Guest Post: Mat & Guerrin’s Undercover Design Picks

A few weeks ago, you got to witness Guerrin Gardner and Mat Sanders take a little blog adventure through Mat's debut as Apartment Therapy's newest cover boy (no? If you missed it, click here). This week, in a new semi-regular series, they're taking another turn at the old M-Dashing blog and giving us some more scoop--this time by fessing up on how they infiltrated the ICFF 2010 at NYC's Javits Center and uncovered fab design finds by posing as powerful and respected architects. Enjoy (and thanks again, Mat & GG!).

SPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACE

Mat: Okay, G. Here are our ICFF passes...
Guerrin: Thanks! Where’d you get these anyway?
M: I scored ‘em from my friend John’s Architecture Firm. I’ll take the pass that says Daniel, and you be...John.
G: Wait a minute, shouldn’t I be Daniel? We could tell people it’s pronounced “Danielle.”
M: Guerrin, you and I both know I do not look like a John.
G: Fair enough. I guess I’ll just tell people it’s short for Johnica.
M: Smart thinkin’. Let’s hit it.



G: Woah! Look, mirrored shower heads by Reflect. Hey, Mat, now you can see yourself from that same sexy angle you always use in your self portrait defaults on Facebook.
M: Yesssss. With this shower head, I’ll never have to take my eyes off myself.
BOTH: Coooool.
VENDOR: Actually, it’s the heat from the water that prevents condensation. You see, as the water passes through the shower head, it heats the reflective surface--so the mirror never fogs up. Can I scan your pass?
G: Fresh!
VENDOR: No no no. Can I scan the barcode on your passes to add you to our database?
G: Oh...sure.
M: Well, thanks. We’ll be taking this literature and my associate, Johnica, and I will be in touch.

M: Guerrin! Wiener Silber!
G: What did you just call me?
M: No, it’s not an insult; it’s Viennese silver.
G: Oooooh. Look at these slotted sugar spoons. I need these for dustin’ my sweets.
VENDOR: Yeese. All of da cootlery vas designed en da eighteen ent nineteen-hundreds by Austria’s most revered and iloostrious silversmiths of za time.
M: Come again? SPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACESPACE

VENDOR: Take a look at dees. Das cootlery vas designed en 1902 by Joseph Hoffman. Dis marks a revolution en silver design. You see, Hoffman abandoned za earliah styles of Renaissance or Baroque, en favor of clean lines and functionality.
G: Wow, it’s great that your company is giving these historic pieces new life.
M: And they still seem so modern and sleek.
VENDOR: Please take our card.
G: Wait, don’t you want to scan me?
M: We’re associates at a very important Architecture Firm, you see.
VENDOR: Not necessary. Auf Wiedersehen!
BOTH: Gazuntite!

M: Ooh, over here! (Singing and dancing merrily about) Fancy-fancy-fixture-time!
G: Leffroy Brooks. And they’re Brookyn-based--like you!
M: These are awesome. They totally remind me of something you’d find in Don Draper’s post-marriage man-den.
VENDOR: How observant. They are actually designed after car hood ornaments from the 1950’s. Also available in Chromium Plate and Antique Gold. And I see you're with an Architecture Firm? Tell me about your business.
G: Daniel, why don’t you take this one. I’m gonna head over to the next booth. (To the VENDOR) And make sure to get a good scan on him. I want in on this database--architecturally-speaking, of course.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLH9tfzYGGM]

M: Guerrin, here you are, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I got stuck digging myself into a hole with that Leffroy Brooks guy for the last 10 minutes, and now I find you spaced out in front of this crazy fan?
G: Chill out, everything’s cool.
M: No, it’s not cool. I cracked under the pressure and spilled the beans. The jig is up, we gotta skedaddle...on second thought, this fan is strangely relaxing.
G: Aaaaaaah. What a perfect end to a dizzying, design-filled day.
M: Yeah, we sure did find some gems up in this Javitz.
G: Like this oscillating dream device. Man, with this thing I could finally fire Raphael, my personal fan-boy.
M: Not so fast, Johnica. Then who’s gonna hand-feed you your grapes?

Among other fantastical projects, Mat and Guerrin have appeared as Sandy the Dandy and Charlie McGee, which was a critics’ pick in Time Out New York, The Onion, and NYTheatre.com. They’re currently developing a multitude of new comedic ventures, including a monthly comedy variety show and a live-action, highly stylized version of the Dick Van Dyke Show. Meet them now at toomuchery.com.

5 Sites to Bookmark ASAP

1. Mjölk Shop: My credit card hates me for loving this shop. Sweet Scandinavian finds (like the kitchenware above).

2. Modern Dose: Good prices on some modern replicas-ish and cute pillows and accessories.

3. Webstooore from Studio Ooij: A small store with a large sense of style. (I am saving up for their book shelves to display a few favorite cookbooks in my kitchen.)

4. Generate Design: I don't dig the actual design of the site, but I do dig the actual design of the products.

5. Huset: Don't let the generic homepage fool you. There's some delicious Scandinavian design hidden behind them there walls.

6 Etsy Shops in My “Favorite” Files

While tooling around on etsy.com this weekend, I rediscovered the "Add Seller to Favorites" tool that I had somehow forgotten (where have I been??). Here are a few stores I had apparently filed away.

[I love finding stuff like this again--it's like that feeling you get when you reach into the pocket of a pair of jeans you haven't worn in a while and find a $20 bill. Score!]

1. Julia Sherry Designs

2. Adrienne Wong

3. Studio KMO

4. Slide Sideways

5. Kilroy and Maw

6. CAMDEN + CAKE

Curses & Carnations

I'll say it: I am a total snob when it comes to carnations. To me, they're the poor-man's roses. The floral world's red-headed stepchild. The only bloom appropriate enough to serve as the boutonniere on your uncle's powder-blue tuxedo from 1976. The one flower you'd secretly groan about to your girlfriends if you received it from your boyfriend (although I'd argue that mums would fall a close second).

I don't like them--and I think they know it. And I believe they're trying to get back at me.

I don't know if it's coincidence or not, but this week, I selected them for my One-Bouquet-a-Week Challenge (hey--I'm a carnation snob, but I am still open-minded). I bunched them together into smaller vases (I felt like that was the only way I could stomach them) and placed them around my studio. Fine. But I still don't love them; the red stems I bought seems so food-coloring-ish and artificial and uch.

Nevertheless, I took a few photos of them with my big camera, and they turned out okay. Until I went to sync the camera with my computer.

Now, I don't know what the carnations secretly whispered into my camera's ear, but my five-year-old iMac is suddenly not recognizing any device--my camera, my iPhone, my iPod, my etc.--and after several hours of consultations with the Apple helpline, the guys at the Apple Genius Bar on Fifth Avenue, the tech team at work, and my dear old dad, I think I have come to the realization that it's time to buy a new computer.

So I'm looking this week at a MacBook Pro. And my savings account is looking at me and shaking its head.

(P.S. I was at least able to take the above pic of the carnation photos I took on my camera using the email function on my iPhone. But don't think it was that easy.)

It's a hefty price to pay for a little bias. But, at just $3.99, at least the carnations themselves were cheap (and by cheap I also mean "shoddy" and "of little account" and all those other negative Dictionary.com descriptions for "cheap.") (Yeah, I said it, carnations! C-H-E-A-P! So suck it!) (Okay, sorry. Please don't hurt my stuff again.)