Adorable Videos

Here are a couple of songs we want to share with you today in video form. The first is a song called "Be Gentle with Me" by an indie group called The Boy Least Likely To. Love the use of the cute puppets to convey the soft, touchy-feely message. An added bonus is that actress Rashida Jones, who stars as the whip-smart Karen in The Office, is featured in this video showing a lot of chemistry with one of the puppets. The second song is "Fidelity" by Regina Spektor. This just captures the vibe that we want all our customers to feel each time they see/hug one of our toys =)

Kanye West & Kawaii

Rapper Kanye West is having an intense love affair with Japanese pop art and kawaii these days. He loves kawaii so much that he wants to produce it in expensive bling form. To let us know that he's serious, he's teaming up with the modern day Andy Warhol and kawaii innovator Takashi Murakami to design the jewelry line.

This is a really strange but great idea. We'll being keeping our eyes on this one.

Video: "Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn & John

One of the most innovative pop songs we've heard in a while. The whistling is just so hauntingly catchy. Romantic and strange just the way we like 'em.

Wee Will Doodle at Embassy

We were at Embassy this past October 17th to see Wee Will Doodle set the mood for the designer toy-themed party inside the club. Hopefully, this won't be the last time that people dance and have drinks next to toys.

Kawaii Fashion by Comme des Garcons

Inspiring us this week is innovative Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons. These photos are from the fashion brand's latest runway show in Paris. Comme des Garcons shows are a bit different from other fashion brands that tend to simply give previews of the clothes that they will sell in the future. This brand literally is more interested in giving a fashion show; one that is based on experimental concepts and technique. Marc Jacobs definitely pays attention. He admittedly borrows many of Kawakubo's ideas for his own collections for both his signature brand and for Louie Vuitton. The idea behind these new clothes is authentic randomness the way a child's imagination runs free. That's why the look is very kawaii and artistically cartoony.

Fresh + Wee Will Doodle

Inspiring us this week are two Manila representatives.

Fresh is an independent designer toy store in Manila that is teaming up with our second inspiration, a public arts collective known as Wee Will Doodle. Wee Will Doodle's mission is to apparently fill all forms of blank spaces (from walls to white t-shirts) with their signature spontaneous pop art. On October 17, Fresh will be launching a line of toys popular in designer circles known as Dunnys, which are alien-rabbit shaped white vinyl molds that you can draw on. Obviously, Wee Will Doodle is going crazy over these toys and intends to bring the blanks to life in Embassy no less (first time we've seen a toy being released in a club).

By the way, we've begun talking with Wee Will Doodle for a little toy tie-up ourselves.

Paint-a-Lot Project

Last week, It's Cool was a proud participant of Paint-a-Lot, a small project organized by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the Philippines to promote art, culture and original work in the country. The very intriguing collaborative public arts group known as Wee Will Doodle was given full creative authority to do what they will on the entrance of IPO's Makati office building. Feel free to pass by anytime to see what they did (some preview pictures posted for you here). It's a simple but exciting gesture by IPO to openly show to the public the leadership role that they intend to play in the continuing development of freestyle innovation.

Danish School, Orestad

And speaking of education...

Checkout Orestad high school in Denmark. We recently just talked about our love for the creative-driven city of Copenhagen and this clearly is an example of where that creative drive is coming from. Man, does it look like fun to learn in this place! If only all cities had the power to build schools like this.

Shining the Light with Pathways

We've constantly stated that we're a strong supporter of education here at It's Cool, particularly for higher education (i.e. college level). We believe that closing the higher education gap between rich and poor will go a long way in solving the gap between rich and poor itself. Higher education is also a significant driver of creativity, culture, art and smart world-changing behavior (four things that we obviously want more of). It's no surprise then that we've been working quite closely with Pathways to help gifted but underprivileged kids get a better chance of having a great college education.

Throughout the year, we've been using our gift bags as awareness advertising so that our cool customers can find out more about this wonderful organization and learn what they can do to contribute. It makes us incredibly happy to receive inquiries like this:

Ei! I'm quite interested with teaching kids during the weekend. Do you need to be an education graduate?

To answer, passion and the gameness to do good is more than enough.

Keep the inquiries coming or contact Pathways directly at:

Tel: +63(2) 426-6001 loc. 4044 to 4049
Alingal Hall
Ateneo De Manila University
Loyola Heights, Quezon City
Metro Manila 0917
Philippines

We were also a partner of Pathways in their "Shining the Light" event last April which brought together representatives from different schools all over the country for a conference on how to raise Philippine education to the next level.

Shining the Light ended with a walk for education (dubbed "educaTHON") that also saw generous celebrities participate to raise further awareness for the country's growing need for better education (figures show that an alarming 80% of the population are not even able to finish high school). The celebs included Karylle, Dingdong Dantes, TJ Manotoc, Philippine Allstars, and Starstruck survivors Vivo Ouano, Johan Santos and Jeric Rizalado.

Brazilian Kawaii (Cuteness)

Inspiring us this week is Brazilian art studio, Mopa. It's seamless blend of Latin-Japanese pop is very thrilling. Mopa is our role model in how to make cute sexy as well.

This is one of the sexy coolest cabinets we have ever seen. This is known as the Crepax Cabinet, named after its creator, Guido Crepax. Here's a description from Opus Interiors:

Guido Crepax (1933-2003), was hugely influential in the development of European comic art in the second half of the 20th century. His most famous storyline, featuring the character 'Valentina', was created in 1965. This series was very much in the spirit of the 60s, incorporating eroticism, and psychedelic, and dream-like storylines. In Crepax's work, many references are made to the works of 20th century 'Avant-Garde' artists, such as Rene Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Piet Mondrand, Roy Liechenstain, and Andy Warhol.

Copenhagen Street Fashion

Copenhagen, the Danish land of Lego, is one of our favorite cities in the world. The city is beautiful, clean, crime-free and is run by a policy where creativity is a top priority. Artists and designers rule this city. It's no surprise then that the fashion sensibilities of the citizens are bursting with adorable color.

Visit the blog Copenhagen Street Style for more pictures updated daily. We also encourage a trip to Face Hunter, which covers the streets of London. There's also a nice directory of all the known street fashion blogs from around the globe at the right side column of Face Hunter so you can see what the real people of the world are wearing.

Bite-Sized Literature

It's common knowledge that reading a book can expand and strengthen your imagination (which is obviously quite important for us here at It's Cool) far more than watching television or the movie version of the book can. It's also common knowledge that the thick appearance of a book can be an intimidating turn-off for a lot of us.

DailyLit just might be the solution. It lets you choose a classic book you want to read and then sends you daily installments via email. Each one will only take you around five minutes to finish. We invite everyone to join us in subscribing to Lewis Carroll's classic "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." We'll have an amazing mind-blowing experience in just 37 quick parts.

We Heart Tara McPherson

A lot of our work these days is being inspired by Tara McPherson's art. Go through her website where she generously displays all her stuff for free viewing. Last time we checked, there was still a copy of her book, "Lonely Heart: The Art of Tara McPherson", at the Bonifacio High Street branch of Fully Booked. Most of the contents are already in the website though so get your previews there before you decide to let go of Php1,050 for the book.

What we love about Tara is that she's influenced in equal measure by heartbreak, animation and rock music. It really shows too. Her concert posters are held in equally high regard as her gallery and graphic novel work. Tara's art is a sparkling cocktail of dreamy bittersweetness that will make your own personal heartbreak go down a little easier.

Cuteness vs. Crime

We here at It's Cool are obsessed with cuteness. Our design inspirations usually come from the Japanese kawaii movement. And so we were so amused to hear that even the Tokyo police is using cute to fight crime!

On top is a picture of Pi-Po, the official police mascot of Japan. The name of the character is based on the sound the Japanese police car sirens make (as in "pi-po...pi-po...pi-po"). Hard to believe that Pi-Po can deter anyone from doing crime but the virtually crime-free record of Tokyo speaks for itself. Maybe all we need is cuteness to win the hearts of wrong-doers and make the world a safer place.

Forever Friends Bear

These are such inspired works of cuteness =)

Kiss - The best bloopers are here


Miss You! - Funny blooper videos are here

Video: "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat

Now this is just one of those songs that you put on when you wake up in the morning feeling totally in love.

Chocolate Museum

The Nestle chocolate factory in Mexico had the inspired idea of creating a "chocolate museum" beside the production facility. Now, visitors can get a stylish mouth-watering view of sweet treats in the making. Find out more at Cool Hunter. Whoever thought they'd ever make a factory you can bring a date to? Manufacturing never looked so romantic.

Video: "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice

We've already got a lot of people saying this is the best music video of 2007 so far. It's so simple and yet so innovative too. The shirts are so much fun!

Music: Jose Gonzalez

We're counting down the days when we can finally listen to a new album by one of our favorite musicians, Jose Gonzalez. The new album is going to be called "In Our Nature" and we encourage anyone who likes smooth acoustic music with a twist to try and get a copy. Jose and his guitar just has a special way of making the atmosphere brighter and heart-achingly sweeter. Watch the video below featuring the songs "Heartbeats" and "Hand on Your Heart" if you don't believe us.