The Hippest Gifts In Every Category For Everybody This Holiday Season.

Let me be your personal shopper this Holiday Season. Seriously.

I have spent the past several years creating specific shopping lists on the community shopcasting website This Next. The lists I have painstakingly compiled include images of the items, a description and a link to purchase, making it very easy for you to find and buy the perfect gift for just about anyone this holiday season.

My Christmas Gift To You.
You can benefit from the fact that I've already scoured the online (and offline) stores for the hippest items in tons of specific categories. The coolest products for designers, kids, pets, friends, fish-lovers, art-lovers, buddha-lovers, dog-lovers, gun-lovers, tattoo-lovers, graffiti-lovers, luxury lovers, casual acquaintances, signficant others and more. Home decor and furniture, technology and gadgets, piggy banks and jewelry... whatever you need, if it's hip, it's here.



From $10 items to $100,000 items, from trendy items to classic items, there's a total of 4,643 items to choose from, starting with the hippest holiday home decor.

Here's how it works. Click on the category below that interests you and you'll be taken to that list of items. Click on the name of the item that interests you and the screen will change to display that item. Lower down on that page it says : shop for this 'here' and you just click on that! Easy, peasy.

• MODERN CHRISTMAS DECOR (wreaths, trees, ornaments, etc) -205 items

Now, for the selections of gifts:

• PANTONE AND PANTONE-INSPIRED PRODUCTS (great for designers) -30 items

• SALUTING DESIGN: An Army Of Military Inspired Items - 35 items

• AQUARIUMS THAT ROCK: the coolest fish tanks - 40 items

• BUDDHA BOUNTY: All Things Buddha - 76 items

• MODERN DOLLHOUSES & ARCHITECTURAL MODELS - 44 items

• THE COOLEST WAYS TO WARM UP (candles, radiators, towel racks) - 131 items

• THE DISH ON DISHES (hip dinnerware and tableware) - 229 items

• EARTH-FRIENDLY AND ECO/ GREEN PRODUCTS - 87 items

• DIVINE DAMASK (home decor and products with damask patterns) - 72 items

• TAG, YOU'RE IT! (Graffiti inspired and related products) - 74 items

• WOOD WONDERLAND (wood furniture, toys and more) - 156 items

• GREAT GIFTS FOR GEEKS - 20 items

• REALLY ROMANTIC GIFTS -104 items

• FOR THE HIP BABY OR CHILD - 250 ITEMS

• LIST FOR LEGO LOVERS (Lego® everything) -50 items

• LIGHTEN UP (The best lighting and lamps) - 160 items

• MONDRIAN MADNESS (products inspired by Piet Mondrian) - 46 items

• ALVAR AALTO INSPIRED ITEMS - 14 items

• CHAIRS THAT ROCK (modern rocking chairs) - 56 items

• OBSCENELY DECADENT GIFTS (luxury products)- 60 items

• DEATH BECOMES YOU (over 160 things with Skulls) - 164 items

• FANCY FRIGGEN FLOORING AND RADICAL RUGS -163 items

• OUTDOOR ITEMS (from furniture to birdhouses) - 142 items

• HEDGEHOG HEYDAY (items inspired by Hedgehogs) - 33 items

• IF IT'S HIP & STICKS TO THE WALL (art and more home decor) - 180 items

• READY, SET...GLOW! (illuminated items and furniture) - 77 items

• CONTEMPORARY ART I WISH I COULD AFFORD - 117 items

• THE HIPPEST ANIMAL/PET STUFF (for both people and their pets) - 203 items

• TECHNOLOGY THAT ROCKS - 215 items

• TATTOO YOU. AND THIS. AND THAT. (tons of tattoo-related products) - 77 items

• HIP JEWELRY FOR MEN AND WOMEN - 216 items

• MODERN PIGGY BANKS OR MONEY BOXES - 65 items

• DIY STUFF FOR FRUSTRATED ARTISTS - 96 items

• PUT THAT DOWN, THAT'S MY GRANDMA! (modern cremation urns) - 27 items

• SHOP OR I'LL SHOOT! (gun-shaped products of all kinds) - 71 items

and lastly, many of the items that have been featured in this blog :

• IF IT'S HIP IT'S HERE - A list of items that celebrate design, functionality and art. Things to appreciate and admire. - 2056 items


Now, you have no excuse not to have found the perfect, or at the least the hippest, gift.

Glove & Hate Tatted Oven Mitt By Stuart Gardiner For Of Kings & Cabbages.

Of Cabbages and Kings and UK designer Stuart Gardiner have collaborated to make this super fun and functional oven mitt.






It is a single double-sided mitt oven mitt printed in 4 color inks with a metallic gold bracelet. 'Love' on the right hand side, 'Hate' on the reverse left hand side.


Made in the UK.

Buy it here at CultureLabel
Every purchase from CultureLabel helps to support the arts.
or buy it here from Of Cabbages & Kings
or buy it from Stuart Gardiner here.

Hair Dryers That Will Blow Your Mind From Ferrari, 2Much, Barbie, Ed Hardy and More.

Seems like lately everything utilitarian is getting into "design" and hair care tools are no exception. Blow Dryers from high-end salon brands like BaByliss, T3, Conair and even custom ones by designers are hitting the market.

The first one I'm sharing with you is more about what's inside the dryer than the look of it.

Hair Dryer engine made with actual Ferrari parts:



In 2010, a unique collaboration between BaByliss and Ferrari brought together the technological and engineering expertise of these two industry giants. The result puts the world's first Ferrari-inspired high performance engine into a professional hair appliance.


above left image courtesy of ModernSalon

Designed for maximum airflow, minimum weight, low vibration, extended life and turbo-speed power, the Ferrari engine makes this BaBylissPRO the ultimate drying machine, and creates a brand new category in styling: the performance luxury dryer.

Ferrari and BaByliss, both noted for speed, power and performance, are recognized and respected around the world. As a sponsor of the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli Championship, BaByliss is proud to lend its support to the greatest name in racing.

The BaByliss®PRO VOLARE comes in two sizes –a medium and a compact one- and in two colours –in black and in the worldwide original FERRARI red colour- and is the world’s first professional luxury hair dryer driven by a FERRARI engine.

The V1 - Ferrari designed engine Hair Dryers:


The V2 - Ferrari designed engine Hair Dryers:



The following hair dryers have all jumped on the Graffiti and Tattoo inspired bandwagon.

Custom Graffiti Hair Dryer
This custom hair dryer by Patrik Blundell of 2much was exclusively made for Millenium Hair Design and is embellished with Graffiti:




Ed Hardy Geisha Hair Dryer:


Dragon and Koi hair Dryers by Hair Religion:



The TS 2 Vintage Hair Dryer:


The following are simply hair dryers worth noting.

The Special Edition T3 Barbie Hair Dryer:

The T3 Barbie hair Dryer is available exclusively at Bloomingdales.

For when you're really packing heat, The 357 Magum hair dryer:


above images courtesy of this etsy listing.
There's also a similar hair dryer with various colored handles called the Western hair dryer.

And of course, there's a Swarovski Crystal Clad hair dryer by 77th and Park. The 1871 watt Ionic hair dryer comes in 3 color variations and comes in an alligator bag:




Not quite as blingy, and certainly not nearly as expensive is the Conair 213L Limited Edition Swarovski Crystal Infiniti Dryer:




Of course there are hundreds of interesting concept designs for hair dryers, but I wanted to you to see the actual produced ones.

Tiki, Tatts & Skulls. Lionel Scoccimaro's Go Big Or Go Home.

above: detail from BJ&SS White Jar

The talented contemporary artist and photographer Lionel Scoccimaro had an exhibit titled Go Big Or Go Home earlier this year at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery. If you missed it, don't fret, I'm bringing it to you here.



from the gallery press release:
Go Big or Go Home is a phrase urging extravagance with an all or nothing response, indicating a desire to live life to the fullest. Here it showcases Scoccimaro’s appropriation of kitsch and popular culture, melding them with fine art techniques. The glossy, surface details and oversized objects may be perceived as whimsical or playful touches but allude to darker realities and offer unsettling social commentary. Whilst the works can initially be interpreted as a series of representations and coded imagery – human skulls, decorative medieval lances, over-sized jars – on deeper reflection, they are more polysemic in nature.



With visual references and material techniques associated with biker/surf culture, the work alludes to exotic Tiki imagery and neo-Voodoo culture, which were prominent elements in the American surf scene of the 1950s and 60s. But the laid-back lifestyle intimated by adopting this imagery reminds viewers of the appropriation and destruction of culture— humanoid Tiki figures have been worn away to skulls and stylized flames consume customs. It is this multi - layering of messages that makes Scoccimaro’s work so appealing, instantly absorbing and divisive.

Scoccimaro purposefully adopts a diminutive role in his attack on the norms of High Art with a visual language of codified adult - gameplaying. It is at this junction, a symbiosis of diverse popular traditions, that easy categorization of his works is disabled. His works reach back to his sentimental nostalgia of a by-gone era of counter-cultures that have been diluted by globalization and ready-accessibility.

Horizontal Rack features gleaming aluminium skulls peering down at the audience with sinister intent and ominous allusions.


above: Horizontal Rack, 2009 / H 160 L 220 W 35 cm / Beech and aluminium

The Horizontal Rack suggests a well-stocked medieval arsenal with pole arms or seemingly innocuous quarterstaffs. Elaborately carved and individually mounted, the sticks calls to mind a gruesome Baroque collection or a Victorian cabinet of medical curiosities based on the desire to classify human life and death, forcing them into grotesque spectacles for prurient curiosity. It also evokes the legend of a Haitian Voodoo implement, the coco macaque or sorcerer’s stick, which has the power to move on its own and complete sinister errands for its master.


above: Horizontal Rack, detail

Removed from the rack, the poles place users in the bizarre position of holding skulls, putting them in intimate contact with beautifully manufactured death and decay.

Small Jar, a curvaceous pot with five tall sticks jutting from its aperture, is theatrical in its presence and imbued with irony. This sculptural piece hints at an abstract view of ‘flowers in a vase’ yet with a more provocative and menacing intention.



The decorative poles appear like weapons waiting to be plucked for use while warped in reflection on the glossy surface of the jar, the protruding sticks appear like vertebrae.


above: Small Jar, 2009 / H 130 L 85 W 85 cm / Beech, aluminium, car paint and varnish

The demand of Scoccimaro to fulfil his role as sculptor coupled with formal efficacy leads him to articulate a discussion of materials and size-scales in his work. Scoccimaro’s work plays with these appropriations, using contemporary society’s interest in clever, self-referential irony and post-modernism to hint at how the darker elements of our past can catch up with us in the present. He offers us provoking insights wrapped in glossy, playful packages of pop-age veneers.

The stunningly smooth and conical Customised Soliflor dominates over people who enter its space. As tall as an average person, it is not merely a decorative object but a presence in its own right. The red flame motif, borrowed from customised vehicles and universe of skating, surfing and biking, heightens the theatricality of the piece and questions the preciousness associated with gallery objects.


above: Customised Soliflor 2009 / H230 L110 W110cm / Resin, aluminium, car paint and varnish


BJ&SS/ White Jar:

above: White Jar, 2009, H 185 L 120 W 120 cm, Resin, beech, aluminium, car paint and varnish

Vertical Rack:

above: Vertical Rack, 2009, H185 L85 W45cm, Beech and aluminium

BJ&SSn°3/8/02071/5 - Jar:


above: 2007, H 190 L 95 W 95 cm, Crystal resin, varnish, cast aluminum and beech

Go Big Or Go Home:

above: 2009, W 80 cm, Neon tube light, plexiglass

Elvis Is My Co-pilot:

above: 2009, W 80 cm, Neon tube light, plexiglass

About Lionel Scoccimaro

Marseille - based sculptor, surfer and biker Lionel Scoccimaro explores the ways in which globalisation brings the margins from what was once counterculture—surfing, skateboarding, motorcycling — to the centre. The iconoclasts who break with cherished values and traditions have become the style icons, the people society aspires to emulate. His work bridges the gap between ‘low culture’ and the high art world. Scoccimaro was singled out during FIAC in Paris for his series of giant ‘Toppling Toys’ decorated with symbols of American counterculture. Since 2001 his work has commented upon and manipulated social expectations through the medium of photography and sculpture. Scoccimaro’s sculptural and photographic works have been exhibited at Ecole Supérieure des Arts et de la Communication in Pau, Chapelle Saint Jacques in St-Gaudens, the VF gallery in Marseille, Roger Pailhas Gallery in Marseille, Stedelijk musuem Aalst in Belgium and Fabrice Marcolini gallery in Toronto

About the Carpenters Workshop Gallery:
Carpenters Workshop Gallery extends the boundaries of design by uniting and transcending the contested categories of conceptual/functional and design/art in thought - provoking exhibitions.

The gallery presents established artists such as Marc Quinn, Atelier van Lieshout, Ron Arad, Wendell Castle, Maarten Baas, Ingrid Donat and encourages the talent of an up-and-coming generation: Sebastian Brajkovic, Robert Stadler, Pablo Reinoso, Demakersvan, Xavier Lust, Vincent Dubourg and Mathieu Lehanneur. Based in Mayfair at 3 Albemarle

information and images courtesy of the Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Carpenters Workshop Gallery
3 Albemarle Street,
London W1S 4HE
t +44 (0)20 3051 5939
f +44 (0)20 3051 5933
www.cwgdesign.com