The Haas Brothers for Versace

Versace has teamed up with upmarket Los Angeles-based design duo Simon and Nikolai Haas for a new capsule collection.

The Haas Brothers’ new fashion and design pieces are available now at Versace stores in New York City, Paris, Shanghai, and Beijing as well as online. The designs riff on the classic Versace house codes including honeycomb patterns and Medusa heads.

“I am thrilled to be working with the Haas Brothers on this special curator project,” said Donatella Versace “I love how they take the codes of Versace and bring them somewhere new, pushing Versace forward into a whole other world.”

The pieces include bondage-style gold ankle boots and a honeycomb pattern clutch in gold and leather with a Medusa clasp. The same pattern also appears on a leather cuff, a hand mirror, and an iPhone 5 case, while unisex t-shirts mix up the classic references in clashing colorful prints.

Lagerfeld’s new cat-inspired accessories

Karl Lagerfeld used Choupette, his Persian cat, as a muse for his Holiday accessories collection.

A gift from Chanel model Baptiste Giabiconi, Choupette has become a pretty important figure in the Chanel and Fendi designer’s life. In fact, Choupette is so spoiled she even has her own maids, and a personal twitter account, and Lagerfeld is clearly besotted: ”there is no marriage, yet, for human beings and animals… I never thought that I would fall in love like this with a cat,” he told CNN in June this year.

Now in honor of Choupette, Lagerfeld has designed a new holiday capsule collection for his Karl Lagerfeld brand. Available from November 12, exclusively at Karl Lagerfeld stores, the line comprises a range of accessories (in the designer’s signature black and white color palette), all with a féline touch.

Pieces include iPhone and iPad cases, scarves and bags as well as a key chain and fun Lagerfeld style fingerless gloves. Prices start at €45 for the wool cap with leather whiskers and cat’s ears, and at the other end of the price scale you’ll be able to pick up a leather bag (also with cat ears) for €340.

The Karl Lagerfeld brand has locations in Paris, Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Anwerp, Beijing, Shanghai.

Dubai taxi drivers to serve as tour guides

It’s a move that makes sense: for many tourists, taxi drivers are their first point of contact as the chauffeurs shuttle freshly arrived visitors from the airport to their hotel, a route that’s likewise often their first introduction to the city.

According to The Khaleej Times, nearly half of the city’s 3,504 cab drivers have completed a tourist awareness training which teaches drivers about key landmarks, hotels, events and attractions in Dubai.

The program also empowers the people who know the city best, turning humble taxi drivers into ambassadors. Dubai isn’t the first to recognize the potential that cab drivers present when it comes to serving as tourist guides for their city.

In Edinburgh, drivers of black cabs can promote themselves as elite tour guides after a 12-week training program.

Visitors who climb into a cab in London, meanwhile, can rest assured that they’re in good hands as drivers must pass a training course that’s been described as the most demanding in the world: drivers must know 320 routes within the six-mile (10 km) radius of Charing Cross.

That makes them the ideal tourist guide, spawning several outfits which offer guided tours for visitors in the back of the city’s iconic black cabs.

Watch: Dior Homme & Fantastic Man

The Parisian fashion brand has teamed up with upmarket Amsterdam-based lifestyle magazine Fantastic Man for a new series of short dance films.

Titled “Rotation,” the series is composed of five films featuring dancers popping some extraordinary choreography while wearing the latest Fall-Winter 2013 collection from Dior Homme.

Directed by Fantastic Man’s art director Jop van Bennekom, the models are dressed in Dior Homme designer Kris Van Assche’s sporty and minimalist suiting.

Choreographed by Ryan Chappell, who has worked with Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue and Hot Chip among others, the films show off the talents of dancers Rhys Harding, Sep Dashti, Dylan Mayoral, John Jo Ink Pen, and Jai Hickling.

Check out the films:

Fantastic Man x Dior Homme – Rotation ’100% everyday’

Fantastic Man x Dior Homme – Rotation ‘All of us will learn’

Fantastic Man x Dior Homme – Rotation ‘Always everything’

Fantastic Man x Dior Homme – Rotation ‘Whatever it takes’

Fantastic Man x Dior Homme — Rotation ‘Work hard, change history’

$25,000 Converse!

Nate Lowman worked with Los Angeles concept store Just One Eye to design 21 unique Converse All Star shoes. Priced at a cool $25,000 each, the limited edition shoes are lined in Italian calf leather.

The artist deconstructed one of his own paintings, which was in turn based on Willem de Kooning’s “Marilyn Monroe” (1954), turning the canvas into 8 pairs of handmade sneakers, and then using his artist’s drop cloth to construct a further 13 pairs of shoes. One of the original pairs will then be reprinted for a limited edition run of 500 pairs.

Just One Eye has also released a 20-second long teaser of film by veteran director Joe Pytka (who created music videos for Michael Jackson and The Beatles) which was inspired by the collaboration.

The shoes will be unveiled on October 25 in Paris at the FIAC art fair in the presence of the artist, with the evening also featuring a screening of Pytka’s film.

Daily Dream Home: Linear House

Constructing your dream home is not a walk in the park, especially when you travel the globe while the home is being erected and communication between you and the architects is being hampered. These Hong Kong based clients asked Studio B Architects to design a home in Aspen, Colorado, where they would feel comfortable and blessed. So the spectacular 22-acre site this property occupies would have to be modern in design and technologies and carefully adapted to its stunning alpine setting.

Named the Linear House, this 9,200 square feet is perched at an altitude of 10,000 feet, where alpine conditions proved to be a challenge for the construction. By embarking on a mission to compose the perfect ratio between private and social, the architects designed a remote platform for inspiring alpine panoramas using materials like Japanese plaster, weathered teak siding, glass, and hand carved Yangtze River limestone.

First look at the 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class

Here is the first look at the all-new 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class. The vehicle is scheduled to be unveiled at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show in January. From the images (as well as other sources), we’re seeing that the C-Class delivering a level of elegance, quality and technology that is new to the model.

Some notes: the front styling of the C-Class is taking a cue from the larger S-Class with similar lines. The C-Class will use Mercedes’ MRA rear-wheel-drive platform, which is used in the larger E-Class and S-Class models. This will allow Mercedes to make the new C-Class around 220 pounds lighter than the current model.

The 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class is expected a have turbocharged 1.8-liter engine in the base model. A V-6, a diesel engine, and a hybrid will follow. The AMG model is set to receive a powerful new twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8.

The images are courtesy of Diariomotor.

Project Ara by Motorola lets consumers customize their smartphone

Motorola has announced Project Ara – a new initiative that allows consumers to customize their smartphone beyond color, ringtones and wallpaper. Project Ara allows a user to purchase a basic phone structural frame (called an Endo) and add modules such as the keyboard, camera, battery, and display.

The approach allows users to customize a phone to their specifications (and price tag). A consumer who wants a top of the line camera can simply have installed in the camera.

The modular approach would also allow for easier repairs and upgrades, since a specific module can be swapped out without much effort.

Google-owned Motorola will use the Android OS for the new phones.

Project Ara is an intriguing enterprise. And a challenging one. But we like the idea of putting the building blocks into the hands of the consumer. Kudos to Motorola for embarking on such an endeavor.