Tennis Anyone?

The first round of the US Open officially kicks off today, with a bunch of big names playing. In honor of the tournament, I'd been planning this tennis-inspired post for a while, then Apartment Therapy beat me to the punch last week! They even used the clever title I planned to use. Damn! :) No matter. I am not deterred; today we're looking at tennis imagery through the years. 

First, a little tennis and fashion history. The New York Times blog had a nice montage showing the evolution of women's and men's tennis fashion through the years:

But, I'd like to go into some detail. Tennis became popular among English aristocrats in the 1860s. Outfits were all white, with women in long dresses and corsets. Wimbledon was the first tournament. Tennis caught on in America in the 1880s, with the first tournament at the Newport Casino in Newport, RI in 1881. 

From left: 1881 Tennis Dress in Harper's Bazaar, via Fuzzy Lizzie Vintage Clothing; Right: 1895 images from Tennis Forum

In the early and mid-1900s, tennis fashion became a little less restrictive for women – knee-length skirts, cardigans and silk stockings! – when Suzanne Lenglen started playing without petticoats or corsets. She wore outfits by French couturier Jean Patou, which were likened to ballet costumes. Lenglen loved her bandeaus and fur coats:

Early 1900s

1920s

How great is this stylized poster from 1921?

In the 1930s, women began to play with bare legs and ankle socks (scandalous!) and skirts became a little shorter, although miniskirts were still thirty years away. 

Left: Jean Harlow; Right: Jack Crawford

Keds' reproduction of the 1934 "Court Ace" are currently en vogue and available for purchase here:

The women in these photos look a little less carefree than those in the 1940s Simplicity patterns, but the basic shape of the styles are there:

Tennis wear in the 1950s was much like styles seen off the court, especially with men and their preppy sweaters! 

Apparently, professional player Joy Gannon broke the all-white clothing rule in the 1950s, but I wasn't able to find an image of the number she wore, designed by Ted Tinling, which only had a purple HEMLINE. Hardly a breach, in my opinion. 

Much like street fashion, 1960s tennis fashion saw much shorter hemlines on the ladies. The men weren't exactly wearing oversized outfits, either!

Left: Outfits designed by Tinling; Right: Roy Emerson

In the 1970s players wore what their sponsors provided for them, thus becoming walking advertisements for various sportswear and footwear companies. Outfits for both men and women became shorter and tighter. I LOVED the socks with the little balls on the backs, see the top right photo: 

Clockwise from left: Converse ad, 1978; Image Unknown, Chris Evert, Arthur Ashe

In the 1980s and 1990s, during a fitness craze, breathable fabrics and second-skin clothing was all the rage (remember Jane Fonda?) for women. For men, shorts started getting longer and shirts looser: 

Pete Sampras

During this time, fashion magazines began treating players to celebrity-style covershoots and encouraging more raciness. With her tiny outfits and hot bod, Anna Kournikova attracted a huge following, despite the fact that she never actually won a grand slam tournament. 

Left: Bjorn Borg on the July 14, 1980 cover of Sports Illustrated; Right: Anna Kournikova

So here we are, about 150 years since the beginning of tennis. More than ever, players are bringing in their personal style into their tennis outfits, from warm-up gear...

Outerwear via Daily Mail

...to tournament wear:

Serena Williams' Harajuku-style via Tennis Runway. Serena has really pioneered a new sense of fashion for women's tennis wear. She's always sporting a unique outfit! 

Roger Federer is a modern-day favorite for his dashing style and top-notch athletics  

Tennis also had a little day in the sun on the Hermes Spring/Summer 2010 runway: 

Clockwise from left: Addidas, Lacoste, Sergio Rossi for Puma, Lacoste

Tennis has made its way into realms of the design world other than fashion: 

Tennis chair by Hugh Hayden via interiordesigningblog

Photos from a fundraiser designed by Lollipop Events and Designs

Inspiration for a tennis-themed wedding via Wedding Style Guide:

Wallpaper by Turner Pocock (note the stylish rotary phone)

And finally, a nice note on which to end: Tennis poster by Dear Colleen

Sources: 

Fashion Wear Today

Tennis Forum

The Painted Woman

I Am An Automaton

Project: Cork Board Makeover

Please forgive my messy hair. My Aunt Barbara would be so embarrassed for me. She always insists that "the Scheers don't look like ragamuffins!" Well, I kind of do here. Sorry, Aunt Barbara!

Oliver and I have carved out a little workspace for ourselves in our living room. It's a perfectly well-appointed spot,  and while Oliver has done a whiz-bang job of making us a clutter- and paper-free office, I tell ya, a lot of STUFF comes with my work. I'll saunter over to a very clean, neat desk in the morning, and within minutes I'm overwhelmed with papers, samples, notebooks, invoices, etc. He has no trouble at all; his side of the desk is a beacon of tidiness. While working on a project, most interior designers like to see all the elements of a room – or the whole house/office/hotel, for that matter – together to be sure everything works cohesively. Between fabric samples, trims, tiles, paint and images of furniture, there's a lot to pull together and it's nearly impossible to do that without making a bit of a mess, and, in my case, completely taking over the whole living room. As much as I try to stay neat, by the end of the day, it looks like I'm sitting in the eye of a tornado.

For the longest time the wall next to my end of the shared desk was blank, beckoning for a cork board or something to pin up notes, reminders, samples, bills, etc. while I'm still working on them and before they get filed away. On a recent jaunt to Target in New Jersey, we found cork board that would suffice:


But it was ugly and we have a cute desk area, so I couldn't let some bare board bring down the whole look! I had a fabric sample (ok, I have a million) that a client rejected and it was big enough to cover the board. We got some little black carpet nails from Home Depot and set about covering the board.


As if I could keep it that bare for long. Here's what it looks like normally:


I don't know how I got along without it!

Project: The Process of Designing & Letterpressing

We recently finished designing and letterpressing business cards for our friend Suzanne and thought it might be fun to do a quick walk-through of the process (design development through production), since some of you may not know too much about how it all works.

Suzanne is a multi-talented woman. She is a phenomenal cabaret singer, as well as a music teacher. She also moonlights has an herbalist, concocting all kinds of home remedies, lotions, potions and elixirs to heal us harrowed souls (she made cough drops this winter and they were delish!). She may, at some point, want some business cards for her holistic health counseling work, but for this set she wanted to focus on her vocal personality. While Suzanne can put on a show that's out of this world, she is not your typical show-girl; she is quiet, earnest, honest and extremely humble. She did not want her card to sport cabaret or Broadway imagery, with stage lights and a stylized portrait of herself (that's the vision I had). She wanted to tap into her nature-loving side with imagery that also speaks to her herbal business. Intitial layout sketches:



Early on we were inspired by several pattern books, including The Grammar of Ornament (Owen Jones), Full-Color Picture Sourcebook of Historic Ornament (Auguste Racinet), and Plants and their Application to Ornament (Eugene Grasset). Suzanne was drawn to Italian floral imagery (coincidently, she's Italian!), so we narrowed down the options and she picked out a few favorites:

Images from The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones

Once we had a better idea of what she liked, we sketched out some new patterns that were loosely based on the historical specimens:

At our next meeting, Suzanne liked a combination of what we'd come up with, so we integrated two of the patterns with Adobe Illustrator:

For Suzanne’s cards, we chose the font Garamond Premier Pro, a digital typeface designed by Robert Slimbach in 2006. In typography nerd jargon, this font is referred to as a “revival”, i.e. a contemporary typeface design based upon an antique metal (or wood) typeface. A certain Mr. Claude Garamond created the original version of this typeface sometime in the 16th century and it has remained a very popular typeface, with many revivals and iterations. Any letterpress studio with metal type on the premises is almost certain to have at least one well-worn set of 12-point Garamond.

Garamond page from one of Oliver's type books

With the design phase complete, we were finally ready for the letterpress phase. “Traditional” letterpress consists of picking out and arranging (by hand) each individual letter (usually made of metal or wood).

Left: Metal type, via Yee Haw Industries; Right: Wood type, photo via Nick Sherman

Hand typesetting allows a skilled craftsperson immense control over the typographic refinement of their designs, but one is limited by whatever specific fonts you have physical access to and, as you can imagine, it is a very time consuming process.

Image courtesy of Yee Haw Industries

Unfortunately, handset metal type wasn’t going to work for this particular project since we also wanted to incorporate the custom pattern into our design. Luckily, contemporary letterpress artists have the option to send a digital file to a place like Boxcar Press, a letterpress studio in Syracuse, New York, which will magically turn your digital file into a photopolymer plate (you can read all about it right here).

After repeating our single card eight times to create an 8.5” x 11” letterpress template with crop marks, we had our final plate layout, ready to be sent off to Boxcar Press:

Once Suzanne chose the paper (110# Savoy from Reich Paper) and ink color (Pantone Violet), and the photopolymer plate and paper arrived in the mail, we headed over to The Arm in Brooklyn to make our cards!

General shots of the studio and Oliver manning the press



Oliver aligning the photopolymer plate on the press, a Vandercook Universal III



Inking the roller



Align paper, press lever, which which activates an electric motor that rolls the paper across the inked plate. (Note: letterpresses typically have a manual crank, like the Vandercook Universal I or the Chandler & Price platen press).



Printed sheets, ready to be cut to size


FINAL PRODUCT!

Towers of Water

Photo by Frank Andolino


Water towers are not exactly an uncommon sight, and I suspect most people think very little of and/or about them. Pretty much every town has one (or several), often with the town's name proudly displayed. Water towers dotting the skyline are as ubiquitous a signifier of New York as the Chrysler or the Empire State Buildings. When you see a photo featuring, among other things, large wooden barrels atop steel girders, you know you're looking at picture taken in a New York borough. New York's water towers have provided endless inspiration for artists and designers. Click on images to enlarge.

Print by NestaHome

Photo by Gary Heller

Water color by Kristen Caston

Print of acrylic painting by Lauren Castillo

In 1998, artist Rachel Whiteread made a translucent resin cast of a water tower and installed it on a Soho rooftop. The ethereal lightness was a fascinating twist. It looked almost icey. The artist described it as "a jewel in the Manhattan skyline." Check out this great video documenting the process.

Excuse the poor picture quality. I'm not sure who took them originally, but the resolution is all wrong. Sorry, Public Art Fund! 

Oliver and I recently spent an afternoon slurping a pitcher of deliciously summery cocktails on the shared roof deck of my parents' building. We spent most of the time gazing at the treetops of Riverside Park and the Hudson River beyond and chatting:

Not bad, right?

But at one point, I looked behind us and was struck with how close the water towers of adjacent buildings were. There's a little cluster of them! I had to take some photos. 

A conversation ensued about what, exactly, water towers DO, if they're still functioning, who services them, how simple they area….yadda yadda yadda….a blog post was forming. So, here we are, folks. I've done a little investigating and found some interesting water tower factoids and photos to share with you. 

Water towers are pretty simple: they are large, elevated tanks constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system. They became necessary in the 1800s, when indoor plumbing replaced well-drawn water during a post-Civil War housing boom that led to an increased number of taller buildings that needed a little help to keep up the pressure. Any building higher than six stories needed one in order to moderate the water pressure at lower elevations, ensuring that pipes wouldn't burst. Without sufficient pressure, water might not reach the upper floors of a building or spray from a tap with enough force. In New York, they are predominantly made of wood, as opposed to steel, because: 

1. They are cheaper to manufacture ($30,000 versus $120,000)

2. They can be built on-site and installed in a day

3. Wood is non-corrosive

4. Wood is a better insulator than metal

Interestingly, no sealant is used to hold water in. The wooden walls of the towers are held together with cables and water leaks through the gaps when they're first filled. However, as the water saturates the wood, it swells and the gaps close, becoming impermeable – much the same as with boats or wine barrels.

Photo via Portland Oregon Daily Photo 

There are currently an estimated 10,000 towers in New York today, with about 100 built or replaced each year. In most cases, they are more of a fashion statement - some neighborhoods (like Tribeca) require all new buildings to don water towers, whether they function or not. I'm fascinated by the water towers that have been transformed for other uses. 

A water tower converted into a residence in the Netherlands, adapted by Zecc Architecture: 

Is that a roof-top bathroom? You all know how much I love outdoor bathrooming!

Photos via Tree Hugger

Madako Group, an architecture firm in Germany, converted this historic water tower, now called Umbau Wasserturm, into a live/work apartments in 2002. Three airy two-story apartments with open floor plans are drenched with sunlight, high ceilings and sustainable heating and cooling systems. 

Via Inhabitat

Denmark's 10-story youth center in a converted water tower, by architects Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter ApS:

Via Inhabitat

House in the Clouds, 1923, Thorpeness, Suffolk, UK, has been fully converted into a house with five bedrooms and three bathrooms. 

And finally, it's not a residence, but these adapted water towers are so striking! Kuwait Towers consists of three towers, the main one serving as both a restaurant and water tower, complete with a rotating Viewing Sphere.