Slow → articles tagged with craftsmanship

AETHERfocus presents Argonaut Cycles

We really like the latest endeavor by one of our favorite outdoor label, Los Angeles-based Aether Apparel. Last December, as an enhancement to their online Journal, they introduced AETHERfocus. The new project is a video series that showcases individuals and companies that inspire the people at Aether. The very first episode focusses on Ben Farver of Argonaut Cycles. This company offers custom-built carbon frames, designed and manufactured entirely in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Each of their bikes are handcrafted using an innovative construction process for a completely tailored riding experience. The company is driven by a sincere passion for the sport of cycling, striving to make the best, because they want to ride the best. [ Continue reading ]

Métier, Small Businesses in London

Métier, Small Businesses in London is a lovely book by photographer Laura Braun published through her own Paper Tiger Books, about London-based small-scale independent and specialist businesses and the people who run them. In a time when the high streets of London are taking on a more and more corporate character, this book offers an unusual and interesting perspective on the city and an insight into the working lives of people who strongly identify with their occupation. In total Laura has photographed 26 people and their places of work, accompanied by a short text about each person and business and an afterword by sociologist Dawn Lyon. [ Continue reading ]

Moulton Bicycles Company

We love this video portraying the high level of craftsmanship one finds at the workshop of the Bradford on Avon-based Moulton Bicycles Company filmed by WellPlastic Films. Moulton Bicycles' founder, Alexander Moulton, is known as the pioneer of the small wheeled bicycle revolution which took place in 1962. All of today's small wheeled cycles owe a debt of gratitude to the original Moulton 'F' frame design, which not only introduced and proved the concept of full-size bicycles with small wheels, it was also the first frame that utilized front and rear suspension systems for improved comfort and performance. The Moulton bicycle has been developed and refined constantly ever since, and is seen as one of the finest bicycles being produced all over the world. [ Continue reading ]

Travelteq Navy

Travelteq just released a full line of products in navy Florentine Vacchetta leather. The Notebook Cover, Macbook Sleeve, Cardholder, Cardholder Mini, Passport Holder all come in this beautiful dark blue.
Together with this they came with an All-Leather edition of their signature Trash laptop bag. Where the original is made with a leather outer shell and the main compartment covered with water resistant nylon, the new editions are totally made out of the high quality Florentine Vacchetta leather which Travelteq uses for all their products. The All-Leather edition gives the Trash just that extra luxurious appeal, and with the extraordinary leather used for the bags the new bag will look even more tremendous after using it for a longer period of time. [ Continue reading ]

Crate Serrote

We love the latest additions to the beautiful collection of Lisbon-based Serrote. Expanding their horizon beyond just notebooks, the company introduces Crate Serrote: a wooden crate filled with ten blue and white products  by Portuguese manufactures, especially made for this box. Included in the box, but also available separately, Serrote also introduces a new notebook and a new notepad. The Starry Notebook is a notebook for those who like to watch the movement of the stars and draw lines in the sky. And the Celestial Notepad is a notepad with 144 pages of four different tones, interleaved with each other, which reproduces the colors of the sky. [ Continue reading ]

Two Years of O Editorial

Celebrating two years of existence, O Editorial presents a beautiful new website and a collection of special edition products, in collaboration with some exciting portuguese brands. Pairing timeless design and traditional production techniques, O Editorial products stand out for the quality of materials, attention to detail and functionality. The products in celebration of the two years of existence are a notebook in collaboration with Grafolita, a bag with Ideal & Co and a beautiful stool by Boa Safra. [ Continue reading ]

Absolut Originality

This month Absolut presented a very appealing limited collection of bottles called Absolut Originality. The elegant collection features four million individually designed bottles, each made into a one-of-a-kind work of art, as they have a drop of cobalt blue infused into the molten glass during production. Following last year’s launch of Absolut Unique, the liquor brand continued in finding an interesting new concept for their next limited edition with the ambition  to capture the soul of Absolut, expressing creativity and quality as its cornerstones. [ Continue reading ]

Wayside Flower

Wayside Flower is a recently opened webstore exclusively selling British handmade products, from clothing to accessories and jewelry. The original store, studio and workplace are family owned and based on the East Yorkshire coast in Bridlington's Old Town. The name 'Wayside Flower' comes from an old Bridlington fishing Trawler as many of the products produced by Wayside Flower take inspiration from Bridlington's seafaring heritage. The store in Bridlington also offers vintage clothing and goods, but the new online environment focusses solely on limited edition and made to order handmade products. [ Continue reading ]

Volvo Concept Coupé

It's not that often we feature news from the car industry, but the direction Volvo has taken with its newest car we really love: the Concept Coupé. The concept, which is the first design from Volvo's new design director, embodies a bold and interesting makeover for the Swedish car brand. The first out of three concept cars points out the new design direction for Volvo. Thomas Ingenlath, Senior VP of Design, says this car manifests that Volvo "will stand out as the calm, confident and naturally powerful challenger." The Concept Coupé offers new elements to the Volvo brand by merging contemporary Scandinavian lifestyle and design with iconic elements from Volvo’s 1960’s era and the beautiful P1800 in particular. The result is a new aesthetic showing craftsmanship and innovation. [ Continue reading ]

A Day in the Life of a British Clothing Factory

We really like this video by Danny Cooke giving an inside look into the Long Eaton factory of Sunspel Clothing. It shows the detail involved in the making of their products, specifically the Sea Island Cotton t-shirt. Sunspel’s Sea Island cotton is the finest cotton in the world. It is handpicked in the Carribean, woven in Switzerland and then handcrafted in their Long Eaton factory. [ Continue reading ]

Stadsbranderij Noord

Two weeks ago we were invited by Kees Kraakman, the man behind the coffee roastery located in the North of Amterdam as part of the cooperative Open Coöp named Stadsbranderij Noord. Kees has been a household name in the Dutch coffee industry for quite some years now. His life in coffee started in 1999 at The Golden Coffee Box as a friend of his was working there and he was looking for a job after finishing high school. Having worked there for little over 10 years Kees left and started as an independent in the coffee industry giving training and consulting, and eventually starting the coffee roastery Stadsbranderij Noord. [ Continue reading ]

Dewar’s 3B campaign

To celebrate their this year introduced Highlander Honey whiskey Dewar's collaborated with Sid Lee and The Ebeling Group for a campaign in which 80000 Highlander honey bees play the lead role, producing the key ingredient for the new liquor. Dewar’s Highlander Honey is the first modern honey flavoured whisky to come out of Scotland and was created by Dewar's master blender Stephanie Macleod. The campaign is both aesthetically and technically impressive and shows a fascinating variation on the swiftly expanding 3D printing technology as it focusses on the process of bees creating honeycombs in the shape of a whiskey bottle. [ Continue reading ]

Globe-Trotter Jet leather series

Handcrafted at the Globe-Trotter factory in Hertfordshire, England the highly appealing Jet leather series is inspired by modern luxury travel. The bags and accessories are hand crafted from Windsor grain leather and have engraved chrome hardware. The collection’s aesthetic is fresh and smooth, following the core suitcase design. It consists of Holdalls, Briefs, and a selection of accessories in the luxurious colors black, burgundy, green, blue and navy complemented with sunshine yellow and broken white for several accescoires. [ Continue reading ]

Clarks on Craftsmanship

The British company Run Productions just released a series of three short movies on craftsmanship they made for Clarks. Drawing on the passion that is put into shoemaking and the heritage of other craftsmanship such as bookbinding, surfboard making and Savile Row tailoring it became an homage to pure English craft. [ Continue reading ]

Tenue de Nîmes in Japan

Last month was a crazy one. We traveled form Amsterdam to Tokyo, to Basel, to Lisbon for both business and pleasure. In the coming days we'll share some of our experiences here. To start with Japan. Together with Menno and Rene - Tenue de Nîmes - we went to Japan to get some serious indigo and retail inspiration. Besides our amazing visit to Takeo Paper, we were invited to visit this indigo paradise of the legendary Bryan Whitehead. [ Continue reading ]

Serrote Soap Notebook

Lisbon-based couple Nuno Neves and Susana Viela of Serrote make limited-edition notebooks for connoisseurs and collectors of typographical gems. Printed on vintage Heidelberg presses, their graphic design is inspired by items from popular Portuguese culture such as tablecloths found at traditional luncheonettes and the shape of traditional biscuits. They also make special editions of notebooks experimenting with designs and materials, using their craft to the fullest.  [ Continue reading ]

The Botanical Sculptures of Hitomi Hosono

We really love the incredible ceramic sculptures designed by Japanese Kanazawa College of Art Bachelor graduate Hitomi Hosono. After complementary studies at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the graduation of a Masters degree at the Royal College of Art in London Hosono has perfected her craft and creates one of a kind botanical ceramic sculptures. The proces of creating her artworks roughly breaks down as follows; firstly it takes one month to create the mold, three intense weeks follow to attach the folliage, and it lastly takes up to five months to let the sculptures dry. The now London-based artist's lifelike depictions of leafage were recently awarded with a Perrier-Jouët Arts Salon Prize, a new award officiated by the producer of Champagne from the French Épernay region. [ Continue reading ]

Kika NY

Via Roztayger we've found out about Kika NY and their leather Postal Backpack. Kika NY has been producing artisinal leather goods since 2009 and was founded by the Dutch MA gaduate in Economics Kika Vliegenthart and former interactive designer Sabine Spanjer. It has slowly been expanding since. Vliegenthart who rigorously changed course and became a leather smith under Barbara Shaum in Manhattan after her studies and her business partner Spanjer have their workshop in the old Brooklyn Naval yard and therefore have both moved to New York from their native the Netherlands. They work with materials sourced from Europe, including leather from Portugal, Italy and Belgium. Their solid brass hardware is hand-tooled in an old family-owned foundry also in Europe. In a way one could say that the products of Vliegenthart and Spanjer emphasize the largely European lineage of their adopted new home New York City. [ Continue reading ]

Takeo Paper

While running around with our Tenue de Nîmes crew I was invited by Takeo Paper, to visit their head office and showroom in Tokyo. Takeo, a paper trading company founded more than a century ago, in 1899, brings the tradition of Japanese paper (wash) to a next level. Entering the high-white showroom you could easily thinking you arrived in a laboratory. Small cabinets filled with a rainbow of paper. More than 9000 kinds of paper, in every colour of the rainbow, from super light weight to massive cardboard, this place is a walhalla for everyone who loves paper, textures, tactility and luxurious materials. [ Continue reading ]

Le Typographe

A few weeks back we were invited by Miscellaneous to visit Le Typographe. This lovely company with its tiny storefront and amazing workshop in the back, located at Rue Américaine 67 in Brussels, makes beautiful notebooks, envelopes and cards. Housed in the Elsene area of Brussels one finds their store and atelier connected by a little, lovely well-kept garden. Just as in the maintenance of their garden, in all of their products one can find excellent craft and the highest care for detail.  [ Continue reading ]

Everyday Needs

Everyday Needs is an online store mixing pragmatism and aestheticism in a superb way. The utilization of the store needs no explanation, as it should be, and through tasteful curation and product placement in the store, a perfect environment for the products has been created. With this as the context Everyday Needs ensures that what a costumer gets is not only good-looking but also carefully manufactured and with a quality that will last the test of time, completing the hybrid.  [ Continue reading ]

Xavi Mañosa

Freunde von Freunden keeps on feeding us with beautifully shot portraits and inspiring interviews with creative people from all over the world. They’ve just put online the portrait of Barcelona based Ceramist Xavi Mañosa. Inherited the tradition from his father and now investigating the connection… [ Continue reading ]