Every now and then something happens that feels like a milestone on the road to better design for kids. One of my recent “Oh Yes!” breakthrough moments took place when I received pictures from our new dealer in Hong Kong, whose shop has recently opened.
Our friend Alexia named her clothing line after her one-eyed pug Webster but there is nothing funny looking about her clothes for this Spring/Summer. Pretty sundresses, the universally flattering Sari dress and some sweet light cotton blouses to throw over jean shorts or her Isabel skirt.
Alexia is a new mom whose handsome baby boy is, we are proud to say, sleeping in a Netto crib. Her designs look as great on the lithe Kirsty Hume as they do on curvy Liv Tyler – both of whom are fans.
It’s a cool glass of ice tea, toes wriggling in the grass type pretty.
Check it out.
By Liz
Augusta Midnight in black by Noon Solar
Coming this April
How many times has it happened that you were out and about and your cell phone hit low battery? You were almost certainly on the run, outside and hours away from being able to plug into an outlet. And so, your phone powered down causing you to miss that call from your spouse or children. Short of carrying a spare battery around with you, what can be done?
Thanks to a number of companies, solar powered bags and backpacks have been available for several years in a range of styles and designs. Each bag is outfitted with a battery pack charged by a solar panel. Once it is charged, the battery pack holds its energy, so you can plug in and charge any handheld electronic device day or night. Here are five companies with a stylish take on solar powered fashion:
Let me draw your attention to something that may seem small but means the world to me, and shows perfectly what NettoCollection is all about. The cover article of the January 2008 issue of Real Simple magazine is called
218 Best Buys
The Smartest, Most Useful Products for:
Home
Fashion
Cooking
Beauty
Health
On page 85 there is a NettoCollection Moderne Changer, in a lineup that includes such iconic and beautiful products as the Tivoli Audio Model One radio and Noguchi 55A Akari paper lantern. It's not a feature about only us, it's a photo of black and white objects our furniture blends into quite a bit, but it means more to me than the most lavish dedicated publicity because it shows we have succeeded in doing what almost five years ago we set out to do: to make baby furniture into a product category that was respected for its quality and design. The way almost all the other products in your home are, or at least you have a choice that they can be.
In 2001 when my daughter Kate was born there was nothing out there that wasn't ugly or appalling in its construction, crib and changing tablewise. We were the first, and five years after we showed at ICCF and many struggles later we are still here, and it's a very sweet thing to see a Netto Changer lined up with all those extraordinary designs as though Changing Table always belonged there. And I guess that's because now, it does.
My goal was to get a crib into the permanent collection at MoMA. It's good to have dreams, but seeing the article in Real Simple is a dream come true. Funnily enough it was shown to me by a lady at my chiropractor's office, the excellent Dr. Randall Stitt of North Hollywood, California...I missed it on the stands and might never have had the pleasure of writing about it on this blog! Thank you to all our customers and supporters who have brought Netto and the movement for great design in Baby this far. And as if the picture wasn't enough, the article is introduced with a quote from William Morris: "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Right On.
By David Netto
Here are some highlights of a 5-year-old's recent visits to the Met. Walk with us to...
The Astor Court
Now we go upstairs to what turns out, somewhat surprisingly, to have been Kate's favorite stop on the Metropolitan Museum grown-ups/kids equal-rights tour. Climb the big staircase and walk back toward Fifth Avenue, then travel north along the second-floor Asian galleries. You will walk through many rooms full of mysterious and exotic things, with your 5-year-old just starting to get bored, to a Chinese courtyard, which is like entering another world. This is the Astor Court, a reconstruction of a 16th-century Ming garden. There is a koi pond with enormous fish that kids are drawn to, but I think it's the surprise of finding this impressive, serene, skylit, and seemingly secret outdoor space after trudging through gallery after gallery that elates them. And of course, the unexpected sound of water. But after all the fun stuff -- angels, knights -- things you think a child would relate to better because of their familiarity, this was Kate's favorite. She told me this long after I thought she had forgotten about it. In other words, a child will like it for the same reason we do -- the strangeness and sense of magical peace, all by surprise. The Met is full of those moments.
Continue reading "How to Take Your Father to the Museum, Part 3" »
Here are some highlights of a 5-year-old's recent visits to the Met. Walk with us to...
Arms and Armor (or as Kate calls it, "Knights")
After this incredible experience, walk over to the Arms and Armor galleries, on the ground floor very close to where the Christmas tree is. This is a good one for a rainy day for some reason. Maybe because it makes the empty suits look spookier. I am hardly the first parent to discover his child's interest in medieval knights and armor, but I was a little surprised at how quickly Kate got into the very adult displays in the gallery and looked at the details as much as the big idea. Velvet pants ("Knights wore underwear?"). Lots of intricate gold tooling on armor for a young king ("How was it made?"). The realization that people were much smaller in the Middle Ages than now, which a 5-year-old might even notice before you do. This is one of those places that are perfect for a child once a certain interest in knights and castles has taken root. While she's busy playing with toy ones, you might say, "Want to go see a real Black Knight?" and surprise her.
By David
Originally published on CHILD.com
Photos courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Wonders Within
Last year Child voted New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art the second most kid-friendly museum in the country. Not only does it have family guides for the galleries designed to make the content understandable to kids, but it offers classes where children can make things of their own and discover the riches of art history.
But here's why I think the Met should be number one. Unlike many museums, it's a wonderful place for small children even if you don't get into all the programming designed for them. Parents may not know this at first. But the research for my survey was done by my 5-year-old daughter, Kate, and while I did bring her and walk her around with a little guidance, the opinions are hers. You may be surprised that none of her favorites are part of the Met's efforts specifically to reach out to kids -- we haven't even done any of that yet. They are just things in the museum itself that have always been there that make the Met more kid-friendly than maybe it knows. Wander around and you will find them. The point of my story is that we saw things my daughter would enjoy because I stopped thinking like a parent and just walked in with her so she found them. Here are some highlights of a 5-year-old's recent visits to the Met. Since it's the right time of year, walk with us to...
Continue reading "How to Take Your Father to the Museum, Part 1" »
We happen to be partial to Rufus, our own Polar Bear Rocker. But here is a cool alternative. Much gratitude to our friend at If the Birds Knew for this spot.
By Claude
A friend recently visited the Schroeder House by Gerrit Reitveld in Utrecht, The Netherlands. To her surprise, Reitveld’s beacon of modernism was full of human touches like visible paint bristle lines and less than perfect square corners when seen up close. It was a pleasant reminder that modern does not have to mean machine made or high tech- it can just as easily imply organic or hand crafted.
I have visited our factory in Poland eight times, and on each visit I am impressed with the history of old world craftsmanship and quality the workers maintain. When our first shipment of furniture arrived in 2003, Loft crib legs were identified by their part names with a handwritten “E1” or “E2-” to make assembly easier. I liked the handwritten reminder (on a concealed surface) of a factory worker against the sleek white lacquered surfaces of the crib.
Our Loft crib legs are now stamped with a machine template that looks great, too- but when I found a spare leg from that first shipment I saved it as a souvenir of a certain worker’s touch.
By Alex
I wanted to share this picture of our booth at the Kind + Jugend show in Cologne, Germany with you.
At the show we were so thrilled at the strong interest in our designs from companies based in Scandinavia, Germany, and England. It felt like we'd come full circle in a way, offering European design infused with American sensibility to the countries whose clean, modern but classic aesthetics inspired our designs. We will continue in Europe the mission we pioneered four years ago at home: to make stylish baby furniture--of the highest quality--that need never be outgrown.
