Friday Favorites 7/1/2011

July 1, 2011

Jared Ainscough, Assistant Art Director
I fell in love with this Isaac Soyer painting when I saw it. It is simple and stylized and tells a story in the subtlety of light and color, an informal portrait that looks antique but still very current. Kristin Gallipoli has made a name for herself as a person who can find things such as this: art and antiques, specializing in mid-century modern. Her new shop has just opened (booth #248) at the Hamptons Antique Galleries in Stamford, Connecticut.

Kara Lashley, Associate Editor
This year’s ICFF truly had something for everyone, including urban farmers and their fashion-forward fowl. If you think of a chicken coop as a rather unsightly, dirty affair, you clearly haven’t seen the Chicken Co-Op designed by Brooklyn-based architecture firm RAAD. Though ICFF attendees were clucking about the coop’s sleek design and painted plywood construction, these luxury chicken residences aren’t just for show. According to the designers, passive heating and cooling systems and a solar-powered fan ensure that â€œhens are able to maximize their yield and productivity in optimal comfort all year ’round.â€

Photos courtesy of RAAD

Stacy Kunstel, Homes Editor
To hold an Oreillers pillow is to touch history. While you’ll frequently find her on the phone bidding on rare textiles in Amsterdam or catching up with her scouts in France, New Hampshire-based artist Deb Sidebottom is often sitting and stitching centuries-old fabrics into the most gorgeous pillows in the world. Using fifteenth-century Italian silk brocade, tapestry fragments from the sixteenth century and early-1900s Fortuny twills to name a few, Deb creates stunning pillows sometimes fitted with 300-year-old trim. My favorite–even at $1,100–is not one of her most expensive. Trimmed in three-inch metallic fringe, I love the blue silk pillow bearing a hand-stitched crest from the 1700s.