Lifetime

Totes a winner!

During the final moments of Lifetime's Project Accessory, Miami's fashionistas and design junkies held their breath as judges Kenneth Cole, Molly Sims, and Ariel Foxman decided the fate of two of our own.

South Florida was represented by both Nina Cortes and Brian Burkhardt, there to prove their obvious and immense talents, placing Miami firmly on the fashion map. In the end, the judges granted artist and Triian designer Brian Burkhardt the winner of the competition and $100,000.

After we exhaled, we got on the phone with Burkhardt who told us what he'd be doing with his winnings, how the show was like summer camp on acid, and that limitations are only in your mind.
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​Bleeding Palm is again turning Miami upside down, chopping it up, and making it do funny, flashy things. Their latest brilliant jab at the Magic City: the new, Internet-based South Florida fantasy world that is the Florida Turnpike website.

You're familiar with Bleeding Palm's crazed animated images on Cultist, but do you remember their Everglades site? Let us refresh your memory: The site served up JLo as dinner meat for a carnivorous plant and placed Einstein's ass in the mouth of a gator. Beautiful stuff.

Now, turning their critical and creative eye upon one of Florida's interstate parking lots, the Turnpike, Bleeding Palm's getting all political and shit.
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C Lamb

Stripe Vintage Modern

​When it comes to beautiful things, it's better to look and not touch than to not look at all, right? That's the thinking behind this guide to the host of classy vintage furniture shops in North Miami known in some circles as "20th Century Row." Previously, we brought you Part I of our North Miami Vintage Guide: the "affordable finds" at the shops near Biscayne on 123rd Street. More >>

C Lamb

Francine Peltz, owner of ITS Antiques, specializes in Murano glass home accessories.

​When you need a dresser, don't march like a boring bourgeois zombie toward the nearest IKEA or Target. Why bring home another lame piece of furniture when you can score one with character and history, sometimes for the same lump of loot?

North Miami is a neighborhood brimming with troves of antique treasures. Better yet, many of the neighborhood's shops are clustered together, making it easy to stroll from store to store in search of your missing piece.  More >>

FriendsWithYou and Hello Kitty: Killing us with cuteness.

​"We've learned to recognize that brands that appeal to a global audience are powerful," Arturo "Tury" Sandoval says about FriendsWithYou's partnership with the Japanese powerhouse of all things cute, Sanrio.

Together they've come up with a limited edition collection with that drops today called Wish Come True for Hello Kitty. Everyone's favorite mouthless kitty-cat is meshed together with characters from the Miami art collective's Wish Come True series -- like the Rainbow King.
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TheBlu Screenshot

​You're slowly sinking under the water's surface, eyes open, watching the aqueous mirrored ceiling slip further and further away. Citrus-colored angel fish flit to your left and sea anemones cast out spindly appendages to your right. A marlin with a halo-like glow swishes past, grazing your skin with its slippery scales. But then the boss knocks on your cubicle wall and asks you for those TPS reports that were due half an hour ago.

TheBlu is an online collaborative, digital animation project that brings an ever-changing ocean to your computer. The multi-level virtual world merges social networking, web design, virtual goods, and even a little online gaming. Its official launch date is slated for tomorrow.

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​Ecoist is a Wynwood-based collaborative of designers seeking to create sustainable products that inspire people to think critically about their consumer choices. They sell several series of fashion-forward handbags made of recyclable materials, including candy wrappers and movie billboards. All their products are fair trade, and thanks to a partnership with Trees for the Future, a tree is planted for each handbag sold.

Jonathan Marcoschamer, one of Ecoist's founders, recently spoke with us about sustainability, green living, and social entrepreneurship.

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Inah Mercedes and Jennie Perri

​We'll admit it --- we're a sucker for a good logo. We regularly find ourselves perusing the aisles of completely impertinent stores, if the sign outside is good enough. (Is it illegal to be vegan in a taxidermist's shop? C'mon, the singing fish outside was hilarious.) 

Miami design super group Kaleidoscope Collective gets this, and they get our unwitting business every time (although their clients are usually a bit more up our alley). This (almost) all-lady graphic design company has created logos and web sites for almost every indie organization in Miami -- from the cover of the Jai-Lai literary magazine, for which they invented a geometric pop art design that dwindles in size with every issue, to the Borscht Film Fest, which features a python eating an alligator. One of their newest works is a logo for Jeronimo's, a bar coming to Miami Beach. It has a B horror movie feel, featuring an oversized octopus wrapping its considerable tentacles around a radio tower. We are so drinking there.More >>

You in? You out? Klum wants to know.

​If there's one grating thing about the all-but flawless Project Runway, it's when they make Tim Gunn do a sponsor name drop with "Don't forget to make good use of the Bluefly accessory wall!" Wretch. How dare they turn our beloved Gunn into a corporate puppet!

But it looks as though the show is cultivating its own cache of indie accessories. There's a new Project Runway spin-off called Project Accessory (duh), and there's a casting call for designers this month in Miami.More >>

​Forget Starbucks sales. One economic indicator that the economy is actually recovering is the number of ambitious, unreasonable, and expensive design projects popping up. Miami has a history of such lofty projects from tropical ski slops and spinning skyscrapers to the recent sovereign floating island. 

The ocean must be the new frontier, because we've spied another water-craft project: the world's first sustainable, tsunami-proof houseboat. Deemed the Pearl, it's perfect for anyone simultaneously terrified and protective of Mother Nature.
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