Not to be confused with the Eero Aarnio Ball Chair, this Ball Chair by Finn Stone is a very modern design, with inspiration from that space age era.
British designer and sculptor Finn Stone has designed this seat for both indoor and outdoor use, with the looks to sharpen up an interior and a construction of recycled ABS (virtually indestructible polyethyene) to ensure it can withstand the elements. Indeed, each chair is also coated with a high quality laquer.
Available in black, white, red, green, brown and that very 70s orange, you can pick one up for £140 online.
Harking back to an era when colour wasn’t something to be scared of, this Flavia Del Pra 70s-style ceramic lamp should brighten up any room – and that’s before you even plug it in.
This design, known as Memoirs, is just one of many design options, all sharing that bold use of colour and as much a work of art as a piece of home design – and that goes for the base as much as the shade. The entire lamp stands at 68cm and is made to order, so expect to wait around 5-6 weeks for one.
Available to order online, you can pick one up for £360.
We don’t usually use images so big on Retro To Go, but in this case we’ll make an exception, as we want to show off these exclusive Barbara Hulanicki greetings cards from London’s V&A.
There’s four designs to choose from – "Pink Boots", "Girl in Blue", "Spotty Shoe" and "Headscarf Girl" – all are original designs by the Biba founder and have been made available to promote the reissue of Barbara Hulanicki’s autobiography, A to Biba.
Each card is available online, retailing for £2.75 each.
Looking for some functional artwork? You need the Twiggy Mirror.
It was designed by Wendell Storm for Spazia, using a classic 60s Twiggy image imposed onto a mirror. Yes, a mirror – if you can avoid Twiggy’s model glare, you can use it to check your appearance or to add a sense of space to a room.
Sized at 12-inches x 12-inches and in a brushed metal frame, it did retail for $250, but you can now pick one up for $199 (around £100).
If you’re in England, you’ll know that there’s a smoking ban on the way from July 1st. And if you really want to annoy someone in a public place after that date (and possibly risk arrest), you should pull out a Tankbook from your bag.
Tankbooks are a genius piece of design – literary classics miniaturised to fit into a cigarette packet. And the packet is absolutely authentic too, right down to the flip-top lid, cellophane wrap and foil insert. Get through all that and you have a complete version of either Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Ernest Hemingway’s The Undefeated and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony, Rudyard Kipling’s The Man who would be King, The Phantom Rickshaw and Black Jack, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and finally, Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych and Father Sergius.
Each comes in a box that’s almost identical to a leading brand of cigarettes, but with the book title replacing the trade name. As you’d expect, they go on sale as the ban comes in on July 1st from Waterstones, Borders, Books Etc, Blackwells, Foyles, Magma, Design Museum, American Retro, Selfridges, Urban Outfitters and Paul Smith. Each retails for £6.99.
See over for an image of all the packets together.
Frustratingly, I can’t find a price or specific sales details about this Edition Space 50s-style speaker system – but it’s such a stylish object, we had to feature it.
The Space 071 (to give it the official name) is a sound system, but with the looks of a classic piece of 50s furniture – or even a radiogram. The looks are down to the hand of designer Bernhard Lenz, while the internal sound system is the work of Trenner & Friedl, noted high-end speaker designers. Combined, you get the best of design and technology in a choice of woods and colours. Not to mention a good place to stick a vase when you don’t want to play your tunes.
As I said earlier, I don’t have a price or retailer for this, though I suspect it isn’t cheap. However, you can contact the Austrian manufacturer directly via its website.