Stacy Hyde Spring Sale

Go visit this attractive lady on the left at her namesake store for 50 percent off the goods on the right. What kinds of treats exactly am I speaking of? How does Sferra bedding, Fortuny pillows, bath and body products, coffee table books, leather trays and frames, and glassware sound? Hurry to 2933 N. Henderson Ave. now. The sale already started. [Photos by Elizabeth Lavin]

Another Day, Another Teardown

Today at lunch, I took a tour of several neighborhoods. (This is also known as my “afternoon run.” I had to go early because I’m going to the High School Reunion premiere party tonight. Can’t wait. But I digress.) Much to my horror, one of my very favorite houses—it was the old Hollywood-ish one at the corner of Lakeside and Laurel—has been reduced to rubble. I actually had to stop running. I then stared rather aggressively at the poor sap driving the bulldozer. He didn’t seem scared, so I ran away. What’s the story, Candy?

Villeroy & Boch’s new mod wares

Branching out from the company’s more traditional floral and garden designs, Villeroy & Boch is stepping up to the modernist’s plate with the New Wave line. The table setting pictured is in the circular Ethno pattern, available at the store’s location in Southlake Town Square. I don’t know about you, but just seeing the chocolate, caramel, and cream design—and the funky espresso cup—makes me want a cappuccino. Or maybe I’m just tired.

Nest Loft Features Local Up-and-Comer Natalie Erwin

Fort Worth native and TCU grad Natalie Erwin has exhibited at Sotheby’s Auction House, been featured on the CBS Early Show, and sells her art at Forty Five Ten and other Dallas hotspots. Did I mention she is in her twenties? I’m a fan of the birch panels in patterns inspired by Hermes and YSL scarves (right) and the nest panels (I took this photo, which, by association, makes me an artist, too.), which will be shown–fittingly–at The Nest’s Loft Gallery beginning Friday, March 6. If you are a fancy artist like me (media person), you can go tomorrow night for the opening night soiree, 7-9 p.m.

[Alessio Alessi is pictured with Philippe Starck's Jucy Salif, one of the Italian design company's most iconic products.]

The handsome and shy Alessio Alessi was in Dallas on Monday to visit his newest store, which opened a couple of months ago in Preston Royal shopping center. We had coffee in the shop’s sleek Italian style restaurant next door, and let me say that it was terrific coffee, served strong and hot in one of those wonderful little personal sized Alessi carafs. Alessio arrived in Dallas on Sunday, and to his dismay wandered around downtown in search of anything open. “Your downtown is for business only, no?” he queried in a thick Italian accent. Alessio did manage to find the DMA doors open, and to his delight, noticed that two of Alessi’s designs were on display in the permanent decorative arts collection, including a highly impractical sterling silver tea service designed by the famed Japanese architectural firm, Sanaa. “To mass produce these would be impossible,” Alessi told me, “but these designs that are experimental helped open the doors for working with other architects like Michael Graves,” whose teapot was successfully produced for Alessi and is instantly recognizable. At any given time, Alessi’s designers are working on about 600 ideas, Alessio said,with 50-60 ideas making it into production each year. “So, today we are working on what you will see in 2010 in the shops,” he said. Alessio’s grandfather founded the famed design company in Italy in 1921, and his father designed many of its products. Alessio’s 26 year old son has just joined the business and is one of its new creative designers. “I’m more the business side of things,” he apologized, then smiling broadly, described his son’s first — and only — design so far, the “Pop Up” bottle opener. “It took two years to design, so you can see why he only has one. But I have to tell you, it is the best seller of all the new products in the stores,” Alessio added, proudly.