Dig Topiary Dog

During the weeks leading up to the holidays, everyone's To Do list is as long as their To Buy list, and too much to choose from can often be as paralyzing as too little. Refinery29 has taken the guess-work out of holiday shopping by priming Cool Hunting readers with the coolest and most diverse gifts—short and sweet—to be found in one of our favorite new neighborhoods, Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

First up is unconventional greenery from Dig. It might seem simple, but the right plant just screams festive, and it's just the thing for the impossible to please. Dig doesn't specialize in standard wreathes; instead they've made topiary holiday dogs (from $100-$280), aromatic rosemary trees, and offbeat Poinsettia arrangements the new host gift (and you'll need plenty). Call 718-554-0207 to order.

Added: December 2006

Three Gifts To Help Organize Gadgets

LaCie's new Huby USB and FireWire Hub hooks up your computer with plenty of ports for your cup warmer, ultrasound and Availabot, chargers, drives, cameras, music players and other gear, and keeps them all at arm's length on the 8 flexible arms. It also comes with a fan to keep you (and your gear) cool. Designed by Ora-Ito (aka Ita Morabito), it adds a bit of style to the clutter. Available for $80 from LaCie.

The Multipot (below left) is a light that doubles as a storage bin for all of your chargers. The cables that connect to your devices fit neatly through a cut out in the top of the pot, keeping all of the clutter hidden away, with just a single cord to plug into the wall. Designed by Dante Donegani and Giovanni Lauda for Rotaliana, the Multipot helps solve the problem of where to put—and charge—all of your devices. Available for $179 in multiple colors from Design Within Reach—the silver version has the added bonus of reflecting back its surroundings making it "invisible." Visit the Multipot site for more details and vendors outside of the U.S.

Harry (above right) keeps your gear organized by gently grabbing it with its flexible coated wire hooks. Mount it next to your door and you'll never forget your kit on the way out. Available for $30 from Formila.

Added: December 2006

McBride Beauty

Winifred Burkeman started to sell her handmade beauty products after all her friends kept asking what she used on her flawless skin. Named after her mother, her two year-old line of products, McBride Beauty, uses the same natural blend of ingredients that her mother had made years before to keep her sensitive skin healthy. Winifred makes the essential oil-based face and body natural beauty products at her home in Brooklyn using entirely natural ingredients—no chemicals or artificial colors—and they are not tested on animals. Now everyone has a chance to have beautiful and healthy skin like the McBride ladies.

For Cool Hunting readers, Wini is offering a great deal. You can get a set of all five of the products: Avocado Oil & Wheat Germ Night Créme, Rose Water & Vitamin C Face Créme, Grapefruit & Sandalwood Astringent, Cucumber Body Lotion and Milk & Honey Soap for $90 instead of the usual $120, if you mention Cool Hunting to her when you order by emailing wini [at] mcbridebeauty [dot] com. Otherwise, you can find McBride Beauty products at Steven Alan, Bird, Bark and other stores around New York City, at The Darling Room in Kansas City and online from New London Pharmacy.

Added: December 2006

An Inconvenient Truth DVD

If anything is going help you have a good yule this year—and more importantly for years to come—this "essential viewing" film about the threat of global warming is the one. A year ago no one would have believed that a film about a slideshow could have proved such a big hit with audiences around the world, but thanks to the persuasive powers of Al Gore, director Davis Guggenheim and producer Lawrence Bender, An Inconvenient Truth got made and is now a box-office phenomenon. This recently-released DVD includes an interview with Al Gore who updates the film with the latest available research about Global Warming. The more people that see this film the closer we get to understanding how to help our planet. Al Gore says, "The DVD is a vital way for us to continue the conversation about global warming, as more and more people understand what's at stake, they become a part of the solution, and share both in the challenges and opportunities presented by the climate crisis." Be part of the solution.

An Inconvenient Truth is available from Amazon.

Added: December 2006

Wooden Food Toys

I never outgrew my childhood obsession with toy food. Somehow everyday edibles become magical when rendered in delicately painted wood and—unlike the real stuff, not to mention most other toys—these wooden objects are made to last for generations.

German toymakers Haba and Erzi offer the most extensive collections of wooden kitchen play toys. From great basic sets like the gift basket by Haba which includes an assortment of fruits and vegetables, bread, dairy and chocolate ($19 from Moolka) to more obscure items like Sugar Cubes ($6), Noodles ($4) and Canned Pineapple Rings ($28), Haba's intricate details are irresistible. The Cheese Roll Cutting set from Erzi ($15) is a child-sized cutting board, knife, cheese and roll with halves that velcro together to make that satisfying real-life sound when "cut."

American toy makers Amazon. For children with more international tastes, the Wooden Sushi Set ($20 from Genius Jones) is a wooden bento box that comes complete with chopsticks, wasabi, ginger and soy sauce.

Added: December 2006

Pet Hypothesis Jewelry

Handmade from repurposed billboard vinyl, the debut line of Geopanic for its confetti-like abstraction of CMYK colors with red stitching, but you can see all her designs here. All pairs cost $75 and, true to the cause, $5 from every sale goes to the environmental organization, Conservation International.

Added: December 2006

K7 Klok Kit

Made from vintage Nixie Tubes (old-school electronic displays) reclaimed after sitting for 30-60 years in Russian warehouses, the exquisite K7 Klok Kit will win over DIYers and design geeks alike. Industrial designer Mike Mayberry custom fabricates the limited edition, aircraft aluminum housing that he sells along with the tubes as a kit for home assembly. The beauty of the ten layered electrodes glowing orange with overlapping dimension can only be appreciated when it's right in front of you. See more info and a link to a video here.

The K7 starts at $129 and tops out at $295 for the largest size tubes and can be ordered through Klok Modern—supplies are limited, so act quickly!. A few more parts are required, which Mayberry provides links for here.

Added: December 2006

Waris Tears Pins

Jewelry designer and sometime actor Waris teamed up with French label A.P.C to create these Waris Tear Pins. Part of a new line he designed for the brand inspired by "love and heartbreak" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird," the all-silver pins make understated accessories and are an unconventional gift. They come two to a set for $77 from A.P.C.'s site.

Added: December 2006

Trees For the Future

Trees For the Future (TFF) works with local communities to help reforest degraded lands and teaching local people agroforestry—how to grow, plant and tend to trees. The trees minimize soil erosion, provide foliage for animals and fuel-wood for the people. TFF also creates income generating schemes by helping communities produce timber and non-timber forest products.

For a work associate, your crunchy environmentalist cousin, or to send a message to a friend who drives a big gas-guzzling car, get them a veritable grove of 1,000 trees for $100 (or 450 trees for $45). Not only will the trees help to offset the greenhouse gasses that we produce as a byproduct of driving, or flying, these trees will help developing communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Best of all, you don’t even have to plant them.

Added: December 2006

Beautiful/Decay Holiday Season

Beautiful Decay recently released the latest in their superior line of artist-designed T-shirts just in time for gift giving. The new designs include Kyle Thomas' manic stream-of-consciousness "Scribble" (pictured left), toy design duo Friends With You's whimsical "Black Magic" (center) and Rob Thom's ode to monkey faces and short-shorts "Tennis Club" (right). As always Beautiful Decay's designs are printed on custom-cut, custom-dyed, 100% cotton T-shirts using a "discharge" method for increased softness. Click the images for detail.

Available for $30 from Beautiful Decay Shop.

Also on Cool Hunting: Beautiful/Decay Tees andBeautiful/Decay Tees: Aya Kato and Jonathan Nicol.

Added: December 2006

Stain Teacups

For perfectionist tea lovers on your list, these beautifully designed teacups (on CH here last month) are now in production. The work of British designer Laura Bethan Wood the bone china cups are £35, come with a saucer and are all hand finished. This product challenges the assumption that use—i.e. scratches, discoloration, wear and tear—is damaging or bad. Designed to improve through use, the inside of the cup is treated so that it is more susceptible to the staining that results from tea drinking. The more the cup is used, the more the pattern is revealed and, over time, the intensity of the pattern will increase—the speed depends on the owner’s personal tea drinking habit. Contact Laura through her site to purchase.

Added: December 2006

Life

Published back in March in the U.K. (left) and in September in the U.S. (right), Life by Lennart Nilsson is a phenomenal book. Born in Sweden in 1922, Nilsson is regarded as one of the foremost scientific photographers ever, and looking through the 300 or so pages in Life it's easy to see why.

The heavyweight book is split into two parts. The first charts the creation of life, and features incredibly detailed pictures of the components and mechanisms that make all of us. Photographs of the male hormone testosterone look like alien, multicolored gems, while what looks like a beautiful coral reef is in fact a close-up of the Fallopian tube. Nilsson broke new ground in the 1960s with his images from inside the womb, and the equivalent pictures featured here are still breathtaking.

The second part of the book deals with life after after birth. The body's main organs are all minutely investigated, as are the senses. Far more uncomfortable to look at, but no less interesting, are the images of things that can kill us. A pox virus looks truly ugly while HIV spreading over a white blood cell is nothing if not ominous.

You can get Life from either Amazon U.S..

Added: December 2006

CH Gift Guide 2006

For our third annual holiday gift guide, we’re going for a slightly different approach. By visiting our 2006 Holiday Gift Guide page, you’ll be able to see hundreds of items that we covered over this past year that make good gifts. This week we’ll add a fresh crop to the mix, devoting all of CH to gifts only. What’s more, if you haven’t checked out the Gift Shop featuring our hand-picked selection of goods from Miami’s BASE boutique, you’re missing a bevy of exclusives and other clever gifts, like a Camo Pattern Book and a scent called “Sand.”

Added: December 2006

Muji Multi-Functional Clock

This Multi-Functional Clock from Muji rotates to change from clock to alarm, calendar or thermometer. The information on the display rotates to show whicever feature is on top. Perfect for travel, the compact rubberized clock is another example of great design from Muji. Available for £6 complete with batteries from Muji Online.

Also Cool Hunting: Muji iPod Speakers, Muji Award, Muji Apartment

Added: December 2006

Grafuck 2

Grafuck 2 is the second annual publication of erotic art works from husband and wife design team Fiel Valdez and Peter Vattanatham (me,me). With illustration, photography, fine art and graphic design from emerging and established artists the second installment has all the lust and humor we loved about Grafuck 1. Grafuck 2 features a double-sided centerfold by kozyndan as well as works that range from whimsical and romantic to graphically raunchy by Lisa Alisa, Zip,Timothy Saccenti and many more (See images after the jump).

Available from Beautiful Decay.

Lisa Alisa

Timothy Saccenti

Zip

Added: November 2006

Alexis Canter Jewelry

Alexis Canter creates beautiful jewelry from casts of baby teeth, coffee beans, chicken bones and other organic remnants. The Brooklyn based designer's signature piece–a 14k gold casting of the winning half of a wishbone–makes a perfect good luck charm and the 14k gold baby teeth earrings (pictured) are the ideal synthesis of creepy and cute. Available at Stuart and Wright in Brooklyn the "Lucky Half" is $150 in silver and $400 in 14k gold, the baby teeth earrings are $190 and a solid 14k gold coffee been pendant is $436. See more images here.

If you can't make it to Brooklyn, you can find Alexis Canter's Apple and Lemon Seed necklace ($320) online at Matter.

Added: November 2006

CH + BASE Holiday Gift Shop

An oasis of taste on the otherwise gaudy Lincoln Road on South Miami Beach, BASE has been one of our favorite shops for years. This holiday season, in addition to our annual gift guide (coming soon), we teamed up with Steven, the founder of BASE, to offer you a selection of gift items. We really like most of the stuff BASE sells so narrowing down to a short list wasn't easy, but we're happy with the picks. Check them out here—each item can be purchased by following the link to BASE.

Added: November 2006

Mortified

Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic. is a collection of hilarious real-life letters, journal excerpts, poems, lyrics, and locker notes detailing the excruciatingly embarrassing pitfalls of youth. With all the voyeuristic thrills of reading your sister's diary without the consequences, Mortified is hard to put down. First performed as a live stage show, Mortified has been selling out seats across the country since 2002. Editor David Nadelberg and various contributors will be reading from their personal relics and signing books live in New York, Boston, Chicago, Pasadena and San Francisco during November and December 2006

Available from Amazon.

Added: November 2006

Perfido Bracelets

Contrasting the warmth and rich tones of wood with lucite's sleek modernist appeal, these bangles are made by Brooklyn-based furniture studio Perfido Design. The chunky, brightly colored bracelets made their debut as part of New York-based fashion label United Bamboo's Spring/Summer 2006 line, fitting well with that collection's Modern Art-influenced looks. You can get them in a variety of wood/lucite combinations from Perfido Design for $45.

Added: November 2006

Popular Science’s Best of What’s New 2006: FatMax Xtreme Fubar Demolition Tool

In our final installment of picks from Popular Science's Best of What's New 2006, we're featuring Stanley's FatMax Xtreme Fubar Demolition Tool, a new four-function tool inspired the way contractors often use hammers for more than just nails. Made from tempered steel, the mega-tool's design includes tiered jaws for bending boards and grabbing lumber, a tempered chisel that can cut and split, and a nail slot and a claw for prying. Sheathed in a rubber grip, the Fubar is the ultimate multipurpose tool. Pick it up for $40 from Lowe's.

Added: November 2006

Menu Wine Decanter

Further to Leti's post, whether it's from box or bottle (as I prefer) red wine invariably tastes better if it's decanted, thanks to the oxygenation that occurs. One of the most attractive decanters I've come across is this one in glass and steel, designed for Danish company Menu by Louise Christ Frederiksen. Besides looking good, the broad base significantly improves aeration.

Menu also has a load of other sexy wine products on its site, if you're a bit of an oenophile. The decanter costs around £35.

Added: November 2006

Jorg & Olif Citybikes USA Launch

Long before Droog, Koolhaas and Boontje, the Dutch had a much more classic design icon in their city-friendly bicycles. Now the Canadian company Jorg & Olif has brought a version of the bike stateside with the introduction of their Citybike to the U.S. market earlier this month. Featuring extended handlebars and a step-through model for skirt-wearers, the basic upright design makes riding a bike a much more civilized-feeling experience. The wide saddle increases comfort, while fender and chain guards, as well as coat/skirt guards, protect clothing from snags and splashes and pre-installed lights add safety at night. Updated for areas with hills, Jorg & Olif adds Shimano internal hub gear systems in one, three and eight speeds. Other perks include an in-wheel locking system, a built-in kickstand, wheels engineered for a smoother, faster ride, a sturdy rear rack with a strap and a traditional Dutch bell.

In addition to quality contruction and smart design, Jorg & Olif also round out their commitment to aesthetics with a line of acessories that add panache to a bike ride. From a simple black helmet ($195) to the "Citybag" (it's $115 and clips to the rack and can also be worn as a shoulder bag), Jorg & Olif are making bike riding more accessible to urbanites who believe in all the ethics of bike culture but who'd rather not have to roll up a pant leg.
Starting at $795 and going up to $1,295 depending on gears (only three and eight speeds have hand brakes), all bikes come with a pump. The Oma has a step-through frame and comes in extra-small, small and medium and the Opa comes in medium, large and extra-large. Order by emailing info [at] jorgandolif [dot] com or calling 604 877 1850.

Added: November 2006

Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography

Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography is a collection of contemporary photography from 121 living artists who have contributed to the international art photography scene in the last five years. The latest installment in Phaidon's lauded Vitamin series (which also includes titles Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting and Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing, Vitamin Ph) features photographers chosen by a distinguished panel of 78 critics, curators and fellow artists. The artists selected represent over 30 countries and run the gamut from established artists like Tacita Dean, to emerging talent and newcomers to the art world. Vitamin Ph features an introduction by art historian TJ Demos who explains that "photography, through its growing diversity, illustrates the many ways that we are different, helps us to understand those differences and connects us to the global world." CH favorite Anthony Goicolea (whose film The Septemberists we covered recently) is included, as well as Nikki S. Lee's amazing "Projects" in which she performs and embodies various identities from an exotic dancer to a yuppie. See more images here.

Vitamin Ph is available from Amazon.

Yto Barrada’s “Papier peint (Wallpaper)”

Elinor Carrucci’s “First Tears Over Another Man”

Anna Gaskells’ “Untitled

Tim Lee’s “The Jerk, Carl Reiner, 1979

Added: November 2006

Carlos Nite Lite

Designed by Kathleen Walsh for Walteria Living, this charming Nite Lite is pre-cast in bisque porcelain and comes with a detachable linen 'lampshade'. Our little chihuahua stands 7.5" tall and is approximately 4" wide at the base. 7.5 w bulb.

$149, Buy it at BASE

Added: November 2006

Skull Stationery by D.L. & Company

Blank note cards with a black tissue lined envelope featuring an engraved skull design. Perfect gift giving for the Absinthe-inclined. Each card is 5.5 x 7.5 in a black boxed, exquisitely packaged, set of 12.

$58, Buy it at BASE

Added: November 2006