H&M just announced a collaboration with iconic French designer Sonia Rykiel for winter 2009 and spring 2010.  Sonia Rykiel Pour H&M will launch December 5th in about 1500 H&M stores as well as some Sonia Rykiel boutiques, a first for H&M.  The collection will include apparel, accessories, and lingerie – another first for an H&M collaboration.  Additionally, the knit queen will debut a girls’ collection for spring 2010, due out February 20th in 250 H&Ms.

Sonia Rykiel launched her house in Paris in 1968, and this background roots the collection in an anti-establishment attitude (for real) and an intelligent sultriness.  Rykiel makes me think of a mod, sexy take on the French striped sailor sweater, to start.  Then I go to kooky knits, black, and inside out stitching.  The clothes are generally wearable while still innovative and timely.  The brand is still family owned and is now run by Sonia’s daughter, Nathalie Rykiel.

The newest Karl Lagerfeld toy is a manga-inspired vinyl figurine that comes from an Italian living in Los Angeles.  I guess it takes that many layers of cultural mingling to create this 10″ tall Tokidoki piece.  Artist Simone Legno ran Tokidoki as a personal portfolio before the founders of Hard Candy moved him to LA and built Tokidoki into a well rounded street brand.

Lil manga Karl wears all K Karl Lagerfeld and will be featured on K Karl Lagerfeld T-shirts next spring.  The figurine looks like its namesake circa 2004, soon after his diet.  Lagerfeld is now into Tom Ford’s more muscular cuts.

The figurines will come in an edition of 1,000 and will go for 129 euros, or about $190.  Colette will launch them next month, and then they’ll be available at Todoki stores in New York, Milan and Los Angeles as well as some more stores around the holidays.

Karl Lagerfeld teddy bear – so cute.

Via WWD

Dutch designer Marcel Wanders created this pendant lamp to transport the detail of an antique decorated plaster ceiling from one house to the next.  Wanders nicknamed the relief Skygarden and was struck by how it beautiful it looked, even under artificial light.  When he had to move from that house, he designed this lamp to take Skygarden with him.

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Yay!  Lake Heartbeat’s album is here, and it’s super good, as expected.  I’ve loved the band since the first single, “Mystery,” came out in January – damn – and have posted about them a couple of times (“Mystery,” “Between Dreams“).  I hope I said they’re on the excellent label Service, home to the Tough Alliance, the Embassy, and Jens Lekman, and that the album was produced by Dan Lissvik of Studio.  He also produced Taken By Trees’ East of Eden.

Lake Heartbeat sounds dreamy and chic, sort of like Air x chillwave.  I picked the flirtiest song on the album to post.  It’s what I do better than writing.

Lake Heartbeat – “Making Conversation”

Get Trust In Numbers on iTunes, Klicktrack, or Service.  Or wait till November when it comes out in the UK.  (Don’t wait.  You need it now.)

Visit Lake Heartbeat at their site or MySpace.

Advertising agency Cossette Atlantic converted a lamp post in Vancouver to an optical illusion simulating a giant McDonald’s pot pouring coffee into an even bigger cup. The ambient ad promoted a two week coffee giveaway aimed at boosting breakfast sales.

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Touring is tough, being a band is tough, hard work is tough.  Unfortunately, bands sometimes fall prey to meltdowns, even on stage.

I didn’t know what to think about the Wavves debacle.  I don’t know if it’s even relevant now that Nathan’s daily routine is balanced by weed, “because shit is just so hectic that without it I’ll just blow a gasket. There’s a lot of weird pressure and backwards politics behind the scenes that goes on that I never knew that I would actually be involved in to just have people listen to my music…” (via)

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These pictures are from the “Fight for Your Right” shoot.  They show what I look like when I’m being photographed.

This new ad campaign for Play Doh has run in alternative weeklies in Singapore.  As much as I dread the hipserification of childhood, I like these ironic yuppie-targeted ads.

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Gotta thank Alon Uziel again and the 405!

• Alon put “Fight for Your Right” in his super excellent podcast, What the Kids Like.  It starts off with Fever Ray and somehow has us in there.  (It’s in Hebrew, but you can click here to read an automated & thus awkward translation to English).
• The 405 included Fight in a Mix/Cover/Live post with Peter Björn and John and Bon Iver.

Love to be in such good company, and as always we appreciate being heard!

Here’s the MP3 for anyone stumbling onto this post:

From – “Fight for Your Right” (Beastie Boys cover)

You can’t truly get Swedish indie music without knowing the Bear Quartet.  I guess anyone would say this about one of their faves, but yeah: their music idiosyncratically shoves boundaries but still touches base with traditional pop conventions.  In doing so,it  has been informing the country’s bands over the course of about 20 years.

Their 13th album, 89, just came out on Adrian.  “Millions” is its first single.  It’s got some intense, repetitive patterns that seem to be going around lately as world music-influenced bands have zeroed in on that particular aspect of world music.  But the Bear Quartet are not jumping on a trend – their 2005 “Birds are Singing” is a crazier example of that mesmerizing/potentially annoying repetition.  It’s one of my favorites from their discography.

The Bear Quartet – “Millions”

The Bear Quartet – “Birds are Singing Deep Within the Greenery”

Visit the Bear Quartet on their site or MySpace.

Get 89 at Klicktrack, Adrian Recordings’ shop, iTunes, or Play.

Bonus fun fact: they name their albums with two words, and the first ends with a “y.”