Villa Eugenie is an "events" company in the most impressive sense of the word. These are not people who organize bridal showers and baby parties for minor movie stars. For the Brussels-based team of Villa Eugenie, led by Etienne Russo, routine means orchestrating a major runway event for a major fashion house. And stunning everyone.



Best known for its catwalk extravaganzas, Villa Eugenie is now involved in not just creating spectacular fashion shows, but staging major events for luxury business in all of its forms - magazine launches, major celebrations, and jewellery, perfume, art and opera installations, corporate events and fairs around the world. The team also advises major fashion brands on store concepts, stores space searches, lighting and branding. Although based in Brussels, Villa Eugenie operates in all major fashion and luxury centers and has a permanent office also in Miami.



We do not envy their task of having to impress the time-hardened fashion buyer or editor, or the celebrities that line up the runways of the famous fashion emporiums. These events are critiqued like major concerts or art exhibitions, and the shows themselves are as much about drama and ever-bigger surprises as they are about the designers, or the fashions - most of which are unwearable by mere mortals anyway.



Villa Eugenie must be doing it right. Year after year, its client list reads like a Who is Who in the fashion world: Chanel, Dries Van Noten, Miu Miu, Maison Martin Margiela, Lanvin, Hermés, Hugo Bosss, Sonia Rykiel, Olivier Strelli, and the
Adidas-backed Y-3.



These are all major brands with huge production budgets. But even when you know that sky is not the budget's limit, it is still astonishing that the same production company can be creating several shows in one season - all attended by the same posse of cynical seen-it-all viewers - and not start to appear stale or formulaic. Boundless creativity and ruthless attention to detail, both most likely still sparked for each project by Etienne Russo himself, are the cornerstones of such a feat.



Russo started humbly in the 1980s as an artistic and creative barman at Mirano, a fashionable nightclub in Brussels. He was soon creating major events there and drawing serious attention. His first real fashion client was Dries Van Noten for whom he worked as a model, salesman, lighting engineer, cook and extraordinary producer of Van Noten's first fashion show in Paris in 1991.



In 1995, Russo started his own production firm, naming it after the charming villa where it was located. Since 2004, the Villa Eugenie team has worked out of a former factory close to Brussels South station (Bruxelles-Midi, Brussel-Zuid). The space, covered by a vast glass canopy, was redesigned by the Ghent-based architect Glenn Sestig



This is the same man who this year opened his first luxury hotel Sestig Hotel. In the cubic Huis Van Waes building in Ghent that he reconstructed. By Tuija Seipell



Seen any other interesting events we should know about? e-mail bill@thecoolhunter.net

Berlin’s Magma Architecture won several awards for its entry in the JETZT | NOW series of temporary installations at the Berlinische Galerie, Museum for Contemporary Art, Photography and Architecture. Magma’s installation, 11th in the series, was called fittingly “head-in | im kopf” and its concept is based on exploring the properties of materials, form, color and light.
 
The main feature of the installation is an alarmingly orange flexible fabric (polyamide-elastan mix) stretched between the walls, ceiling and floor. The fabric is the most visible part of the exhibit, yet it is also the tool with which the viewers can focus on smaller details.



Visitors bend down under the fabric into which openings were cut. Through these holes, visitors pop their heads up into the orange space to view drawings, models and photographs suspended from wires. These items are from Magma’s work and include representations of the revitalization of the former GDR Radio Centre (Berlin, Nalepastrasse, 2007), a bridge over the Landwehrkanal river in Berlin (competition entry in 2006), the new Nexus Productions headquarters in London, and the exhibition Trial & Error in London (2003). Luckily, we have images to show how it all worked as the full effect of the experience is quite impossible to describe in mere words.
 
The project team for head-in | im kopf included Anke Noske, Hendrik Bohle, Dominik Jörg, Lena Kleinheine, Ksenia Kagler, Yohko Mizushima, Lena Kleinheinz, Martin Ostermann and Ben Reynolds.



Magma was established in 2003 by Martin Ostermann and Lena Kleinheinz. The Ohio native Ostermann is a former senior architect at Studio Daniel Libeskind. The Denmark-born Kleinheinz is an exhibition designer. Magma is known for its inventive, experimental and experiential approaches to architectural work. By Tuija Seipell

Karl Largerfeld never puts a pedicured foot wrong and hispresentation for Chanel at this week's Couture shows proves that he isstill one of the most innovative and creative minds on the planet. Largerfeld unveiled his collection amid an extraordinary 50-foot setmade up of steel-grey tubes inspired by organ pipes. Lagerfeld worked the tubes theme into the collection, showing tubular shapes in severaldifferent manifestations.

Lagerfeldis one of the masters of catwalk theatrics, dreaming up incrediblelarger-than life sets that seem to get more elaborate each season. Forsome of the best of recent shows check out Runaway Runway Success. By Lisa Evans via Fashionation

Forget the sport..some of the most interesting things happening at the Beijing Olympics are coming from clever sponsors who have dreamt up creative ways to promote their brands at the mega global event. We're loving the offering from Mini Cooper, who have dragged traditional Chinese street transport into the 21st century with these great bike-powered Minis. Samsung has been equally creative, giving Olympics' fans a chance to view all of the action from their own "private" alien-like pods. Both of these offerings are a lesson to global brands: get creative and innovative in your marketing or risk being drowned out by the noise. - Laura Demasi

Hector Serrano Studio has curated and designed the exhibition Spain Emotion as well as the communication campaign of the Spanish participation at this years Tokyo Designer's Week. The event is organized by the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) and will take place in the Spanish Embassy in Tokyo from 30 October to 3 November 2008.



More than an exhibition, Spain Emotion is a celebration of the best Spanish design in the Tokyo Designer's Week that encompasses not only this exhibition, but also conferences and seminars; a forum that provides with an exceptional opportunity to get to know at first hand those who are behind the products. The aim of Hector Serrano Studio this year is for emotion to be the guiding threads of their story, and the products its main characters. To this end, they have created a space that aims to surprise, entertain, seduce and encourage, rather than simply showing; four large stages where light dramatises and bathes the surroundings and the pieces in colour. Colour to communicate the vitality and energy with which the Spanish character is so often identified. In short, an experience aimed at revealing the latest in Spanish design, in a most emotive way. - Tuija Seipell

Coinciding with Art Basel Miami, FriendsWithYou has unveiled its flagship boutique at 3930 NE 2nd Avenue in Miami, Florida. In their whimsical and inimitable style, they have created their very own fun house for their fans stocked with new limited-edition stuff — from clothing and toys to prints, books and art. We are also looking forward to our collaboration with Friends With You in 2010 on some special TCH projects.

Magical spiritual powers are not the only talents Miami-based art collaborative FriendsWithYou can claim as theirs. They also have a special skill for creating cuddly, cute and somewhat clever toys, events, experiences and other playthings for us mere mortals. We would never imply that their Fun Houses and other such entertainments are just for kids because if they were, we’d feel too envious to be nice. 

 
In 2008, the FriendsWithYou duo — Sam Borkson and Arturo “Tury” Sandoval III — participated in the Hexagone (A hex is gone) group art show in Miami, curated by Jose Mertz. The FriendsWithYou playroom was filled with gigantic inflated buddies and called Wish World.

 
Also in 2008, a FriendsWithYou Fun House was part of the 944 Magazine’s Crime on Canvas surrealistic pop art show at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. And later in the year FriendsWithYou created another Fun House interactive exhibition for the SCOPE Miami lounge. SCOPE took place in the Wynwood Art District where the FriendsWithYou studio is also located.


 
Earlier this month, FriendsWithYou created another Fun House interactive exhibition for the SCOPE Miami lounge. This year’s SCOPE had nearly 90 exhibitors from more than 20 countries in a new 60,000-square-foot space in the Wynwood Art District where FriedsWithYou’s new studio is now also located.

 
The Fun House is a giant, anthropomorphic bounce house intended to help unleash the visitors’ inner brats and in doing so, take advantage of the healing power of fun. This is in keeping with FriendsWithYou’s mission of sharing the message of “magic, luck and friendship with the global community.” - Tuija Seipell

Fashion launches are a bit like romantic comedies; pretty people in pretty clothes in pretty places - and they all start to look and feel the same after a while. Louis Vuitton broke the mould with its latest launch for its new Stephen Sprouse collection. The mega party was held over three venues in New York, starting with a cocktail party at the Louis Vuitton store, followed by an exhibition of  Sprouse's artwork. The night ended with a packed after party at the Bowery Ballroom, where Debbie Harry took to the stage for a mini concert.

Louis Vuitton did the late designer proud, celebrating his unique Punk couture aesthetic by creating mini 'Sprouse worlds' - referencing his work at every turn, from the walls to the ceiling and the furniture, culminating in a spectacular 'hall" of graffiti, a 'tower' of vintage TV sets and custom neon signs. Even the food paid homage to Sprouse - neon coloured hors d'oeuvres and desserts spilled out in a kind of punk colored rainbow.



Sprouse, who was part of Andy Warhol's set, become famous in the 1980s for pioneering the uptown pop punk look; a wild and edgy mix of elements such as day-glo colours, high-tech fabrics, sequins, velcro, superb uptown tailoring and hand painted silks. The designer and artist, who died in 2004, also created elaborate costumes for the likes of Mick Jagger, Axl Rose, Trent Reznor, Courtney Love, David Bowie and Duran Duran.

And now, thanks to Louis Vuitton, a whole new generation will have the opportunity to discover his work. - Laura Demasi

Held between June 14 and September 14, 2008, the International Exhibition Expo Zaragoza 2008 is already a distant memory but its effects still reverberate.


 
The 25 hectares along the river Ebro near Spain’s fifth-largest city, Zarazoga, hosted thematic pavilions and thematic squares plus the pavilions of more than 100 countries, all exploring the overall theme of the Expo, “Water and Sustainable Development.”


 
Some of our favourite Expo mementoes are these spectacular images from the Portuguese Pavilion. Theming the Portuguese participation in the watery event, Lisbon-based Bak Gordon Architects envisioned a river’s ever-changing flow from its trickling source to a river mouth by the sea.


 
BAK created the pavilion’s spaces as versatile, changeable and changing surroundings for audience participation at levels of each individual’s choosing. The three main areas – Alert, Consciousness and Change – explored water and sustainability and featured a red “river” of pavement that helped the visitors track the flow of the exhibit.


 
From an alarming tubular “jungle” of Alert, to Consciousness where Nuno Cera’s photography highlighted the three mighty rivers of Iberia – Guadiana, Tagus and Douro, the visitor ended up in the hopeful Change, where the promising movement of citizens was depicted, literally, with the movement of images and words spoken in various languages. - Tuija Seipell



Photography by ultimasreportagens.com

Truth: prostate cancer kills thousands of Australian men each year — equal to the number of women who die from breast cancer. We know, definitely not cool. But the Cancer Council of Australia is far from giving up hope. This year they are asking Aussie blokes to participate and help raise funds for Daredallion Week from March 2nd-6th.



Dare: register to take on the Daredallion challenge — dare someone to do something they normally would not do — or else challenge yourself to something completely outrageous and raise money that will be used to promote awareness for men’s cancers.  Eugene Tan, our friend over at Aquabumps, photographed one of the first dares this year — a guy unsuccessfully attempted to float away from Bondi beach strapped to a bunch of helium balloons.  Check out the Daredallion site and either register a dare of your own, or use their Dare Generator and take on one of the challenges already developed — we dare you! - Andrew J Wiener

Sick of going to the opening of an envelope new store opening party? The tried and tested formula is safe, uninspiring and obvious. (Eg. celebrity invites, cult dj spins some safe retro tunes and the real consumer is supposed to be inspired by this out pouring of elitism to then visit said store.) Always ready to challenge the status quo, Diesel's new store on Fifth Avenue in New York took a decidedly different approach at a time when consumer behaviour and creative marketing is not only revered but essential.
 
Titled "Five on Fifth", the guerrilla marketing campaign for Diesel allows the consumer on the street to witness real life installations in their store windows. Intimate dinner parties that would normally be held behind closed doors were staged in the windows featuring famous New Yorkers. Each night was a different theme (cleverly organised to appeal to a cross section of consumers) with a club night featuring key dj's like Richie Rich, Kenny Kenny and Patrick McDonald,  a sports night with the key players from the New York Giants and then a Fashion night featuring the girls from Ford Models.


 
Street teams also gave out free goodies in key spots alongside the intimate window dinners in an attempt to catch the busy eyes of the press who were running with blackberries in hand from Fashion week's shows to parties.
 
Bravo to Diesel for their creative, inspiring and well executed campaign that should hopefully set the bar for economic-chic alternatives for store openings! - Kate Vandermeer

From August 5 to September 30, the cutely nostalgic Fiat 500 C, unveiled in February, appears on Milan’s world-famous fashion street, Montenapoleone, in an unexpected role. Exactly 20 fiberglass replicas, precisely the same size and shape as the little Fiat, have become planters for real trees of various shapes. The happening, called “Per fare un albero” (Create a tree), is a cooperative effort between the City of Milan, Fiat, and artist-designer Fabio Novembre. In Novembre’s words, his solution to merge into one object trees and cars, two elements always vying for urban space, is a “symbol of a new way of living.” According to Fiat’s spokespeople, Fiat 500 C’s cheerful, friendly, innovative and eco-friendly character is a perfect fit for such an undertaking. - Tuija Seipell

Our world is full of noise, coming from every angle. Consumers have seen it all before, creating an unprecdented challenge to marketers.

It’s not enough just to be noticed. To rise above the clutter brands need to be extraordinary in every way. Extraordinary is the new ordinary; a mandatory requirement in a globaiised world where consumers are savvier, better educated and more connected than ever before.

Over the last five years The Cool Hunter has sought out the extraordinary and these finds have been a source of inspiration for hundreds of thousands of readers. But what you see on the site is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg as we don't always give away content for free. For hundreds of examples of innovative brand communications - from guerilla marketing through to environmental and outdoor - visit our consulting arm The Cool Hunter Platinum.

In a wonderful fusion of ancient Asian art forms and modern sensibilities, two massive origami lanterns in the form of tigers, will help Sydney citizens and visitors celebrate the Lunar or Chinese New Year. February 14 will mark the start of the Year of the Tiger, but the two crouching giants will remain at Customs House from February 11 to March 14, 2010.

 
The lanterns are 2.5 meters high and more than 7 meters long and they are lit by low-energy LED lights. As is fitting in soccer-mad Australia, the felines are not just idly posing, they are playing soccer in celebration of the FIFA soccer world cup. The tigers, commissioned by Customs House to raise awareness about the endangered status of tigers, were designed by Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) with offices in Sydney and Stuttgart, Germany. - Bill Tikos

Here at the industry arm of TCH Platinum, we collaborate with some of the world's best companies to help them stand out from their competitors. We specialize in developing ideas to help brands move into the new, niche Cool Age.

We also develop ideas to take TCH into the offline space, starting with TreeLife and now our Pop-Up skate park.

This innovative concept sees art, design and extreme sports collide creatively in an awe-inspiring, customized skate park entirely unique in the skating world. Using pop-culture icons and the latest trends, the Pop-Up Skate Park by TCH creates ultra-cool skating environments, designed to garner the ultimate media exposure through their incredible appeal and popularity.

Currently, we are creating two Pop-Up Skate Park themes – Transformers and Space Invaders — both ideal promotional media for high-energy brands that want to attract serious attention.

For Transformers Skate Park, we commissioned Christiann Klaassen and his amazing team from Rockhunter in London to visualize the recreational and promotional space where design, technology and skate culture meet with a cool Skate Park.

This is a fully customizable skating environment, designed for each specific location’s surroundings, and incorporating a range of innovative ramps, bowls, half-pipes and landings.

Two oversized Autobot Transformer robots, impressively positioned at either end of the skate park, signify guardianship of the ramp and those who use it, echoing seamlessly the Transformers film concept of robots protecting humans.

En all-encompassing landscape of illumination and light-projected designs enhance the skating environment. There is also the option of showcasing a range of rotating art works to further emphasize this hyper- real environment.

Space Invaders, in turn, are arguably the biggest pop-cultural icons of the 80s! The original characters that introduced the world to the realm of video gaming through their pixilated aesthetics, enjoy the unique advantage of multi-generational appeal. Globally, from children of the 80s through to Generation Y, the public has recognized and appreciated these characters for their cool simplicity.

The Cool Hunter is taking these alien invaders and super-sizing them for their unique skate park. A pair of larger-than-life Space Invader characters frame the two ends of the skating environment. Made from translucent Perspex, these illuminated figures create the visual masthead for the Skate Invaders Park.

The skating surface itself reflects the playing environment of the original 80s game. This design comprises of illuminated alien ships, fighter units and laser beams as seen in the games architecture.

The entire Skate Invaders environment will be visually enticing and provide innovative user functionality for Skate Invaders. Skate Invaders has been rendered by Per Krogsgaard and Jason Idris Alami from What!

If your brand is ready to launch a Pop-Up Skate Park by THC in your city, get in touch.

Mini Cooper by TCH is also another project we'll soon announce online.

How can TCH work with your brand on innovation and creating new brand experiences worth talking about? - get in contact with TCH Platinum

Two prominent Parisian retail facades are getting the Jean-Charles de Castelbajac treatment this month to brighten up the Holiday season. At the second-oldest department store in Paris, Bazaar de l'Hotel de Ville, or better known as the BHV, a funky neon-lit facade  will be lit up on November 17, with the help of powerful vocals performed by the 28-year-old, Arkansas-born Beth Ditto of the group Gossip.

 
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s second Holiday facade is at the top of Champs Elysée, at Publicis Drugstore, established in 1958 and located on the site of the famed Astoria Hotel. The complex now houses two restaurants and several specialty shops, including a high-end grocery store. From November 20 to January 20, the building will be covered with enormous color glass panels and the inside will have a similar color-rich treatment with the theme “Pop your X-mas”. - Tuija Seipell

A new permanent exhibition, LEVEL GREEN, dealing with the complex topics of car manufacturing, sustainability and the use of global resources, opened last month at the Autostadt (Car city in German), near the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburgh, Germany.

The architectural firm of J. Mayer H. of Berlin and interactive an digital media specialists, Art+Com Berlin, developed the concept for the 1,000 m2 interactive exhibition. The themes of the exhibition — Personal use, Sustainability at Volkswagen, The three aspects of sustainability, Mobility of the future, Sustainability and the economy, Effects of climate change — wind their way among an organically-shaped, sustainably built web of green structures.

Established in 1994, the vast is a seven-pavilion Autostadt visitor attraction area has ultra-modern pavilions for Volkswagen, Bentley, Škoda, Lamborghini, Audi and SEAT, and draws about 2 million visitors annually. - Tuija Seipell

 

Our new creative ideas agency ACCESS is helping brands and businesses see the world differently. We add substantial value by creating customized experiences that change the consumers’ thinking in some way. A simple idea for our McFancy project for McDonald's has already been viewed by over 3 million readers through this site. Millions more have interacted with it via hundreds of blogs that have featured it (google "Mcfancy Mcdonald's or McFancy by Access Agency"). And dozens of magazines internationally are featuring the concept in forthcoming issues. That's several million eyeballs before a single $ has been spent.

Enter our latest concept for Puma that we call SPINSTAR, which aligns perfectly with the brand image. It is a touring program that finds participants who can last the longest in a spin class, with Puma as the backdrop. Participants are offered a free pair of Puma sneakers and workout gear once they pass 2 hours (most spin classes run for 45 minutes). The winners of each session (which can last up to 8 hours) will receive the Puma bike and would then be invited to the final competition where the winner of the longest spin-class is crowned Puma SPINSTAR, receiving $25,000 cash along with $10,000 worth of Puma gear.

Two stellar examples of how ACCESS has taken brand expriences to a transformational level. Is your's crying out for the experience - contact bill@thecoolhunter.net 

Puma renderings created by Dobson White

Forget about wandering through an art gallery and wondering if you’re the only one who has no idea what anything means.  Hannes Broecker has brilliantly invited the cultural elite to grab a glass at an exhibition in Dresden, Germany, and drink away the art. 



Regardless of what we do or do not understand about art, we can all agree, it stimulates our senses.  Broecker has aroused our sense of taste (not to mention eliminated the need of elbowing our way to the bar) by hanging flat, glass containers with a variety of cocktails in the exhibition space.  As the night progressed, the levels of the multi-coloured infusions diminished.  By the end of the event, the art, itself, ran dry, and empty drinking glasses were returned to where they were originally placed. By Andrew J Wiener.

The annual Leipzig Book Fair (Leipziger Buchmesse) has just ended. Attracting some 150,000 visitors each March, the four-day Fair is one of Europe’s largest bookish events. 
 
At this year’s Fair, the trade show exhibit that received some serious media attention was made of 15,000 pencils — the writing instrument hardly anybody uses for writing. Interior Architect and product designer, 29-year-old Johannes Albert and Book Designer Helmut Stabe designed and realized the pencil concept for Mitteldeutscher Verlag Publishers.

 
The pencils function as giveaways, as decorative objects and as parts of the construction of the booth. The idea is that the visitors can decide to take a pen, alter the display, or leave it all as is. 315 of the pencils actually held the perforated boards in position while others functioned as wall stands for the books. - Tuija Seipell.

see also Matt Bilfields - Peggy

Creating compelling and unique brand experiences is what our new marketing agency ACCESS does best. The incredible interest that media, brands and readers have shown in our postings of just some of our ideas -- McFancy McDonald’s, Puma Spinstar, Mini Car wraps and Transformers Skate Park -- shows  clearly why brands are so keen on creating these kinds of experiences.
 
These are experiences that are talked about, blogged about and written about. Just Google McFancy McDonald’s and you will get over 10 pages and over 6 million views. Not one of these concepts even exists yet, (with the exception of Mini) but the media interest, online buzz and brands approaching us to experience our way of thinking offers rock-solid proof that they are an effective way to create brand awareness.

Our agency ACCESS taps into our global creative community to offer brands exceptional ideas and execution. If a brand is unable to register an image, product or service in the public’s mind with impact, it has little hope of being relevant. Traditional methods of creating visual impact and effective recall are no longer enough. Today’s consumers demand much more. It takes much more to register under their radar. Imaginative and impactful marketing is now more than ever a core function of a successful consumer-facing business. And to be successful in today’s increasingly competitive environment, companies must learn to stage experiences that engage and speak directly and personally to each of their customer segments. Exciting, unusual, cool brand experiences -- both on and offline -- are capturing the imagination of today's consumer. If it is not memorable, then it is just wallpaper.

Our latest project is for Moët - a champagne & chandeliers event showcasing over 100 chandeliers, made from crystal, glass, neon, plastic, paper in a space that can be adapted to suit any environment, from a digital-style marquee at the races to a smaller venue.
 
Here’s a glimpse at what we are working on.

McDonald's McFancy	Transformers 3 Media launch - pop up skate ramp
Puma Spinstar	Mini Car Wraps
TCH Curated In-Flight Experience	TreeLife by TCH

 

Who says you cannot become the host of your very own pop-up movie theatre? Just book a room, put up a big screen, build a seating theatre from cardboard and you are set. While you are at it, you might as well make the seating interesting. Don’t just pile up square boxes upon boxes but have some creative fun and allow the audience to experiment and experience different ways of sitting, lounging and viewing the screen. Can this be done?

It has been done in temporary museum and exhibition settings so why not at home or at the office? Cardboard is an amazingly versatile recycled and recyclable material just waiting for more creative uses. Contact ACCESS if you want to know more, or send us your cardboard discoveries. Bill Tikos