What were you doing when you were twelve years old: riding bikes with friends, lip synching to your favorite band, watching bad TV shows, making cookies? I might have a hard time remembering exactly what occupied my time when I was twelve, but I am absolutely certain that I was not embroidering an intricate sampler...

These simple, sculptural goblets, named Paro (“I protect” in Italian), were designed by Italian industrial designer and design educator, Achille Castiglioni. A major figure in twentieth-century design, Castiglioni was known for bringing a curious and inventive sensibility to solving design problems and investigating materials and processes. Paro’s cleverly designed versatile form is reversible, having both...

The holiday season brings out the idea at least of festive parties, and, to some, that means putting on fancy clothes and jewelry.  The idea of glittering adornment to dazzle goes back to antiquity and gold has been a constant. However, innovative use of new materials, so popular now, is not new. The choice of...

This charming little object-an étui or case, is also called a necessaire. It literally held objects that might be necessary to women of social status, wealth or social pretensions.  Inside, a variety of objects, all very small, are fitted in with the skill of someone who not only knows how they are made but has...

Some people still remember men who, from a small slit pocket in a waistcoat, pulled out a round pocket watch on a chain, can only think of knapsacks and hiking gear when they hear the word compass. We think of the sundial like the nice old bronze one on a stone base that I saw...

The custom of keeping a locket of hair as a token of love, or as a relic of a holy figure, has existed for centuries. The idea of using hair for the structural part of jewelry became fashionable in the eighteenth century. By the 1830s, especially in England and the United States, all sorts of...

Blenko glass represents the combination of technological advances in glassmaking with the original designs created by designers, with a focus on color, a key part of it impact. First producing flat glass for windows, including stained glass for the windows of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, the company earned national recognition especially for...

This cabinet, that looks more like a dining room side cabinet than a writing cabinet at first glance, caught my eye when I first saw it upon arriving at Cooper-Hewitt as a curator. I considered the Arts and Crafts movement an area in which I had some knowledge, so I was fascinated that I had...

Cakes and ice cream were the rage in the United States in the nineteenth century. People often entertained at tea and for dessert parties, so this meant the implements to serve these treats were often specialty items that did not match silver services for the dinner table. Some cake knives doubled as ice cream saws...

Until the seventeenth century–and even after that–knives and forks were personal accoutrements that travelled with their owner.  They were also a status symbol and something you might present to an honored guest or your host to show off the artistry of your home area, and to signal your wealth and refinement.  Even the use of...

This small object has no real comparable in current life, even though we still like sweets.  While small lovely pillboxes might count, those have their own counterparts in the eighteenth century.  We do not normally carry around little boxes of candies in luxurious containers today, even if we are thrilled with special chocolates brought to us...

Many people say “Chippendale” when they see a chair with a carved and pierced back.  While it is true that Thomas Chippendale designed such chairs and his workshop produced similar models, the reason such chairs bear his name is because of the book of designs he published, The Gentleman and Cabinetmaker’s Director the first edition...

  This elegant piece of silver is both modern and ancient. Not only does it connect to designs by Hoffmann in other media, such the glass vase with fluted base he designed for Lobmeyr (2009-18-75) and a fluted sidewall paper by his follower Dagobert Peche, (1930-11-1f) but also relates to designs of ancient Greece and...

I have always found the designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh to be among the most subtly inspiring and innovative works that I have seen.  Before I experienced the take-your-breath-away effect of seeing the whole of a Willow Tea room installed in a Mackintosh exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in 1996, I was already drawn to...

When I saw a few of these wonderful butterfly brooches while creating the checklist as curator of Cooper-Hewitt’s 2011 exhibition Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels two things came immediately to mind. The first was what perfect Cooper-Hewitt objects they were, as examples of jewelry design, and as examples of Japanese...