What we can learn from Rick Owens (for our apartments) (plus new tee shirt)

Plus Obs 106

Feb 14, 2025

∙ Paid

Shebat Salaam it’s Valentine’s Day (pagan) and so everyone is a little bit happier, or, if they’re not, a bit more themselves. Raw milk is in the New York Times (again) (complete with a statist warning paragraph as if this stuff isn’t completely legal in California), the NFL season is happily over (unwatchable sport) and as well I have released a new T-shirt for my newsletter:

samisreiss

A post shared by @samisreiss

Which is available to buy here:

https://snakeusa.bigcartel.com/product/monk-shirt

Here is what it looks like in the other color:

Orange or grey, printed on BAYSIDE (USA union made; thick, fits boxy)—shirts in hand—thank you for your support. A few sizes left of the older items as well. Onto the auctions: much to discuss, much to point out.

LAST WEEK’S AUCTION RESULTS

Below, the deals and auctions paying subscribers were alerted to in last week’s email:

Gallotti et Radice T32 table, €220,, Mourgue Cubique lounger €1,000, Chan Sui E-Lite lamp €240, Starck's best chair (Aleph) €470, Panton for Hansen Bachelor chair €860 (perfect), Colombo 626 Oluce lamp €200 (batshit, pictured), Pesce Umbrella chair $475 (ridiculous), Baughman for Thayer Coggin 951 lounger $400 (perfect, perfect, perfect chair), Rudi Stern lamp $425 (classic! they always go for $1,100), LC7 swivel armchairs $750 (super below rate), Norell chrome sofa $800 (fascinating piece, quite cheap), Arrben leather/chrome folders, four for $800 (actually should be classics), Lissoni plastic sofa for Kartell $325 (batshit), Componibili near NYC $150 (whoops), Sottsass vase $80 (WHOOPS), knockoff Comp for €60 (oopsy), Gismondi umbrella stand €75 (nice deal), Bonetto for Guzzini Ala lamps, pair for $375, Elsa Peretti terracotta Tiffany vase $650 (prob. steal of the week), Lyngsoe brutalist coffee table $900, Saarinen womb in Matrix upholstery $1,300, Tulip table $500, Greise cream pitcher (sterling) $275 (my fav.), Russel Wright flatware (silver) $180 (really good), Six Cardin cocktail glasses $100

Staggering amount of deals and value.

Video World: RICK

I’m not a big fan of apartment tour videos (or stories), something about them, or maybe just the prep for them leads to a sort of professionality that’s rarely helpful for consumers/people… or maybe they just aesthetically are not very exciting. This exists in the Rick video here—it’s his apartment, toured for Vogue, in Italy across from his factory, the rooms that aren’t the gym are travertine stone floor to ceiling, not exactly cobbled together—but it works for a number of reasons. One, it’s Rick Owens, so he has benefit of the doubt here; two, he’s just so good at working within a limited palette that this sort of interior, which others fuss over, are child’s play to him... effortless, easy, light. I do feel sometimes that the approach he breaks down here (he knows what he wants, he tries it) is the true essence of interior design (for a consumer/private individual) here: we don’t need to complicate things, and that if we have a decent north star in other arenas (style or literature, film, whatever) then we can figure out, within reason, and with some reps… how to set up our places to something we like. The specific rules here are things Owens does—very simply: everything is of a good material (which can be done with wood, metal, and so on; DIY furn), there’s good light, there’s correct spacing and angles (let’s just say it’s not cramped), there are his own idiosyncrasies (the Beuys army blankets)… it is refreshing. Probably worth watching this video 107 times.

Also have to note how GOOD the gym looks in here—leg press (I guess that’s fine, he wears shorts every day), pulldown machine (he’s from California; inevitable) standard cable machines with chin bar (beautiful) and some free weights—there is a spaciousness here (and good light) that most (all?) gyms don’t have. Plus the good floors. Really, really good.

Colors in the kitchen

Again veering this away from PURE auctions to more of a hawk’s (American eagle*) eye view of true design consumerism or purchasing: one must be platform agnostic (or bigamist)… most of the bigger items in my apartment were all bought off auction but the smaller pieces and indeed the convenient things were accessed through retail means. The philosophical questions of retail buying—should you? does it define you? is everything the same?—to me are immaterial and get answered with… leveling up. If you look you’ll find what you really want. In material goods as in life. Anyways dug on Ssense and found some:

HEM Bronto plates—safety yellow, though says green on the site, and ceramic. There is a hunt I think by a lot of design people to find more and more obscure and unfound items—I understand this impulse as it’s often driven by an aesthetic, and it’s nice to get things that look how we want—but these HEM plates are… well, they’re plates and all plates look like plates. And they’re nice and BRIGHT. Really loud. Great option to nail down and upgrade your kitchen/hosting setup as you dawdle between getting an Anfibio sofa or a Veranda. Also in orange (even brighter); both are a pair for $80
- There’s also a mismatched/variety set of four mugs by HEM (orange, pink, green, and yellow) for $100, though if it was me I’d get the two orange mugs for $90 as they are… well, just more direct. This is true safety orange, which is such a difficult color to find for the kitchen. Excellent cup.
I also appreciate these red (dark red, blood red, cherry red; burgundy) tumblers by Charlie Larouche-Potvin, made in Canada and recalling Bram Stoker’s Dracula (dir. Coppola) or something in that aesthetic. Goth interiors are tough to do (in practice) because everything looks so chintzy; not this. Regal, $90
There’s also this Thom Browne candle ($250) that is truly more of a design object than a scent object—same way the size tag on his Oxfords (does he still do this? I haven’t kept up**) displayed a sort of loudness that outshone… man… anything. Anything.

*small font—as in the demo, goated 5th tier semi NYHC—I keep waiting for Fit of Anger to be canonized and with every year that passes it seems like it’s never going to happen.

**small font—I had a full collection of Size 3 Bergdorf era Thommy Oxfords that since gaining muscle just do not fit. Who knows what the future will bring? But it’s crushing to even think of getting rid of them.

Obs 106

Good weekend and early week auction block, lots of seating (some deeply accessible pieces and a couple of competent/steal investments), chairs (different than seating, look it up—lots this week fare towards 60s canon and ‘80s pomo apocrypha, all well-selected), kitchen stuff (a water pitcher that should probably be on permanent display at The Met), some vases (my favorite one is horizontal and pale silver), a new Jeanneret piece I’ve not seen before, Italo plastic (not a small piece either), a skid of next-level Euro auctions. Consult the price results above if you’re unsure. Instrux on how to use LiveAuctioneers here, auctions below:

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