Alice Rawsthorn: A graphic design firm for visuals - big time
The design firm Graphic Thought Facility doesn't have a stylistic signature. Its work is about identifying a visual idea to sum up each project, and experimenting with unusual production processes and materials to express it. The result is often unexpected.

Mayor of Medellín brings architecture to the people
Sergio Fajardo is pressing forward with an unconventional political philosophy that has turned swaths of Medellín into dust-choked construction sites.

Valentino at 45: Painting the town in red
At the Roman Colosseum, with three dancers in red floating like puppets on a string and a golden shower of fireworks, Valentino celebrated more than four decades of fashion history.

Valentino in Ara Pacis
Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda - the scenario's joint creators - have used the Richard Meier glass cube framing the Ara Pacis (peace altar) to show Valentino's dresses literally in a new light.

Robert H. Frank's economic guidebook unlocks everyday design enigmas
The American economist, Robert H. Frank, has devoted a book, "The Economic Naturalist," to unraveling such mysteries as why women button their clothes from the left and men from the right, or why CD cases are smaller than DVD cases when the discs are the same size. His explanations for what he calls "everyday enigmas" are rooted in economic theory.

Paris Fashion: The jewelers of Place Vendôme get in on the act
A botanical jewelry theme sprouted as the jewelers of Place Vendôme opened their doors for the haute couture season.

Paris Fashion: Sneak previews
The idea of next season's pre-spring collection snapping at the heels of haute couture, dreamed up a year ago, is now an established fact.

Paris Fashion: Shimmering shades of gray gowns
The Elie Saab autumn/winter 2007 haute couture show was an homage to the ladies of the silver screen.

Paris Fashion: Tea dress, scarf or tunic?
Michèle and Olivier Chatenet built their new E2 collection on vintage silk scarves transformed into a series of imaginative shapes to wear and to tie as fashion clothing.

News from RM
Roland Mouret's first show under his new label, RM, is a change of fashion, with the multimedia magnate Simon Fuller backing the fashion brand.

The moon's pearls
The gaping holes for eyes and mouth look like a sculpted version of Edvard Munch's primal scream. But this necklace, with a dagger through its back and droplets of pearls hanging on its cord, is also a magical piece of jewelry.

Hash hits the pay dirt
Anne Valérie Hash has been slaving away for many seasons in the mines of the haute couture calendar, showing ready-to-wear among the masters of couture design. But with her decision to show a capsule collection of 14 truly couture looks, leaving the ready-to-wear for the spring shows, she hit pay dirt.

Lord of the rings
Imagine a fairy tale scenario where you are presented with a thousand rings sewn into a dress.

Design: Limited editions, without the usual limits
For Vitra Editions, the Swiss furniture company Vitra commissioned a collection of 15 limited edition objects from a gilded group of architects, including Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid; and designers, such as Jasper Morrison, Hella Jongerius, and the French brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

Obituary: Liz Claiborne, designer of clothes for professional women, 78
Claiborne became one of the most successful fashion designers in America by making career clothes for the women who began entering the work force en masse in the 1970s.

Does the iPhone have 'It'? Early signs are good
Apple's new smart phone going on sale Friday shows signs of becoming one of the elite cadre of products that decades later are remembered as icons of their time.
- The iPhone matches most of its hype
- Apple leaves accessory makers in the dark
- A FAQ on what the iPhone has and what it lacks
- SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY: iPhone launch
- Customers line up for Apple's iPhone days before Friday's launch
- Apple iPhone expected to drive mobile phone industry toward fancier touch screens
- Without wireless downloads, iPhone may not rock music industry
- Who really makes the iPod?

Green is good - by customer demand
The white windmills in the forecourt at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fair send out a subliminal message: green, not greed, is good for the 21st century.

Diesel puts holograms into fashion perspective
Shoals of fish and tumbling sea urchins are not familiar accessories on a fashion runway. But by the time a snaking sea creature was made up of wrist watches, Diesel had made a statement with its dive into the deep.

An early look at the Capucci foundation collection
A mellow Florentine mansion, with a Renaissance loggia, lion's head fountain and a picture-postcard view over the apricot aura of the city is the new home of the Fondazione Roberto Capucci. The great artist/couturier who, at age 76, is still creating sculptural wonders in his Rome studio, has donated his entire archive of 400 pieces, 22,000 fashion sketches, 300 illustrations, photographs and film to the city of Florence, which gave him his fashion start in 1950.

Gathering wool -- Australia merino, that is
Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace, Paul Smith, the Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani and Francisco Costa of Calvin Klein all are accepting apprentices, sponsored by the Australian Wool Innovation.

Roland Mouret's designs: Back in the fold
As Mouret demonstrated with a white napkin at Costes restaurant in Paris, his shapes and designs are draped and not drawn.

Naoki Takwizawa, designer, is honored
The Japanese designer has received "chevalier of arts and letters" from Stéphane Martin, president of the Quai Branly Museum, in a ceremony in Paris.

Marc Audibet to become design director at Vionnet
Audibet is coming back to his first design love, Vionnet, finding her fluid bias-cut dresses a perfect fit with his own aesthetic. He met Madeleine Vionnet at an exhibition when he was 14.

The technical challenge of making space travel easy
Marc Newson is working on the interior design of a spacep***, a new leisure spacecraft that was unveiled in Paris last week by its manufacturer, Astrium, part of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company. It will take tourists into space starting in 2012.

Naoto Fukasawa: Intuiting function from form
The Japanese design guru believes that "you shouldn't need to use an instruction manual to learn how to use a product. It should be so intuitive that you work it out naturally."
- Design calender: Key design events of 2007-8

The designer Tom Ford goes global
Tom Ford, with the support of Domenico de Sole, has laid the foundation for a global luxury empire that may put him back on fashion's center stage.

At Chantilly races, a touch of India
At Sunday's Prix de Diane Hermès, the classy picnic, which is as much a focus as the venerable horse race for many visitors, the open-sided Taluka tents were redolent of Rajput festivities on the manicured lawns of colonial India.

Graduate Fashion Week in London
The college work in design and graphics displayed on stands in the Battersea Park tent drew international talent scouts and admirers.

Surreal Selfridges: Shop like a man
Ever since the Victoria & Albert Museum opened its powerful exhibition "Surreal Things: Surrealism & Design" and Selfridges took up the theme, the once dowager duchess of a store has been pulling in a hip young crowd.

Stealthy screen time: Prime placement for luxury brands
Today, the sure bet for luxury labels - like Louis Vuitton, Armani and Versace - wanting to gain visibility in Hollywood is not dressing stars for film premieres, but getting screen time alongside them.

The director Timur Bekmambetov turns film subtitling into an art
The traditional method of making subtitles hasn't been exactly conducive to creativity. But the Russian director Timur Bekmambetov has been changing all that in his "Watch" movies.
- Design calender: Key design events of 2007-8

Jean Prouvé's Maison Tropicale at design auction
Only three Maisons Tropicales were shipped from Jean Prouvé's factory in France to Niger. One stands in New York, beside the Queensboro Bridge, awaiting its sale at Christie's next month: the biggest trophy in the next round of modern and contemporary design sales.

Ralph Lauren returns to his Russian roots
The American designer will open a flagship store in Tretyakovsky Passage, the historic area that has become Moscow's epicenter of luxury.

Design's surreal sizing
The surreal size of objects (whether giant or tiny) is symptomatic of a deeper change in design, and a reflection of how advances in technology and consumer attitudes are transforming the way we value the objects we use each day.

Paul Poiret: Pre-Modern magic at the Met
In a thrilling exhibition (until Aug. 5) combining exotic fantasy with intellectual rigor, the Metropolitan Museum has come up trumps with its study of Paul Poiret, who reigned in fashion a century ago.

Philip Green & Kate Moss: Will Topshop go to America?
The "High Street" entrepreneur and owner of Topshop and the rock chick supermodel are in New York this week to launch the new line of 80 "Kate" fashion pieces.

Isabella Blow: Fashion loses an inventive icon
Blow, 48, who has died in England, was the incarnation of the English eccentric, yet a powerful force in international fashion, both as editor at Tatler magazine and in her global search for talent.

The fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez finds a savior, with help from his friends
Behind his image as a successful designer, Narciso Rodriguez had been struggling - until he picked up the phone and asked for help.

John Maeda: Rethinking technology and the digital revolution
In an era when the boundaries between art and design are fiercely debated, John Maeda seems to glide between them, as though his passion for technology empowers him to circumvent conventional definitions.

Alice Rawsthorn on design for the unwealthiest 90 percent
Designers, like so many other people, have become increasingly concerned about the plight of the needy majority, and many of them are now using their skills to address it. In New York, an exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, looks at some innovative solutions to alleviating poverty.

Carolina Herrera: Days of jasmine and ponies
The designer is celebrating 25 years in fashion since she first transformed herself from a socialite with the grandest of backgrounds in her native Venezuela to a designer who is the nearest to couture that New York fashion gets. Her style is one of absolute refinement with the kind of attention to detail that she recalls from the dressmakers who worked for her family in its historic Caracas hacienda.

Tyler Brûlé on trade shows: A glance behind all that glitter
People have been congregating for centuries to peddle and display their wares. So why is it that even our brightest minds still haven't figured out how to put tens of thousands of people into large steel and concrete boxes - your average trade-show grounds - and make them happy?
- Building a better exhibition space

American fashion is making new waves
The designs of Zac Posen, Philip Lim, and Francisco Costa are being honored at an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London entitled "New York Fashion Now."

Fashion on the fringes
Fringe is making its way back to center stage. But rather than a Western flourish, fringe on anything from hemlines to hefty handbags is the essence of urban chic.

Milan's surreal, supersized creations
There were lots of big things at the Milan Furniture Fair last week. At a time when the global furniture market is booming, the fair itself was very big indeed, with more exhibitors and more visitors doing more business than ever.
- Design calender: Key design events of 2007-8

On exhibit: The return of Miguel Adrover
Now based in his native Majorca, Adrover is taking part in "New York Fashion Now," an exhibition that opens Tuesday at London's Victoria & Albert museum and he is also in discussions with a global fashion company, according to information circulating in London.

Designing Japanese home products with a difference
The designer and architect Shuwa Tei, through his Amadana company, creates home products that are light and distinctive but never in-your-face.

Delirious diversity for the summer dress
A harbinger of summer from the time of Jane Austen, the dress has come back into its own.

On London's Kings Road, a French connection
The Kings Road in Chelsea, West London, was long a showcase for quintessentially British fashion. But it is now home to French fashion outposts like Petit Bateau, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Zadig & Voltaire.

Armani, McCartney, Ford: New stars in skin care products
Today, in a world gone celebrity crazy, iconic fashion designers want to harness the power of their public persona and use it to launch a line of skin care products.

Why the overwhelming numbers of design flops?
The grim truth is that most new designs are much more likely to be derivative, pretentious, ugly, cumbersome or wasteful than those that are not. That's why buying some new products dispiriting process of choosing the one you dislike least.

Camouflage: The art of war
It is a long stretch from the trenches of the Great War to the salons of haute couture. But camouflage - the disruptive patterns that break up the body shape or blend in with surroundings - has made that leap.

At opening of 'Surreal Things,' a Surreal spirit
Revelers including Viktor & Rolf, Stephen Jones and George Melly celebrated last week the opening of "Surreal Things" at London's Victoria & Albert Museum.

Obituary: Steven Robinson, Dior designer
Steven Robinson, 38, the man seen as the alter ego of the fashion designer John Galliano, was found dead in his Paris home on Wednesday, according Sidney Toledano, president and chief executive of Dior. Unconfirmed reports said that he had died of cardiac arrest.

Helvetica: The little typeface that leaves a big mark
Helvetica delivers its message cleanly and efficiently. And it plays such an important part in our lives that the Museum of Modern Art in New York is celebrating its 50th anniversary by acquiring a set of the original lead type.

Armani, with attitude
It began with Giorgio Armani's "Rock Symphony" and ended at midnight Wednesday with a barefoot Courtney Love in a Givenchy couture gown belting out "Samantha" until even the wrought iron banisters of the august Paris fashion house were shaking.

Tailors on the prowl
A fashion king earned his crown on Wednesday as Jean Paul Gaultier gave his imagination a royal workout with princes as a theme. With the look of Ruritania or Rajasthan, the models strode the catwalk, crowned heads (and sometimes crown hairdos) held high, showing precise tailoring and artistic embellishment - often both at once.

Lacroix is sugar sweet
Christian Lacroix celebrated 20 years of couture with a collection that was charming, fresh and bonbon sweet. Yet the sugar came in calorie-controlled doses.

Lagerfeld again triumphs for Chanel
Karl Lagerfeld created a superb show for the Paris haute couture collections Tuesday.

Art at the heart of Dior's 60th birthday
John Galliano went back to sweeping romance for Christian Dior's 60th anniversary collection. And if too much of it walked a well-trodden path of a grand and gorgeous past to be a revelation, it was still a fabulous example of Galliano's imagination and the superb craftsmanship of the august house.

Millefeuille! A thousand ways with layers
There is only one way to cook up a fashion show this season and that is with different layers.

A Mediterranean moment for Armani menswear
Fendi and Calvin Klein also played with easy cuts and light fabrics, some of which bordered on the daringly sheer.
- Prada's pajamas lost in a maze
- Gucci: Bold and brash
- Hedge fund hotties! Targeting the golden boys
- Milan: The color conundrum

Sunglasses: The last affordable luxury
Sunglasses are the last bastion of hope for those who want to bask in the luxury label sunshine but can't afford to keep up with the skyrocketing prices for designer handbags and clothing.

Viva Pucci: The vivacious Italian brand celebrates its 60th birthday
For a 60th birthday, last weekend's party to celebrate Pucci's world was as vivacious as the designer's iconic prints.

In a boy's world, Armani celebrates the man
The bullfighter Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez, 29, rising star of a Spanish matador dynasty, closed Giorgio Armani's show, his torso rippling under a tux.
- Zucchelli on Calvin
- Fendi on Fendi
- Traveling light

Gucci's Alpine romp looks back to 'snow glam'
Imagine the scene: The sexy, young urban male with a penchant for black clothes, heady cocktails and nocturnal clubs, is sent off to the mountains.

Feeling for the future — savage or cyberspace?
You didn't see any celebrity male wearing a silver suit at the Golden Globes? No masculine stars walked the red carpet in a spacesuit? None of them wore yellow fluff as if they were emerging from an egg? There were no Nascar uniform jumpsuits in shiny plastic?

In Gianni's memory, shiny and somber
In sober coats or dark suits, with clerical collars circling their throats, the Versace models marked a fashion moment: 10 years since the murder of Gianni Versace, whose work will be honored posthumously next month. Along with his sister Donatella, the designer will be added to the Rodeo Drive "Walk of Style" in Los Angeles.

At Dior, Galliano soars with 'Madama Butterfly'
With "Madama Butterfly" soaring on the soundtrack and exquisite gestures of Japanese elegance and embellishment, John Galliano sent out on Monday his most beautiful show yet for Dior.

Anniversary! White Valentino, vivid Lacroix and pure Chanel
Landmark events and rites of passage are coming thick and fast this couture season: 45 years of Valentino, who celebrated with a snowdrift of a collection inspired by his famous all-white show of 1968. Christian Lacroix, once high fashion's newborn, reached 20 with a fantasia flourish of flowers on Tuesday.

Hollywood red carpet jump-starts haute couture
The haute couture season opened with a splash here Monday. But for all the parties, store openings, glamorous front-row clients and fabulous dresses, the shows really kicked off two weeks ago in Los Angeles.
- Armani, with attitude

The digital challenge: Making easy-to-use devices
What makes something well designed? Millions of words have been written on the subject, but if you boil them down to basics, you end up with four questions.

Postage stamps: Miniature artwork with mass appeal
How do you sum up The Beatles on a square inch of sticky paper? That was the challenge facing Johnson Banks, the British graphic design team, after it was commissioned to design a set of postage stamps for the Royal Mail to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John Lennon's first meeting with Paul McCartney on July 6, 1957, at a school fete in their native Liverpool.

The designer Newson teams up with Gagosian Gallery
The opening of an exhibition of furniture by in New York demonstrates the new commercial heights 'design-art' is achieving.

A makeover for Manhattan 'street furniture'
New York City is undertaking a new project coordinate the designs of its public toilets, bus shelters and newsstands.

The new corporate logo: Dynamic and changeable are all the rage
Google's changing logo is part of a broad trend in so-called dynamic identities: corporate symbols that adopt different guises at different times or in different circumstances.

Sustainability in design moves onto the corporate agenda
The use of recycled materials among other aspects of sustainability are poised to become some of the most important issues in design.

Black is back, but in a superglossy way
The rise of the new black is partly the product of technological change and it reflects a troubled era haunted by war, terrorism and environmental crisis.

Design in 2006: A year of innovation and utility
The growth of design's importance is seen in record-breaking auction prices, economic competition and the need to show social and environmental usefulness.

A designer who marries practicality with a distinctive style
Other designers describe objects in terms of what they symbolize and the stories they tell, but Konstantin Grcic presents his — from Krups coffee machines to Lamy pens — in purely practical terms, because the design of his products is dictated by how they will be used.

At Design Miami, a showcase for limited editions
A new generation of young designers has graduated knowing that they can make a living from limited editions as the focus of their work, rather than a sideline. The second annual Design Miami, which opens on Friday, will highlight their work.

Style, function and the imperfect cellphone
Cellphones have changed the way we talk to each other, revolutionized our jobs and democratized the news media by enabling passers-by to photograph extraordinary events. But in most cases, their design has been sorely lacking.

Taking the pulse of the people: Newest awards by popular vote
What is America's favorite example of good design? The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York has been asking that question by urging people to vote for their favorites in the first People's Design Awards.