In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. This necklace was made by Ramona Solberg in the early 1970s. It was in her private collection, and until her death she was its only owner. The pendant is a simple interpretation of reliquary jewelry which usually...
The celebrated American designer Wendell Castle was known as the "father of the art furniture movement."
As a portmanteau for “rolling” and “index,” the term “rolodex” has entered the English lexicon to mean a list of one’s business contacts. Though the term can be used broadly, it also refers to the brand name Rolodex—the company that made this swivel file. Devices such as these allowed the user to type or attach...
Though not directly connected to the Memphis Group, a collective of young designers based in Milan during the 1980s, this Memphis cocktail glass suggests a similar postmodernist approach to design. Postmodernism rejects the severe aesthetic and sweeping and universal claims of modernism in favor of “complex and often contradictory layers of meaning.”[1] The playful design...
Knoll Group’s Orchestra Disk Holder is an artifact of the bygone days when floppy disks were the most widely used digital storage tools in the corporate landscape. First introduced by IBM in 1971, the floppy disk reigned supreme until the late 2000s when smaller-scale or higher-tech alternatives like the USB flash drive, optical discs (CDs...
The Patriot radio was designed by noted industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes and manufactured by the Emerson Radio and Phonograph Corporation in 1939. The radio is made from Opalon, a thermoplastic similar to Bakelite, which came into widespread use in the 1930s. The late 1930s saw the United States begin to emerge from the Great...
The plastic shine of the L’eggs egg pantyhose package is instantly recognizable to anybody who browsed grocery, drug, or convenience store shelves during the 1970s and ‘80s. First introduced in 1969, L’eggs brought women’s hosiery out of the specialty shop and to the mass market, providing women with an alternative to the frippery of garters...
In the late 1970s Rino Pirovano and Rino Boschet purchased a workshop outside of Milan from the widow of an artisan who had earned his living producing metal and plastic motorcycle and scooter components. In taking over the space, Pirovano and Boschet inherited an assortment of equipment used by the old artisan for his trade,...
You can use it to prepare a lovely jellied entrée made with crab or chicken, desserts made with fruit or, as a special holiday treat, with cat food, in homage to television’s Griswold clan’s Aunt Bethany. The star and Christmas tree molds suggest raspberry jello. Today’s food mold might only be seen in the most...
