Knock off or theft?

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, who was better known by the single name, Le Corbusier, was one of the great minds of the 20th Century. He was an artist, a writer, an architect, a designer and a philosopher. You can read about him here. 

Although a lot of his ideas about urban planning and architecture have been discarded and debunked, he remains a significant presence in the world of design. What I think was his contribution with the longest staying power and popularity is his Chaise Longue pictured here. This thing has been in continuous production since he debuted it in 1928. You can buy one today if you like, an officially licensed reproduction, through places like Design Within Reach or the MOMA online store. A real Chaise Longue will set you back somewhere around $3000. 

Not only can you buy a licensed reproduction, it is impossible to walk into a furniture showroom today without feeling the presence of Le Corbusier and his Chaise Longue. It's ideas and its lines are in every recliner, every "chaise lounge,"  and every scrap of pool furniture out there.

Target, my dear Target has been engaged in a full court press to bring designed furniture to the masses for the last couple of years and I applaud their efforts. I love the idea of a good knock off, an homage to a great original. But there's a line between an homage and the theft of an idea and I think Target has crossed it. 

Shown below is an official Chaise Longue from Design Within Reach.

Le Corbusier

Below is an image of Target's $500 version. It's a nearly exact replica and it looks to me like the theft of an idea. Maybe I'm more sensitive than most to intellectual property because I make a living from my ideas, and maybe I'm not.

Le Target

As I said before, I love a good knock off. And by that I mean something that's clearly influenced, yet still different from an original. This to me looks like bald-faced thievery. Am I being irrational?

Mobile means more than a place to gamble in Alabama

I can trace my love of the mobile as an art form to a wintry day in the late '70s when I walked into the brand spankin' new East Wing of the National Gallery and looked up to see Alexander Calder's massive Untitled. That's it right here. Look at it! Just seeing a photo of it gets me all hot and bothered again and I haven't been back to the National in at least ten years. Anyhow, as a kid I had never seen anything like it. The idea that a sculpture could move and swallow a space had never occurred to me. An art lover was born that day and since then I've been chasing the same thrill I felt that wintry day when I was 14.

Enter Oras, a sculptor of mobiles on a scale a little more suited to a home. These things are beautiful and they take me right back there. Check them out! Reasonably priced, great art --why not?

And speaking of laundry...

In another shocking example of the national, New York-based media finding something I've known about for years, MSNBC's Your Business recently did a piece on my beloved Northeast Laundry, right here in Saint Pete. I mentioned yesterday that I send out my laundry every week, well guess where I send it?

Leonard and Jennifer Cooperman, owners of The Northeast Laundry, won a small business makeover from MSNBC's Your Business earlier this year. Their prize consisted of a couple of months of one-on-one time with gazillion dollar an hour consultant and Six Sigma guru Greg Brue. From what Leonard tells me, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he couldn't be more grateful for the advice. Brue spent a lot of time with the Coopermans and their staff and showed them how to take better care of their customers and make more money at the same time. What a great combination.

I used to think that sending out my laundry was a costly indulgence. But then I did the math. It costs me less money to send it out than it does to do it at home. And that's before I add in the amount of time I save. I cannot recommend using a service like this highly enough. If you're in Saint Pete, stop by The Northeast Laundry at 7035 Fourth Street North. Let them take a load off for you. It will change your life. Check out their website here.

Sunday funnies

I first got wind of this one yesterday through the girls over at Design Boner. They had a link to the Gwinnett Daily Post, where this story and video montage first appeared. The newspaper ran it with a voice over by the participants, but I like this version of it better. Gwinnett County is in Metro Atlanta by the way. Anyhow, how fun is this?!

How to iron a shirt

I am one of those people who actually enjoys ironing. I send out my laundry every week, but I have yet to find a shirt presser who can do as good a job as I can when it comes to my shirts. So I iron my own shirts, mes chemises, as I like to call them,  and I say that not as an indication that I'm some kind of a martyr. I enjoy it. Shirt ironing is my me-time and besides, the ability to iron is what separates us from the animals.

My pals over at Apartment Therapy turned me onto a blog from Sweden called Chez Larsson. It's written by a woman named Benita Larsson and she has some great stuff on it. Click here to go to her blog. 

She irons shirts the same way that I do, so I'm using her photos and paraphrasing her instructions in my shirt pressing tutorial. Few things make as good an impression as a well-ironed shirt and nothing makes as bad an impression as an un-ironed one. Bad impressions are something we avoid like a contagion, so all you new people --watch this.

Step One: Lay the collar flat and iron it from the inside since that's the part that will be showing.

Step Two: Fold the shirt forward and make sure that the yoke is flat. Then iron the yoke. Ironing the yoke in one fell swoop makes all the difference for some reason.

Step Three: Lay the first sleeve flat with the button side out then iron.

Step Four: Turn the same sleeve over and iron it.

Step Five: Lay the sleeve flat and then flatten the cuff. Iron the cuff so that it's round when it's worn. A creased cuff will make you look common. Repeat steps Two through Five with the other sleeve.

Step Six: Start with one side of the shirt front and iron it flat.

Step Seven: Slide the shirt forward and iron the seam where the front and the back of the shirt meet.

Step Eight: Continue sliding the shirt forward and ironing until you've reached the other side. If the shirt you're ironing has a back pleat, take the extra time to fold it and iron it into shape for the entire length of the shirt. A half-ironed or un-ironed back pleat tells the world that you don't care enough to do a job properly and that you have a lazy mind to go with that poorly-ironed shirt you're wearing.

Step Nine: Hang your freshly ironed shirt on a proper hanger. Use a real, wooden hanger that will help your shirt keep its shape until it's ready to be worn. Take the wire ones back to wherever you got them. All they do is ruin the shoulders and collars of everything they touch. But then again, much better minds than mine have held the same opinion.