COOL HUNTING®

A little more than a year ago, CH sponsored Cut and Paste, the first design competition to square designers against each other in a live tournament-style battle. From the initial sold-out event in NYC, Cut and Paste has grown into a nationwide tour with stops in four cities featuring local designers and judges in each spot. For episode 55, CH joined the party that kicked-off their national series at a Brooklyn warehouse-turned-club to document eight of the best young New York designers duking it out on stage. The video captures the three high-energy rounds, a lively 1200-person audience and an unexpected turn. You'll have to watch to find out which of CH's crew stepped in last-minute to replace a judge who was sick.

Pairing impeccable tailoring with biting irreverence, the London-based label Social Suicide is reinventing men's fashion, one suit at a time. Using the classic male get-up as a canvas?including all its allusions to money, power and war?every piece in their line has its own story about masculinity and modern culture. By collaborating with Joe Morgan and Roy Chittleborough, the same tailors that realized the creativity of legendary British designer Tommy Nutter, Social Suicide is as committed to extending the tradition of British suit-making as it is to upending it. When CH first came across Social Suicide's wicked sartorial humor earlier this year, it was love at first sight. In episode 54, CH visits Matt Grey (aka Tig) and Simon Waterfall, the two longtime mates behind the nearly year-old brand, at their schoolhouse bell tower-turned-studio in East London to get an exclusive tour of their collection. From the gray "Shark" suit with subtle rose pink gils to Simon and Tig's comedic and brotherly rapport, CH's latest video installment is an intimate look at an exceedingly clever and totally genuine young label.

Takeo Okamoto, an established sushi chef in his native Japan discovered his calling for ice sculpture and moved to the iciest place he could think of, Alaska. Winner of several international awards, including a Silver Medal in the 1998 Olympics, Takeo now runs Okamoto Studio with his son Shintaro in New York City. We were introduced to them through Jeremy Mangan, an artist whose coffee paintings we admired. When we spoke with Jeremy he mentioned that he also sculpts ice?he's in fact Okamoto's principal carver?the result of Jeremy and Shintaro having met in an art class at Hunter College. We decided right away to make a video of the studio and, after some deliberation, we realized CH mascots Otis and Logan would make the perfect subjects for a video and a great feature at our 50th Episode party. Guests were treated to the breathtaking sculptures of the Sealyham Terriers themselves and to raw footage from the video of them being made.

With bossa nova-kissed covers of vintage new wave, lilting French accents and sweetly soothing vocals, Nouvelle Vague's eponymous debut in 2004 was a global hit, providing the perfect soundtrack for romantic first dates. Currently touring with their equally charming and catchy second release, Bande a Part, Cool Hunting joined singers Melanie Pain and Phoebe Killdeer, producer Olivier Libaux and accordionist Wendy McNeill for a few games of bowling before catching their New York performance at Webster Hall. In the video you'll see their flirty live show, find out who's the best bowler in the group and learn what some of their songs are really about.

New York recently played host to Wired Magazine's third annual NEXTFEST. The celebration of innovation is a World's Fair of sorts and brings together artists and inventors from around the world to display and discuss their work. We had a chance to tour NEXTFEST with Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine, and learn about robots, immersive games and space travel.

In this, our 50th episode, we visit the Catskill, NY studio of artist Brian Dewan. His sculptures are pre-digital, unpredictable electronic musical instruments. Dewanatron, as he calls the genre, is a family of instruments which hazard unpredictable behaviors and self playing tendencies. They make all previous and future instruments obsolete. We also bring you to Pierogi Gallery where we first learned about Dewan.

On the heels of last week's review of Talk To La Bomb, Cool Hunting Video's 49th episode is an exclusive look at the Brazilian Girls that marks their latest album's release. Crossing multiple genres, representing a mutli-culti mix of ethnicities and with lyrics in five different languages, the New York-based band resists easy definition. Since last October, Cool Hunting Video has followed the quartet to the studio, caught live shows, and visited backstage, capturing candid, behind-the-scenes moments with the burgeoning group. The resulting video is a portrait of a band that's as eclectic as the musicians themselves. Like always, but especially for this installment, headphone use is recommended.

Mikkel Hess (aka Hess is More), makes music for films, theater and multimedia (including a recent collaboration with the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen), has a current radio and MTV hit in Europe, and plays tennis. With his virtuosic ability to play multiple instruments and love of jazz and experimental electronica, Hess creates a sound palette that is all at once original, hypnotic and timeless. Cool Hunting Video caught up with him on the court and in the studio to discuss his creative process when he was in New York City this summer. You can also catch his work on the upcoming compilation Luftkastellet 4 or, if you're in Brooklyn, see his U.S. debut on 25 October 2006 at Monkeytown.

Like a history of civilization told through forks, the current exhibit "Feeding Desire" (through 29 October 2006) at New York's Cooper-Hewitt design museum traces the evolution of utensils from 1500-2005. Including highlights like pre-18th century sharkskin-handled knives (used when inns didn't provide flatware for guests), and pieces by well-known Scandinavian designers such as Georg Jensen and Arne Jacobsen that exemplify the Danish modern aesthetic, the show reveals the way these quotidian objects of design are also some of the most emotional and intimate. Cool Hunting Video's 47th episode takes you on a personal guided tour of "Feeding Desire" with Cooper-Hewitt curator Sarah Coffin, who shares her knowledge and passion of Cooper-Hewitt's extensive collection.

Designers have long been plagiarizing nature's organic shapes and colors, but even the most creative don't rival the ingenious, stunning?and in this case peculiar?examples of flora and fauna. A celebrity of the plant world, the Amorphophallus Titanum, or "the corpse flower," is a rare bloom that's native to Indonesia and known for the extreme smell that it emits when it opens. Last week at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, "the Titan," as it's also sometimes known, bloomed for the first time in New York since 1939. Cultivated from seed for over 10 years, the plant grows at a rate of up to six inches daily in its final days, emits the infamous odor for approximately eight hours, and collapses in a matter of days. Cool Hunting's 46th episode takes you on site to see the flower up close, and hear the curator, vice president, botanist and security guard at Brooklyn's botanical gardens share their personal experiences and the history of one of the most bizarre natural wonders of the world.

An independent festival of new media art and electronic music now in its second year, Buswick Art Project was inspired by the pioneering community of artists living in the industrial park neighborhood of Bushwick. Where BAP Lab Part 1 was a glimpse of the ingenuity and creativity at this year's event, BAP Lab Part 2 traces the project from its humble beginnings to the first BAP that was held 12 November 2005, and comes full circle with more highlights from the 2006 artistic celebration. Co-founders RJ Valejo, an electronic musician, and Ruth Garon, who organizes events, explain how they created an opportunity to present the work of the painters, filmmakers, sculptors, musicians and new media artists that inhabit Bushwick. From behind-the-scenes footage to the phenomenal success of BAP Lab this year, the 45th episode of Cool Hunting Video is the story of a burgeoning creative movement.

A project of the Bushwick Art Project, BAP Lab is a curated, one-day event (just over 14 hours to be exact) that brings together over 80 different new media artists, musicians, performers, DJs, and visual artists in Brooklyn. On 22 July 2006 the second annual BAP Lab took place in a 20,000 square-square foot warehouse that's been converted into community space for artists called 3rd Ward. For CH's 44th video, we highlighted six of the artists there, who all make work best filed under the catch-all "New Media" genre. Playing with notions of time, vision, and technology, the episode includes Jamie Burkart's project called "Time is Long," which records viewers on a VHS tape that he's extended out of the VCR and through the heart of the gallery, so that the image plays back on another monitor 20 minutes later. Also making use of a video monitor and passe technology, Gregory Shakar's interactive "Analog Color Field Computer" allows the user to produce pure fields of color on monitors and manipulate corresponding pure tones. With a near microscopic perspective, Ernesto Klar's "Convergenze Parallele" uses custom-designed software to trace patterns of dust particles and amplify their movements sonically and visually. These and the other three artists in this episode are only the first segment of our two-part coverage of this new independent and inspiring festival.

Known for deftly blending a wide range of multi-ethnic sounds, calling Brighton-based DJ Quantic a consummate crate-digger is almost an understatement. With that in mind and with the impending North American release of the 26 year-old's fourth solo album, An Announcement to Answer, we tagged along with Quantic on a recent visit to a Brooklyn record store. There and in an interview, he shared some tips and gave us a little insight into his current collecting habits, which naturally show up on An Announcement. The disc?a laid-back journey through jazz, funk, hip hop, and soul?are what you'd expect from a musician who's traveled throughout Africa and Puerto Rico, creating and recording much of his album on the road. From playful beats laced with trumpet samples and warm guitar loops to guest appearances by labelmate Ohmega Watts and LA-based chanteuse Noelle Scaggs, the eclectic lineup is well-balanced, never boring, and plenty lively.

LVHRD, a NYC-based organization behind ongoing party-slash-competitions (like a vending machine eating contest, a dance-off called "Battle of the Moves," and a New Year's eve Super Heroes Ball) recently introduced a multimedia lecture series by the name of Bi-Fold. Cool Hunting Video documented the inaugaral event that teamed acclaimed graphic artist Paul Pope with musical innovator Mark Denardo for an evening of audio-visual inspiration. We also met up with some LVHRD members to get their impressions and help tell the backstory of New York's nouveau cultural salon.

For episode number 40, CH traveled to the Brooklyn home of one of the foremost collectors of watches from the 1960s and 1970s, the man who goes by the moniker Watchismo. Having had an online relationship with him for several years, it was great to meet Watchismo in person. He takes us through his extensive collection of watches, talks about why he started collecting, and how his passion became a successful business.