Why the Visionary Designer Willi Smith Is More Relevant Than Ever
Smith built one of the most influential fashion brands of the 1980s. An exhibition illustrates the breadth of his talents and the limits of how fashion is chronicled.
Willi Smith, c. 1981
In 1978, when submitting his biography to the Coty awards, a respected fashion prize, the designer Willi Smith, of WilliWear, wrote, “My mother and grandmother were always ladies of style and still are. I guess they taught me that you didn’t have to be rich to look good. I believe that good clothes don’t have to be expensive.” In appearance, if not price point, WilliWear then was all that fashion is now: sporty, casual, gender-neutral, a mash-up of “high” and “low” (though Smith would never have categorized culture, or life, in those terms), and replete with bold graphic prints and fine-art collaborations. Name your contemporary fashion icon Kim Jones, Virgil Abloh, Supreme’s James Jebbia and Smith foreshadowed th
Game-changing design: Motion graphics, specifically 3-D, is having a profound impact on how we think about design. The work from shops like
ManvsMachine, Tendril and, most recently, Mach pushes back on the avant-garde that has dominated the past decade and focuses on a newfound maximalist approach.
Helpful guidance:
Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans discusses how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling. The book provides clear exercises and concepts to help you pinpoint what brings you joy in your life, and how you can have that meaning every day.
Horacio Villalobos
It was the talk of the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900. A single brooch combining the female figure with that of an insect had the Parisian elite reeling, and they flooded René Lalique’s booth within the Jewellers’ Pavilion. Its open wings, made of fine opaline enamel and decorated with diamonds and moonstones, captivated viewers, while its griffin’s claws and chrysoprase female emerging from the mouth of a dragonfly left them speechless. Never had anyone seen jewelry so enchanting yet polarizing.
Rene Lalique’s Dragonfly Brooch debuted at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900. Horacio Villalobos
His presentation of the dragonfly-woman brooch and other hybrid designs at the Universal Exhibition has often been considered the crowning moment of René Lalique s career and what propelled him to the status of a master jeweler though Lalique wasn t the first decorator or jewelry aficionado to use the brooches as a way to express his creative visions
How to Balance Your Design Sensibilities With the Realities of Living With Kids Chris Schalkx
I’m not saying that my apartment has ever been worthy of an
AD spread, but the arrival of my first kid and the busload of toys and baby furniture that came with him certainly didn’t bring me any closer. With rattles and toy blocks littered around the living room and crayon smudges on the walls, my interior was no longer the thoroughly considered personal sanctuary it was before the family extension.
Little by little, though, I was able to reclaim my space. Instead of letting my space get fully baby-fied, I chose to stick to the decor that brought
This article is published in collaboration with Forbes
18 Jan 2021
Hilde Schwab Chairperson and Co-Founder, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, World Economic Forum Geneva
The winners of the 27th Annual Crystal Award are architect, Sir David Adjaye OBE for his leadership in serving communities, cities and the environment, and photographer Sebastião Salgado for his leadership in addressing inequality and sustainability.
As cultural leaders, they provide creative vision that can cut through the limitations of short-term or linear thinking to bring about social change.
As we look ahead to new possibilities for 2021 after a challenging year of disruption, the enduring contributions to society of exceptional artists is ever more meaningful. The cultural leaders receiving the 2021 Crystal Awards are important storytellers of our time, who offer insights into the human challenges that give context to the possibility for change.