Nylon Blogs

Although the title of her book might suggest otherwise, the latest from Laura Owens isn’t about fruits or nuts…not really, anyway.

Instead, she uses the joke about California being filled with fruits and nuts as a jumping-off point for her collection of 1960s newsprint from the state.

Each of these hand-made pages is plastered with random articles and photos from San Francisco and LA, then later screenprinted with her own illustrated alphabet of fruit and nuts.

Random? Yes.

Kind of awesome?

Also true.

So if your coffee table needs a jolt of humor (and whose doesn’t?), buy it here.

Attention, Street Style Junkies:

Now the super-cute clothes in Japan can actually arrive in your American closet.

Last Year,  ZOZOZOTOWN.COM launches in the US.

It’s a massive Japanese fashion site with more than 500,000 items from over 700 Japanese labels.  You can check out what’s popular in trendy neighborhoods like Shibuya and Harajuku, and you can find major deals, too – right now, their winter sale is happening, and it’s got discounts up to 80% off.

Click through to see some of our favorite outfits from the site (the leopard print sweater at left is by Snidel, and you can get it here.)

Just one thing – although you can pay with an American credit card, the prices on the site are still in yen.  Open this Google converter in a separate page when you shop to see the exchange rate.
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Moleskine’s already tackled your closet, your Pac Man obsession, and your everyday to-do list.

Now we’ve found one more reason why you can’t leave home without your Moleskine, even on vacation.

The company’s just rolled out a mini-collection of four luggage tags featuring the classic hard leather cover, stretchy closure, and notebook-inspired interior.

Plus, at just $10 each, you can buy one for all of your suitcases.

If your New Year’s resolution is to “travel more,” take the first step and buy the luggage tags here.

Fact: billboards are usually pretty boring.

But luckily more and more people are trading lame ads for big-time pieces of art.

First came Nate Lowman’s massive portrayal of Julia Roberts on an LA street corner.

Next, the movement’s spreading cross-country with The Billboard Art Project.

In cities like Nashville, Baton Rouge, Riverside, and Chicago, the digital LED billboards are transformed into colorful works of art by emerging artists.

So next time you’re on a road trip….pay attention to the billboards.

Who knows what you’ll see?

Click here for more info.

As New Yorkers, it’s against our nature to look at a subway map.

Even if we’re lost in Brooklyn at 3 in the morning, we still cringe at the thought of someone mistaking us for a tourist.

But sometimes we travel and actually are, you know, tourists.

And we needs maps.

Enter Zero per Zero, the brains behind these adorable little transportation guides for anyone traveling to the Far East.

The pastel-colored packets have subway and railway maps, area maps, and other transporation info to help you navigate successfully and without looking like a camera-toting dweeb.

There’s even a pocket for your passport and tickets, so you can keep all your stuff in one handy place, as well as stickers to decorate the maps with your sight-seeing notes.

The maps are available for Tokyp, Seoul, Osaka and Hokkaido, each customized to reflect their city’s identity.

And yes, we totally wish there was one for New York (though we won’t admit to ever using it).

$12 here.

–MICKIE MEINHARDT

A new family of pandas have arrived at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland!

They’re setting up a Panda Cam this week, but in the meantime, you can see photos from their flight to their new home.

Also: Do you think the in-flight movie was Care Bears, or Kung Fu Panda?

Also-also: Pandas are allowed to sit in the exit row?

Want to see the Seven Wonders of the World, but find yourself just shy of funds for that thousand-dollar plane ticket?

Your salvation is here: behold Google Sightseeing, a sweet website dedicated to showing travel-hungry people little-seen parts of the world, all for free via Google Earth.

Under the tagline of “Why bother seeing the world for real?” the site’s authors present an array of “weird and wonderful sights,” a handful per week, in both full article form and street view snippets with snarky commentary.

They range from dilapidated Olympic stadiums all over the world to hidden towns in Florida built entirely by Disney, and often have themed weeks, such as this week’s “Island Week.”

They aren’t affiliated with Google, but they’re pretty savvy with the mega-site’s technology and provide a much cooler way to goof off with Google Maps than searching for all of your friends’ houses.

And although we’d still rather explore the world for real, until that actually happens, this awesome site will do just fine.

Check it out here.

–MICKIE MEINNHARDT

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s….Julia Roberts?

If you’re in L.A., you’ve probably seen the actress’s shiny smile grinning down at you from the corner of Venice and La Cienega Boulevards.

The image comes courtesy of New York artist Nate Lowman, who created the piece (aptly titled “The 30 Million Dollar Smile”) as part of a city-wide public art display.

He’s the first of eight artists who will be displaying their work in that intersection within the next few months.

Well, that’s definitely one way to make rush hour a little more bearable…

Patti Smith has already displayed some of her photos in her 2010 memoir Just Kids and in private showings, but she’s never had an official museum exhibition until now.

Currently showcased at Hartford’s Wadsworth Antheneum, Camera Solo is Smith’s collection of Polaroid photographs taken over the years.

These 70-plus images capture everything from Eiffel Tower to Robert Mapplethorp’s shoes to the beds of Keats, Woolf, and Hugo.

They’re quiet, thoughtful, and the perfect antidote to her rockstar alter-ego.

You can see the pieces in person until February 2012.

But just in case you can’t make it, get a secondhand look here.