Penfield just released their 35th Fall/Winter 2010 lookbook, “A Longmeadow morning”. Although we’re feeling a little sad that we need to say goodbye to the summer this makes us longing for he winter. Enjoy the outdoors with Penfield!

I’m very pleased to give you the first preview of the 4th issue of It’s Nice That. Packed with beautiful content – interviews with Nick Knight, Neville Brody, Miranda July, Trokia, RBG6, Noma Bar and Bompas & Parr, features by Sara De Bondt, Adam Buxton, Adrian Shaughnessy, Jez Burrows, Mike Lemanski, Peter Nencini and Micah Lidberg as well as tons of work from the likes of Michael Landy, Rui Teneiro, Peter Grundy and more – it looks like their best issue so far. And when placing your pre-order before the 30th of September you will receive a free screen print by James Jarvis, commissioned especially for the issue, with your publication. Check their shop for more information >

I love when things are laid down next to each other in a proper and organized way, and I love more people like this as well. Things Organized Neatly is a blog with a very nice collection (and growing) of these kind of pictures. Start follow Things Organized Neatly >

Bird, designed by Kristian Vedel in 1959, is making its comeback. The three birds, the child, the parents and the grandparents, are now available again via ArchitectMade. They are still hand made, in a traditional woodturner workshop in Denmark, piece by piece, in three different wood types, oak – smoked or natural, with its friendly walnut-eyes. Love it!

“All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.”

— Plato

I believe this underlines today’s problem at its core. We think we can do it all… Let’s focus, stop multi-tasking, stop the things we’re not good at and start giving some attention to this superior quality and our natural gifts.
So inspiring that this was said some 2400 years ago, like he knew it…

Like Menno mentioned I’ve become a little addicted to vintage (in general) after working on the Red Wing Shoes store in Amsterdam.
Jared and Sam, the duo behind Topsy, a blog/shop/site that launched a few months back packed with beautiful vintage ware, shared a sneak peak into their apartment in Silverlake. Looks like the love for vintage will result in a house packed with antiques, like you’re entering a place ages ago. Hope my house will look a little bit like that in 30 years, haha. (Picture by Julia Galdo)

Qompendium just shared this beautiful handcrafted crystal iPhone and iPod Touch stand by CalypsoCrystal with us and I instantly fell in love! Usually I’m not a big fan of crystal, but this one is made with such an elegance and restraint that I just love it! ‘It takes days and more then 15 pairs of hands to a produce a single CrystalDock. Every detail of every CrystalDock has been meticulously planned and taken care of; a must-have accessory that is divinely produced and made ready for shipping to any destination.’ Well, let’s give your iPhone a well deserved treatment with this treasure!

Every day, for the next 100 days, Vivienne Westwood and Lee Jeans will publish one image of active resistance online. Active Resistance is a project of positive thoughts, active changes, speaking up and being heard. And you can be part of thatli. The images will be selected from your submissions.
As Vivienne Westwood has put it together: “It is not enough to follow world politics, see films and read the prize-winning best seller. This is superficial, you need to go deep in order to understand who you are, what the world is and how things could be better. This involves culture which can only be acquired by self-education: human beings should mirror the world.”
100 days of resistance will start the 8th of september at Lee’s W1 store in London. At the close of 100 days, the 100 chosen images will become a part of a London exhibition, dedicated to the project. Visit www.ar100days.com for more information on how to participate.

This week Gallery Gabriel Rolt will open an exhibition with some beautiful new paintings, watercolors and three dimensional works by the British artist James Aldridge called Unnatural Order. ‘James Aldridge takes on themes of nature, landscape and mortality in works that are simultaneously beautiful and disturbing, fascinating and repulsive. Aldridge’s work is inspired by his immediate environment, the forests of Småland in Southern Sweden and the music he listens to – extreme Heavy Metal.’ Love it already! Visit Gallery Gabriel Rolt between 4-9-2010 and 16-10-2010 at the Elandsgracht 34, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

‘The ball is round´, as Sepp Herberger, the former German national coach, once accurately observed. It’s time to feel a whiff of soccer history again – with a series of Fifa World Cup balls photos through time, from 1930 to present, shot by Jens Heilmann, edited by Lars Reichardt, René Sopp and Gunther Weis.

1930 TIENTO

The edition is limited (1000 copies in English – 500 copies in German) and consists of 7 pigment prints (1930, 1954, 1966, 1974, 1986, 1998 and 2006) and a marvelous designed book with legends surrounding all these balls.

I like these little drawings of Aspes motorcycles by Canadian illustrator Brad Allen. So simple, so nice!

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

Touched by the way someone can tell a story without pictures, making me actually seeing it like it’s there, just in front of my eyes! (Thank you Mackenzie Yeates for sharing)

The design agency Caramel, my friends from the south, created a beautiful book for the 23-year-old photography student Valentina Vos’ graduation project. The book is about new faces, young girls, just scouted by modeling agencies, standing at the beginning of their career as a model. ‘With her project she shows the true face of fifteen girls … results in touching, funny, but mostly honest and loosened pictures. Without any added make-up or photoshopping of the models. Vos does her own styling, using a lot of personal items of her subject. The girls are portrayed as they are, Vos has captured their soul.’ A fantastic project, bound together in a beautiful book, and available online at valentinavos.com

Enter the new Another Shop >

My old (and favorite) Officine Creative boots just got back from The Royal Treatment and are like new again! Danny van Kerkwijk did an amazing job by giving them a completely new outer-sole without loosing the perfect fit they used to have before the surgery. He gave them a special treatment to keep the raw look of the shoes with some very nice details in the finishing like raw edges, a red scratched mid-sole and a reinforced nose. Love them like never before.

After the first signs of autumn with a lot of rain this morning here in the Netherlands, this collaboration looks planned really well. British Millerain waxed cotton, Primaloft insulation, Talon zippers, wrist gators and an embroidered scout patch – all together in one hell of a parka by Oi Polloi and Norse Projects. (available at  www.oipolloi.com)
Steve Sanderson, owner of Oi Polloi describes the inspiration for the collaboration: “For me, it’s all about rambling, walking and camping in mid to late seventies, it’s the kind of jacket the old guys would be wearing. At the time we thought they looked pretty cool.”… “The jacket we found and chose to use for inspiration is one my favourite outerwear pieces. It was in part designed by a legendary British mountaineer Chris Bonington… we love that it’s cotton, just using 2 layers. A superb simple design. Also, the hoods a great shape and the length a little longer than most jackets – but not so long as to make it a fully fledged mod parka.”

My former intern Timo Demollin designed and hand screen printed a series of 4 different heavy weight cotton totes, exclusive for Another Shop. The bags are made in a limited edition of 10, all numbered, all printed on both sides and now available in the new Another Shop.
Above the most colorful one of the series: AOC – AnOtherCompany. Timo used the old VOC logo and turned up side down, together with the Dutch flag – hand dyed – and the roman numerals MDCII -1602 – the date the VOC was established.
A nice bag to cary your magazine’s, iPad and others with you on your way to the beach, available at Another Shop.

A really interesting post by Horween Leather Co. about the basic techniques to finish the leather. I remembered my days at Red Wing Shoes were we learned about the techniques of air drying, seeing all the hides moving slowly, hanging down on hooks, waiting to become a shoe…
Horween Leather Co. is doing more, and they documented it really well on their blog. Read their post on air drying, pasting, vacuum drying, and toggling.
Above the lovely picture of Toggling, and the Pasting Unit.