Maison des Perles

Japanese needlework artist Môko Kobayashi renders haute couture embroidery playfully accessible

While haute couture has, in recent years, moved toward displaying the textural qualities of embellishment through abstraction, Maison des Perles brooches, pins and necklaces are largely representational. Founding artist Môko Kobayashi uses classical haute couture embroidery techniques to create playful accessories that shimmer and enchant. Kobayashi approaches her subjects with a penetrating attention to detail. Each bead is reminiscent of a pixel; every one critical …

Tokyo Graphic Passport 2014

A traveling exhibition of Japanese artistry and design

Housed across three galleries—two in DUMBO, Brooklyn and one in Manhattan’s Lower East Side—bilingual Japanese arts publication +81 presents “Tokyo Graphic Passport,” a traveling exhibition of Japanese posters and more from many famed makers and creators within the vibrant Japanese arts scene. The graphic design magazine has been hosting global artistic showcases since 2009, but this year’s iteration is the biggest to date—and is its …

Charged: Shindo Laboratory

Ken Shindo's sculpture-like amps and pre-amps turn the experience of listening to music into an emotion-packed one

The 2011 documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” at first appears to be a film about an 85-year-old sushi chef and his world-famous dishes, though it’s really about a man’s lifelong quest to continually make better sushi—to continually strive to master his craft. In the world of hi-fi audio equipment, Jiro’s counterpart, if there ever was one, would be fellow countryman Ken Shindo, whose hand-made tube …