as in private collections worldwide. Other work of his has appeared in print in The New Yorker, Nylon, Dazed & Confused, WWD, and his photography has been being profiled online with GQ, Esquire, Time, Newsweek Magazine, and the WSJ, among others. Having been inspired by both Mikael's nomadic way of living and the elegant aesthetic one finds in his works, oftenly created during these travels: we now ask him what has inspired him along the road. [ Continue reading ]
On Thursday the 23rd of October a new bicycle racing specialist named Meesterknecht, opened its doors in the centre of Amsterdam. Meesterknecht is a bike shop with a cycling café focused on contemporary cycling. The shop caters to everything cycling enthousiasts dream of and on top of that one can enjoy the shop's exclusive espresso blend 'Gangmaker' (Pacer or Derny), while admiring Amsterdam's rich cycling history on the shop’s walls. The shop is proof that cycling is driven more and more by aesthetics and pleasure, instead of purely focused on performance. Due to the pervasive cycling culture in the Netherlands, cycling is not quickly perceived as being cool, even though cycling was the number one sport in the Netherlands until the late '60s. Every neighborhood in Amsterdam used to have its own criterium race and the cycling legends of the time raced its velodromes. Meesterknecht says it wants to bring back part of this lost culture and take the very best from the cycling community to Amsterdam. [ Continue reading ]
After our friends of The Travel Almanac premiered their interesting new venture last June in the form of TTA Editions, of which the second installment will be released somewhere in the beginning of 2015, they now will release the latest edition from their core: magazine number 8. Paul Kominek and his team created yet another incredible edition starting with the subtle blue cover color and suave cover subject Bryan Ferry. Next to the article on the Roxy Music frontman, one will find other features on the provocative photographer Leigh Ledare, the New York City-based painter Bjarne Melgaard, one of our favorite photographers Viviane Sassen, filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and finally musician Laurel Halo. The issue also holds a special feature on Iceland, winter boots and a story portraying the very skillful chocolatiers of the capital of chocolate; Belgium (also our all time favorite place to stay in Antwerp: Boulevard Leopold is mentioned). [ Continue reading ]
Inspirational Melbourne-based Barbera Design was established by Australian designer Daniel Barbera in 2004, to create Australian-made furniture. High quality, unique, but above all timeless products, primarily aimed at Oceania and South-East Asia. Since the inception of his studio, Daniel and his team have been working with world class leading architects, specifying batch production products from their range, while also being able to offer custom solutions with existing products or bespoke pieces. Barbera’s product ethos works around logical design outcomes, and is process orientated working with old industrial processes fused with modern technology and craftsmen, to deliver elegant quality furniture which we really like. [ Continue reading ]
Istanbul, the beautiful city on the Bosphorus, is famous for its countless minarets, magnificent palaces, colorful markets and traders, seagulls and stray cats. The Turkish city is the only metropolis in the world that unites two continents. Traditional crafts collide with a young and blossoming art and design scene, which is slowly changing the face and image of the city. The 24th issue of inspirational Karlsruhe-based magazine Slanted takes a close-up look at contemporary design work and all the tumultuous developments in this cultural melting pot city balanced between the Orient and the Occident. On their one-week-trip the Slanted team met 15 design studios and produced comprehensive studio portraits which provide a vivid and up-to-the-minute picture of the scene. The resulting video interviews have been enriched with video material from the Shutterstock collection, and finally, thanks to augmented reality and the Junaio app, readers can easily watch embedded videos of the Istanbul turu on mobile devices. So good! [ Continue reading ]