As objects go, the ashtray has had one of design’s strangest arcs — from culturally ubiquitous touchstone to societal outcast to, now, something fundamentally changed. Can you think of another piece of décor that’s been deemed, at various times, essential and repulsive with equal fervor? That’s been a vessel for all of our misgivings about society? That’s been exalted as a domestic necessity only to be relegated to the dustbin of history … and then reborn? That comes with so much existential baggage? If I were an ashtray, I’d be f*cking exhausted at this point.
Thankfully, the ashtray is indifferent to our bullshit and the values we ascribe to it. The ashtray is inherently carefree — not because its mere existence hints at something naughty or transgressive, but because the object itself is kind of lawless and lazy. It’s a functional piece that’s barely asked to function at all — the teenaged little brother of design. The ashtray needs to do only one thing well — keep the surface on which it sits clean and make sure your house doesn’t burn down. And actually, the ashtray doesn’t need to do what you ask it to do at all. The ashtray transcends both utility and desire. The ashtray exists above us all!
Because of their fairly low lift, there’s a certain freedom to the ashtray’s construction. They can be produced from nearly any material. They can be designed in almost any shape. They can be classy or vulgar, cheaply fabricated or meticulously crafted. They’re categorized with fun names: “tobacciana” if you’re memorabilia-minded about it, or “accessories of sin” if you’re a smidge more licentious and fun. And they’re a perfect souvenir. I’m tired of stealing pens or matches from hotels and restaurants. I want a whole-as(s)h-tray.
Read more at the link in my bio!
Anybody who loves and follows culture has the thing(s) they once swore they’d rail against for life that they now can’t live without. (My biggest one isn’t even something design-related; it’s Steely Dan.) But what makes something repellent to us in the first place? Under what circumstances are we often forced to confront our previous prejudices? What makes us change our stance or opinion? Why is it fun to be a hater? And how do we learn to love the thing we were once so sure we loathed?
Today on Counter Space we are *thinking*! (And of course shopping.)
How do you move from thinking a brand is painfully dorky, gift fair-coded schlock, to thinking it’s legitimately cool, or at least passably coppable?
What moves the line of acceptability?
How does very thing you once despised become, in a different context, an object of desire?
Like a rom com, but for design. Today on Counter Space. At the Link in Bio!!
How do you sit on your couch? Do you sit ramrod straight? Or do you slouch, go sideways, lay your head on its arms, put your feet up on the coffee table — anything to get remotely horizontal? Recliners grant you instantaneous access to this level of comfort. But as a culture, we’ve never allowed them to achieve any sort of cool factor, and we’ve refused to elevate them to something that could be considered aspirational or even let through the door of an AD-style interior. They’re what? Too ugly? Too déclassé? Too bulky? Too laden with bad associations? (Let’s agree the name La-Z-Boy doesn’t do anyone any favors.) I decided to do some digging at the link in my bio….
1 veranda by vico magistretti
2 p40 by osvaldo borsani
3 wink by toshiyuki kita
4 reclinery by @oforo.co
5 @l.a.door
6 sitzmaschine by josef hoffmann
7 gustav stickley
Technically the idea for today’s newsletter — which offers three under-the-radar(ish) itineraries for exploring New York City from an architecture and design POV — came from an upcoming exhibition I’m unreasonably excited about: Noguchi’s New York opens February 4 at the Noguchi Museum in Queens. The museum is my favorite spot to revisit in all of New York, but the temporary exhibitions often feature other artists. Noguchi’s New York puts the focus squarely on Noguchi himself and his relationship with the city, exploring how New York transformed the Japanese-born sculptor’s work and “how he in turn transformed the city.”
I began poking around, trying to decide how I’d cover the exhibition, and in doing so, I discovered a Noguchi site I’d never visited before in downtown Manhattan: the Sunken Garden, a circular rock palace situated below what was once known as One Chase Manhattan Plaza. The building, an International Style skyscraper designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, is now home to a bizarre mix of entertainment destinations, including an indoor tennis court, an Alamo Drafthouse cinema, and the reincarnation of iconic New York video rental mecca, Kim’s. I’ve been to that building, but only at night, and I’d never clocked the sculptural intervention hiding in plain sight next door.
This discovery got me thinking about my own relationship with New York — how I’ve used the city to shape both who I am and what my aesthetic has evolved to be; how the city constantly pushes me to become a new version of myself (not to be all Felicity about it). I’ve lived here for 25 years, and I’ve been writing about design for 20 of them. And while I know New York is more jam-packed with interesting sites for art, architecture, design, and just plain gonzo inspo than most other cities, I still marvel at how easy it is to stumble upon something new. I’ll often look at Instagram, jealous of the far-flung places people are visiting and wondering if I’ll ever get there. But I’m here today to show you that the best city for getting inspired is almost always the one you’re in right now, no airfare required.
More at the link in bio!
Deep dive today on brooches inspired by my rewatch of Baby Boom, Joni Mitchell’s brooch-maxxing, meeting a Milanese publicist who introduced me to @mkheymilano , researching mid-century @georgjensen , and chatting with brooch guru @danrubinstein about his collecting habit. Link in bio!!
ICYMI, my last newsletter of 2025 was The Counter Space Guide to Gifting, no matter what time of year it is. It’s more of a way to look than an actual shopping guide, though it can be that too! I’ve just realized in my 20 years as a design editor that my special talent is finding the best thing from the brand you’ve never heard of or the vintage shop that’s flying under-the-radar — both of which will make you appear to your recipient as some sort of god-tier gifter but which might also be the place you happen upon the exact right thing for the person you love.
This newsletter is what I’d buy from 7 (new to me) brands I discovered this year, and what I’d buy from 5 vintage shops I love. It’s not scrolling through 35 pages of results on Net-a-Porter or Ssense, but rather keeping your eyes open all year to the wide world of designers’ webshops or independent vintage marketplaces. It’s gifting like a market editor — not necessarily less work, but different work that can ultimately be more rewarding. I hope you’ll read at the link in bio or in Stories!
About a year or so ago, I started to notice what I would come to refer to, just because it’s fun to say and because I’m far too online, as “cunty little cutlery sets,” popping up here and there. These sets are usually just three pieces — knife, fork, spoon — and they’re often quite petite. They’re frequently designed by jewelers, and they are uniformly sculptural — it’s very, do I actually put this in my mouth or do I display it on a coffee table? Crucially, these sets are also usually very expensive, but this didn’t deter me from falling down the rabbit hole. Cunty little cutlery sets became a fun way to indulge my flatware obsession and my need to compulsively research home decor items, even if I didn’t really plan to buy them.
My favorite newsletter yet — read it at the link in bio!!
In the last few weeks of summer, I texted my group chat: “I think fish decor is coming back in a big way.” At the time, I was annoyed with myself for not snagging an incredible vintage copper fish lamp from Alfie di Trolio of the London shop Oculus, and I was thinking about things like Sunfish’s sardine table and a round-up of fish brooches I’d stumbled upon earlier in the year.
Over the next few days, my friends came through, sending me links to vintage carnelian fish brooches, ceramic plates with fish glazed into their surfaces, a hand-forged iron chair whose back forms the shape of a fish, a salvaged metal chair whose back forms the shape of a fish skeleton, a shimmering mother-of-pearl fish bottle opener, Belgian linen placemats with fish stitched into an open lace border, and the entire catalog of Minjae Kim. I saved images of fish tureens, and flatware with scales imprinted on their handles. Ten days later, one of my friends sent me this summer fashion forecast which offered the hilariously deadpan pronouncement: “We are going to see hella fish.” “Sorry,” she texted. “Your spot is already blown.”
Of course I didn’t think I was the first person to identify that fish are currently trending. As a design journalist, it’s my job to be aware of trends floating through the Zeitgeist and to forecast which way the wind is blowing. But not only am I sometimes wrong, it can also be difficult to discern when a motif as common as fish — which are kind of always low-key trending, due to having been around since humanity’s first etchings and literally being used to symbolize Jesus — slips from Big Mouth Billy Bass kitsch into the realm of high design.
In today’s letter, I share all of my type-A, Virgo-ascendant fish-themed shopping intel. But I also talk about how maddeningly short the trend cycle has become and how that can sometimes make us feel like something is “over” or not worth exploring or buying into, which is not an idea I subscribe to! Link in bio to read and subscribe!
Egg cups fall solidly into the realm of things you absolutely do not need in your kitchen. And yet, if and when you decide to buy them, they will undoubtedly make your breakfast time better and infinitely more refined. A shortcut to feeling posh before 8AM. A small but potent sign that maybe you actually do have your life together. Before, we were scraping out soft salted yolks over an ice bath near the sink. Now, we are cleanly slicing off the tips of our shells and placing our proteins alongside gorgeous buttered sourdough strips. Now, we have *presentation.*
Issue no 2 of Counter Space is live at the link in bio!!
Counter Space’s first newsletter is something I’ve been thinking about for while: When — and why! — did modular furniture stop being fun? A few years ago, I began finding all of these videos on Instagram of vintage furniture pieces that were modular or adaptable in some ingenious way and I wondered… Why aren’t we doing this anymore??? Triangular cupboards that turned into bars on wheels, dining tables that doubled in diameter without the use of a drop leaf, sofas whose backrests swiveled on a track around the piece, turning into a chaise…
Having a piece of furniture that transforms in some unexpected way perhaps isn’t that far a leap from “little treat” culture — i.e. considering 21st-century society is an ongoing trash fire, don’t we deserve little moments of delight in our homes? Why aren’t contemporary furniture brands capitalizing on this? I know in my heart the practical answer to this question, which will become an almost annoyingly recurring drumbeat in this newsletter — that modular furniture is likely harder and more expensive to make, and ensuring its appeal at scale is a tricky gambit. But don’t we owe it to ourselves to try? Read the rest at the link in bio!! And thank you to everyone who has already subscribed it means the world to me 🫶
Introducing Counter Space, a new Substack from Sight Unseen editor @jillsinger ! Published every Tuesday, Counter Space will feature shopping round-ups; essays about style, taste, and trends; recommendations on what and how to buy for your home; and other pressing design topics/unsolicited advice from one of design’s leading voices.
A newsletter about what we want and why we want it.
Subscribe at the link in bio!
Logo & branding by @garrett_elizabeth_office ✨
