Hat Tricks

When you make hats that look like Calder sculptures — skewed satellite dishes and demented spirals — you’re clearly not aiming for the mass market. But over the past 10 years, Irish designer Philip Treacy has managed to build a business producing designs that adorn only a few heads — but turn others. Now he’s embarking on the most commercial collection of his career, teaming up with the Andy Warhol Foundation to do a line of hats and bags that carry the artist’s iconic images. “Warhol is a universal language,” Treacy says. “We’ve gone for the most obvious choices first.” Picture a hat with Marilyn Monroe’s face hanging above the wearer’s; a Campbell’s soup can purse, with a silver-spoon pull on the zipper; a dollar-bill visor. Of course, some of Warhol’s famous images are simply too ghoulish for headdress.

“We’re not doing electric chairs,” says Treacy. The limited-edition collection will debut in January in high-end designer stores like Maria Luisa in Paris, 10 Corso Como in Milan and Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Harrods in London. Expect prices to run from j70 for a visor to j310 for a bag, and there are only 2,000 of each color. If that sounds pricey, consider how much a real Warhol would run you. Sotheby’s is expecting between $4 million and $6 million for Lavender Marilyn (1) at its contemporary art auction in New York on Nov. 12. And Phillips has said it expects at least $4 million for Silver Liz, a 1963 image of Elizabeth Taylor. Try to get your head around that. — L.G.

Hip Sleep
The boutique hotel was the brainchild of Ian Schrager, co-founder of New York’s legendary Studio 54. Reasoning that his nightclub’s hip clientele would want to stay in hip hotels, he created such architectural landmarks as London’s Sanderson and St. Martin’s Lane. Now that concept is celebrated in an exhibition, “New Hotels for Global Nomads,” at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Curator Donald Albrecht says it aims to explore the hotel, not just for cutting-edge architecture and interior design, but as a source of mystery and refuge in the urban wilderness. Look out for digital renderings of Jean Nouvel’s Hotel Broadway in New York, and of Dubai’s Burj al-Arab, the world’s tallest hotel. — L.G

Treasure Trove
An ethereal glow emanates from a jeweled menagerie of flowers and animals ensconced inside long cabinets in a darkened room. Visitors wield flashlights handed out at the entrance to “The Jewels of JAR,” a homage to the innovative designer Joel Arthur Rosenthal at London’s Somerset House. The shadowed display is modeled on his exclusive shop near Place Vendôme, Paris. Only around 70 unique pieces are hand made every year, and this is the first time his work has been shown to the public. Rosenthal, 60, is famous for creating a pavement of tiny stones that enables subtle color gradations on a flower petal or insect wing. Some pieces are almost grotesquely large, some tiny and delicate. (The cheapest retails for around $1,000.) Diamond “strings” are twisted into snowflakes or lace fans. There’s a (brooch-size) horse’s head, a zebra with ostrich plumes and a sinister sheep with sapphire eyes. François Curiel, head of Christie’s Europe, which sponsored the show, says the “chicness” of a high-society gathering is now measured in the number of JAR jewels attending, so the 145 collectors who lent their treasures won’t be able to go out until the show ends on Jan. 26. — By Lucy Fisher