Can Burt's Bees turn Clorox green?
Another small, eco-friendly business is scooped up by a corporation.

Alice Rawsthorn: Farewell to Sottsass and his 2 golden ages of Italian design
Ettore Sottsass's death at 90 seems particularly poignant, because he was among the last of the 20th century design greats.
- Ettore Sottsass, designer, is dead at 90

Home-office life and its discontents
Millions of Americans are now working outside traditional workplaces and have found themselves surprised by how difficult home-office life can be.
- The office, housebroken

Book Review: 'In Defense of Food'
Obsessed with nutrition? That's an eating disorder

Ettore Sottsass, designer, is dead at 90
Sottsass, an éminence grise of postmodern design, was responsible for the familiar bright red plastic Olivetti typewriter.

21st-century design: Judging beauty by what doesn't meet the eye
Today, new construction - like the design for the Olympic stadium in Beijing - is still a goal. But for something to be "good design" it must be something we can use with clear consciences about how it was made and how we'll get rid of it.

Alice Rawsthorn: iPhone's magic touch becomes design's gold standard for 2007
It would have been more surprising if the iPhone had flopped. What's less predictable — and much more interesting — is why it has been so very successful.

Lacroix hangs history out to show
"Christian Lacroix, Histoires de Mode" (at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs until April 20) is an exhilarating take on fashion history that mixes decades, centuries and designers - yet makes sense of each section.

Putting on the dog in Tokyo
In Tokyo, dog owners are dressing up their pets in designer garb and attending to their every need, whether it be organic food or massage and grooming sessions at dog salons and spas.
- Who invited the dog?

Partying with the Super Rich at Art Basel Miami Beach
There were ceaseless celebrations by fashion and art bigwigs at Art Basel Miami Beach earlier this month. There were also wingdings hyping British shoemakers (Choo), Austrian crystal (Swarovski), German cars (Audi), French jewelry (Cartier), Bahamian resorts owned by Turkish developers (Dellis Cay) and, of course, the relentlessly bullish globalized market for art.

The tale of a teapot and its creator
Lovely though it is, one teapot's record-breaking price has more to do with the rarity and fetishism that seduce collectors and inflate auction values, than with its merits as an object.

Eco fashion? A world consumed by guilt
After factoring in the fabrics used in clothes and how they were produced, the real benefits of soy versus organic cotton versus recycled polyester may be slight, or confusing, or quite possibly misleading.
- Conscientious consumption: Ethical trend gains in luxury market

Art Miami: Still life with parties and hedge funds
The bucks flow as freely as Champagne amid a ceaseless round of celebrations piggy-backing last week on Art Basel Miami Beach.
- Art Basel Miami Beach: Fashion begins its move into the art world
- Miami: Art by the Beach, but No Sand Castles

Who invited the dog?
The boundaries between humans and animals have been eaten away to the point where devoted owners lose all perspective on the pet's role in their social lives.

Rosé Champagne is riding high
The French wine industry may be in crisis almost everywhere else, but not in Champagne.
- Pairings: What to eat with rosé Champagne

At the heart of truffles, adaptable ganache
Making ganache — the basis for the easiest chocolate truffles — is far easier than it may seem.

For a few dollars more, dining improves on longer flights
US Airways, Midwest Airlines and Delta are among the first carriers to shift their menus in a more nutritional and flavorful direction.

A meld of London rocker and Paris chic sets stage for Chanel show
Karl Lagerfeld rolled out his "Métiers d'Art" collection in London in the show "Paris Londres." Amy Winehouse met Coco Chanel in clothing: mostly long and dark, with flat shoes and highlighted with Gothic crosses, gilded lace gloves or just a fringed front to a maxi tweed coat.

Sicilian artisans turn lava into decoration
Lava hewn from the slopes around Mount Etna is transformed into decorative stone tables and tiles by Sicilian artisans. Lava stone is very resistant and is considered ideal for outdoor use.

Art Basel Miami Beach: Fashion begins its move into the art world
Images that once were considered second-class work for hire have earned their place on the gallery wall.
- Miami: Art by the Beach, but No Sand Castles

A holiday medley, off key
Millions of adults in interfaith marriages face the December dilemma: the annual conflict over how to decorate homes, how and when to give gifts and which rituals to celebrate.

3 Russian fur designers stretch the imagination
At Red Square in Moscow, Igor Chapurin's pieces stood out for their modern simplicity: sleek gilets worn over leggings, brief coats and other fur pieces cut on slender lines. His fellow Russian designers, Ekaterina Akhuzina and Helen Yarmak, took a more lavish approach.

Gloves are back, and not just for women
After years of neglecting cold weather accessories and spurning gloves as a winter necessity, fur at your finger tips is back in fashion.

Romancing the stones
This season designers like Miuccia Prada, Donatella Versace, Dolce & Gabbana and Marni are incorporating metallic plaques, silver studs or faux gems into otherwise simple and streamlined dresses.

Ballerinas! Jewels for dancing
The Royal Ballet is staging "Jewels," a revival of the George Balanchine production, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. The ballet was first shown in New York in 1967 and was inspired by the Fifth Avenue windows of Van Cleef & Arpels. The jewelry house in turn has just created a new dance collection, called Ballet Précieux.

Viktor & Rolf to design bags for Samsonite
The Dutch design duo of Rolf Snoeren and Viktor Horsting have been tapped by Samsonite to create a Black Label collection for 2009 - following Alexander McQueen, who also created a collection for the iconic travel brand.

Laurence Graff: The king of diamonds
"The Most Fabulous Jewels in the World" tells the rags-to-riches story of Laurence Graff, who rose from being a 15-year-old apprentice to the seller of some of the most famous diamonds in the world, including the Idol's Eye and the Excelsior.

A Chanel home dazzles, again
After being shuttered for more than nine months, Chanel Fine Jewelry on the Place Vendôme in Paris has reopened with a new 450-square-meter interior that stays true to the brand without looking dated.

Japanese art crafts mix continuity and change
Take the profound Japanese respect for tradition, and add to it a mania for novelty. This dynamic has given rise over the last half century to art-craft pieces that are made using age-old techniques, adapted in ways that are unmistakably modern.

Rare book editions are unique collector's items
Often found at auctions, notable rare books include modern illustrated volumes illustrated by renowned artists or books that are distinguished by unique bindings.
- Booking in: some rare book sales coming up

Conscientious consumption: Ethical trend gains in luxury market
From jewels to chocolates, the shift is away from exploitation.
- Shopping with a conscience: debates and displays

It's a buoy, it's a boat... No, it's Stargazer
The floating supersculpture of the 64-year-old artist Robert Llimós could catch on as the latest must-have luxury accessory.

Vodka repackaged and marketed as a luxury good
It is being reinvented for a new in-crowd of drinkers as a luxury spirit to rival vintage cognacs and champagnes.
- Shaken, not stirred: Vodka cocktail hints

Jewelers find inspiration in India
Jewelry connoisseurs are again citing the country's 5,000-year-old design heritage, newly co-opted by a rising cohort of luxury jewelers besotted with traditional Indian craftsmanship and locally sourced precious stones.

In Japan, it's the men who want to be skinny and cute
The aesthetic ideal for Japanese women used to be one of fragility and slimness. But now, while women have thrown that out in favor of dressing for themselves and their own self-esteem, it's the men who are losing weight in hope of looking waif-like.

Beauty gurus define a bolder and brighter aesthetic
At Madrid's recent beauty convention, Look, the message for the image-conscious consumer this season was bolder, stronger hairdos, bright red lips and dark, matte eye shadows.

Not your grandma's shade of jade
Jewelers are increasing the use of colored jade in their contemporary designs to attract a younger generation of customers who view traditional green jade as old-fashioned.

Turquoise and gold: An Egyptian moment
Egypt is back in style, from an exhibition on Tutankhamun opening this month in London to a new version of "Aida" by the English National Opera, with designs by Zandra Rhodes. Meanwhile, the British designer Julien Macdonald has teamed up with the Cairo jeweler Azza Fahmy, whose filigree work and delicate calligraphy capture the essence of Egypt.

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.

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.

Konstantin Grcic's new chair design, the MYTO
Despite the flood of chairs in the marketplace, every so often a new one comes along that is just about everything a chair should be. The MYTO, a cantilever chair made of a strong, flexible plastic, appears to have passed the test.

How Bauhaus was shaped into greatness
The Bauhaus, the German art and design school designed in the mid-1920s by the architect Walter Gropius in Dessau, became a technocratic, meritocratic and modern spirit. An exhibition at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in England tells its story.

Lighting of the future
Compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, the miniaturized versions of fluorescent strip lights that are are touted as energy-efficient alternatives have problems with the quality of their light. Though all of the other energy-efficient alternatives to the incandescent bulb are equally flawed.

A shot of frustration at espresso machines
There was a time, not so very long ago, when espresso machines were things of beauty - take the old Gaggia, for example. But the current crop, including most of the Nespresso and Illy designs, seem doomed to be blobby, bulbous and infuriatingly over-complicated.

The inspired past of London Transport design
The newly restored London Transport Museum shows how - once upon a time in the 1930s - a public transport system succeeded in getting all of its design right.

Wistfully pushing the boundaries of design and art
"Wouldn't it be nice..." is an exhibition exploring the blurred boundaries between art and design at the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva. It includes works by Jürgen Bey; the London-based trio, Tony Dunne, Fiona Raby and Michael Anastassiades; Martino Gamper; and Ryan Gander.