Arts Briefs

Polaroid sells its Warhol Polaroids

While we are all mourning Polaroid’s famous instant film, which ceased production last year, the Polaroid company is selling off its own collection of famous instant snapshots, according to the Boston Herald.

The collection, which goes to auction at Sotheby’s, is a particularly unique collection that is comprised of the works of several famous artists who were given access to a special large-format Polaroid camera. The collection includes works by Andy Warhol and Ansel Adams.

Ikea changes font

Everyone’s favourite Scandinavian-modernist furniture designer is changing its font. The Ikea catalogue has used Futura as its standard font for catalogues and promotional purposes, but recently switched to Verdana, U.K.‘s Guardian reported.

Verdana is a newer font, a measly teenager next to the likes of 82-year-old Futura. Design-geeks and type-o-maniacs are in a tizzy over the change, which brings Ikea into the typeface companionship of Microsoft and billions of Word documents and web pages.

All of us who can’t contain ourselves until the Winnipeg Ikea opens are heading to Minneapolis this weekend to pick up the last remaining catalogues featuring the original font.

Smells like fungus

The latest in haute odour? Fungus. According to the Financial Times, several top fashion designers are adopting oud as the latest in perfume fashion. Oud is a fungal spore harvested from the rare Aquilaria tree and being sold wherever you can take out a second mortgage in order to buy perfume.

Once an endangered species, the Aquilaria tree is farmed in southeast Asia and smells like truffles and decomposing vegetation.

It’s really the same old story from the world of high fashion: luxurious goods made from dispensable resources. The whole tree has to be harvested to make oud perfume from a very small section of the roots.

Designers like Tom Ford have used the scent as part of their fashionable ensembles, priced around $215 per gram (and sold in 14 gram bottles).

Seriously? Who wants to smell like a tree stump for three grand?

American Apparel loses advertising over too-young nude model

American Apparel has been forced to stop running a print advertisement in Britain. According to Reuters, a complaint was lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) due to the under-18 appearance of the semi-nude model.

The hipster clothing manufacturer claims the model is in her 20s, but authorities put a stop to the ad anyway. Because the model looks young, the ASA sees the possibility for the ad being interpreted as sexualizing a child.

The ad shows a young woman in varying stages of unzipping her sweatshirt and exposing her breasts.

American Apparel has been in the media in the past for hanky-panky. Dov Charney, who runs the show over in L.A., has been the subject of several sexual harassment lawsuits in the past, although none of them were proven.

Published in Volume 64, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 17, 2009)

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