In a summer of shimmering heat, two high-end jewelry brands are offering royalty and art as artistic salve.

As you can see above, Tiffany & Co. is finally opening its Soho store in New York, and fêting the event with four artists’ renderings of true love — a recurring theme for the brand — “to trick out the hoarding around the façade” for two week stints each, each installation displayed on oversized wooden canvases in front of the Tiffany & Co. storefront as behind the scenes everything's getting ready for the opening.

Artist Danielle Dimstom kicked off the collaboration on July 16 with a stylized combination of text and drawings, followed by street artist Ellis Gallagher’s unique take on the colors of love on July 27. The current installation features a mural from Igor + Andre, which will be followed by the final artist in the series, Natasha Law. The installations can be viewed at 97 Greene Street.Continue reading...

BMW may be a German car company, but it's also the best-selling luxury brand in America. And that's ample reason for the brand to have signed on as a major sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Committee and Team USA athletes participating in the London Olympics.

Certainly any American watching the pre-Olympics news leading up to Friday's opening of the games, and now watching telecasts on NBC and its sister networks, is by now well familiar with BMW ads that extrapolate the "performance" requirements of elite athletes and the supreme "performance" characteristics of BMW's "ultimate driving machine."Continue reading...

Stockholm Pride, Sweden's national LGBT celebration taking place July 31-Aug. 4, is raising eyebrows with a colorful (to say the least) campaign.

Its 2012 "Time to Be Queer!" campaign is causing a stir from the far left corners of the LGBTQ (the Q is for Questioning) community to the rightest of Christian fundamentalists. A Honolulu-based Pride organization even accused the campaign of setting the gay movement back 20 years. 

"The campaign 'Time to be queer!" tries to convince heterosexuals to become LGBTQ with arguments that can be seen all over Stockholm on posters and on animated banners in the subway system and at the campaign sites: blihomo.nu, bliflata.nu, blibi.nu, bliqueer.nu, blitrans.nu, and blibog.nu," explains campaign manager Soliman Herrera Johansson to Out Traveler.Continue reading...

As London's museums and galleries get in the swing for the Summer Olympic Games, Google is powering two unique installations that harness the power of its cutting-edge web technologies.

The Science Museum this week unveiled the the Google Chrome Web Lab, a series of five interactive experiments that showcase web technologies and a first-of-its-kind web-based exhibition marries cyberspace and physical space. “We hope to inspire people around the world by showcasing the magic that the Internet makes possible,” blogged Jayme Goldstein, Product Marketing Manager for Chrome.Continue reading...

Automakers have been panicking throughout the recession that Gen Y is abandoning the American dream of car ownership (forget home ownership). The answer: create buzz and a cool factor by targeting the creative class. The above photo doesn't look like a custom publishing project by an automaker, and that's the whole point.

Mercedes-Benz is positioning The Avant/Garde Diaries as a digital project, curating interviews, video and photos promoting its events appealing to not-always-affluent but certainly influential creatives in key cities. It all kicked off with the brand's Transmission 1 event in Berlin, continued with Movement Copenhagen then the recent Transmission LA - AV hybrid arts/music/digital happening in Los Angeles curated by the Beastie Boys' Mike D.

Last week saw the opening of A/D's editorial office, at the corner of Broome and Mott Streets in New York's Nolita neighborhood, whith hipster fave photographer Cobrasnake on hand to photograph the 700 guests who attended.Continue reading...

Many small businesses steer clear of anything controversial or political so as not to offend any potential customers. After all, the customer is always right, even if they are saying exactly the opposite thing from what the last customer said.

Brooklyn Industries, a 14-store outfit that's based in (where else?) Brooklyn, NY, and sells hipster-licious clothing, bags, and small household goods, is not afraid. Its store windows are provoking conversations about subjects that not everybody wants to talk about, necessarily, when all they want is to grab a t-shirt.

The retailer explained the thinking behind its thought-provoking window displays: "Inspired by Spike Lee's film Jungle Fever, we wanted to take a closer look at race in Brooklyn. We asked local residents about their lives and experiences growing up here."Continue reading...

The insatiable Chinese consumer is one of the big reasons luxury brand marketers like the French conglomerate LVMH took the recent economic downturn in stride. 

LVMH, owner of iconic brand names including De Beers, Fendi, Givenchy and Louis Vuitton, recognized years ago that China represented a burgeoning luxury market. Along with European competitors like Hermes and Burberry, LVMH aggressively sought out Chinese retail channels for its products.

Even though luxury products continue to enjoy popularity, there are signs that store sales may be leveling off in China. That's why LVMH is looking to the Internet as a new way of engaging upscale Chinese consumers, as evidenced by the launch of a Chinese-language version of its Nowness.com portal.Continue reading...

Volkswagen Group of America is sponsoring an eight-night run of a fellow German high-tech b(r)and — electronic music Kraftwerk — at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The event, titled Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and running April 10-17, will feature 3-D visualization and performances of the group's classic tunes from albums including Autobahn, Trans Europe Express, The Man-Machine, and Computer World.

The sponsorship continues a multi-year partnership between Volkswagen, MoMA and MoMA PS1 that kicked off last May "to foster and inspire innovative thinking through important exhibitions and education programs."Continue reading...