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Hideo Kojima’s Playstation 4 title Death Stranding is a strangely transfixing journey of a video game, one characterized by its languorous tech-dotted tempo and a realistically rugged, bleak backdrop. The game’s protagonist is tasked to traverse the elements and navigate through a challenging post-apocalyptic landscape while hauling cargo supplies with a premature baby named “Lou” strapped to his front. Yeah, it’s more than a little weird, and is best watched than described.

Death Stranding has been out since last November for the PS4, but Hideo Kojima and KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS made a surprise announcement with the reveal of a limited release J1A-GTKP jacket, a navy and black outerwear piece made in collaboration with techwear label, Acronym, as an official tie-in commemorating the game.

While this commemorative edition doesn’t include a “BB” (“Bridge Baby”) as portrayed in the game, the anorak is outfitted with a Gore-Tex Pro fabric outer shell to weather IRL conditions, alongside a multi-position convertible storm collar, storm hood with an adjustable visor. The J1A-GTKP also features Gravity Pockets along the arms for storage, an elongated liner access zip, and a big yellow Flak pocket up front in lieu of the capsule where the sensory attuned infant resides in the game (the cargo carrying cases and backpack are also not included).

Despite the steep $1,900 price tag, the Acronym J1A-GTKP sold out immediately as a highly desirable collector’s piece of gaming history.

By now washing your hands often should be on auto-pilot mode in your hygiene routine, but if you’re going to do something multiple times a day, it wouldn’t hurt to make the chore a little more enjoyable and pleasant. You don’t have to box yourself in with boring bar soaps that dry out your hands or smell like cheap perfume. We’ve rounded up some of our favorites below that will make you want to get your hands (and body!) dirty just so you can wash them over and over again.

Terrazzo Lychee + Black Tea Soap

Melbourne, Australia-based Fazeek is one of our favorite contemporary beauty brands because they create design-forward wellness goods that are handcrafted, ethical, and cruelty free. Their Terrazzo bar soaps look like little blocks of art and are made with a 100% pure vegan base and soap chips with natural clay to replicate the terrazzo look.

Absolute Terrazzo Rosemary + Mint Soap

Marble Kakadu Plum Soap

Absolute Terrazzo Sage + Driftwood Soap

Hudson Made Cedar Clove Beard & Shave Soap

Even beards need love and cleaning too! This unique, multipurpose soap disc by Hudson Made acts as both a shampoo and a shaving cream once lathered. Once you rinse, the natural oils left behind help moisturize your beard and skin.

Solstice Bar Soap

Bell Mountain Naturals is also simple, natural, ethical, and transparent. They use natural ingredients that have been sustainably sorted and recyclable or compostable packaging to better the environment. There are no preservatives, artificial dyes, or added fragrance – just pure ingredients that smell clean while leaving your skin feeling good.

Terlingua Soap

Soap Distillery

The Soap Distillery’s summer collection of bar soaps makes us crave the drinks they’re named after! The bars look and smell like summer, and are ultra-hydrating due to their cold-processed formulation.

UME

We say this from experience, it’s so hard not to walk by UME’s sculptural soaps without wanting to take closer look. If the intoxicating scents don’t pull you in, the glacier-like shapes and colors will. Made with a unique blend of botanicals, antioxidants, mineral rich clays, and skin-nurturing essential oils, you’ll actually *love* washing your hands when you have these soaps nearby.

Cedar Sandalwood

Lavender Creme

Jasmine Ylang Ylang

Naked Bar Soap Co’s African Black Soap

Did you know that African black soap isn’t actually black? It’s actually a marbled brown mix of colors. African black soap has long been hailed for its healing properties to treat many skin conditions including acne, dandruff, eczema, psoriasis, and fading. This bar soap by the Naked Bar Soap Co. is traditionally manufactured Fair Trade and imported from Ghana, West Africa, so you can be sure you’re getting the real deal.

by Humankind’s Moisturizing Body Wash Bar

Last but not least, by Humankind’s bar soaps are chockfull of high-quality ingredients and are cold-processed to improve the soap’s moisturizing qualities and moderate your skin’s pH balance. Scents like Tea Tree, Grapefruit, and Blood Orange + Bergamot keep it simple but elevate the ho-hum task of washing your hands.

>>> Check out more soaps + accessories in our Design Milk Shop! <<< 

For the month of June, we are donating a percentage of the Design Milk Shop sales to The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. For more information and organizations to donate to and/or get involved in click here.

• architects: G&C Arquitectos
• Location: Ibarra Kalea 7, Gernika, 48300 Bizkaia, Spain
• Project Year: 2019
• Photographs: Josema Cutillas
• Area: 19278 ft2

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As Vice President of Product Design at Interface, Kari Pei uses her design expertise to bring the brand’s visions to life. By looking to the world around her for inspiration, she creates a common language on global issues such as sustainability. Kari believes that flooring can help establish a hierarchy in any given space, and that changes in color, scale, texture, and pattern can enhance the way a space feels to those who use it. Prior to joining Interface in 2015, Kari worked with a number of international fashion houses, manufacturers, and hospitality brands, including Starwood Hotels, MGM Resorts International, and Knoll. A graduate from the University of Michigan School of Fine Arts, Kari lives in New York with her husband and their daughter. Today she’s joining us for Friday Five!

1. Modern Art, especially Agnes Martin, Sol Lewit, Mark Rothko, Gerhardt Richter
Each of these artists’ work is about essence, simplicity, purity, emotion. Those are all characteristics that I am drawn to and hope to incorporate into my own work. I feel that when these characteristics are considered in the process of creation, then the end result is stronger, has endurance, can sustain time, and all the while evoke a reaction from the user.

2. Museums, especially The Met
History inspires me. Each time I find myself in a museum, I get lost in time thinking about the culture, the materials, and the craftsperson’s or artist’s decision-making while in the process of creating. I often think about the circumstances surrounding them when something was created, and how those circumstances may have affected the object holding my attention. I find the museum a priceless testament to humanity and truth.

3. Prada Saffiano Pumps
Unfailing in looking sexy, making my legs look much better than in any other shoe, and always comfortable. During the course of any day I will go from presenting collections to customers, meeting with leadership teams, working with the designers on my team, or crawling on the floor moving around tiles and yarn bones. When I’m in my Saffianos I feel more presentable with the customers, more confident amongst the leadership colleagues, more aesthetic with my team, then after kicking them off to crawl on the floor I love seeing the silhouette in the distance. They are so elegant, and then when I slip my feet back into them, the sexy, strong feeling sears up my leg. They are just the perfect pump!

4. My Family
My family has the design gene in spades. Design is what we talk about at meals, from the way the table is set to the way cities are organized, and everything in between. My husband is the son of I.M. Pei, and so of course architecture is the number one topic at the table, usually around my husband’s current projects, as well as past projects, including those attributed to my father-in-law. We Pei’s have traveled constantly over the last 30 years, and when our daughter was born, 22 years ago, we didn’t skip a beat, toting her all over China when she was less than 2 years old. We travel so we can see design. It is in design that we learn to understand other cultures.

5. Our 3 dogs, Daisy, Millie, and Coco
The dogs bring us pure happiness, reduce stress, and actually bring us closer together through the laughter they induce. I learn a lot from our dogs, they are my muses. Daisy, whom I suspect might be Audrey Hepburn in the body of a dachshund, is always mischievous, smart, and independent. Coco is really the cutest – she gets the most attention by being mistaken for a Gund dog, you know, the stuffed animals. She really is cool, nonplus about it all, and can adopt to any situation. Millie, the youngest, has the most open and caring personality. She would be an excellent party planner or ultimate nanny if human. Her gray and white speckled coat with brown paws is the cat’s meow.

A look at Interface’s work:

Simple Abstraction Carpet Tile Collection

Drawn Lines Luxury Vinyl Tile

• architects: Jerbarquitecto
• Location: Villa Elisa, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Project Year: 2018
• Photographs: Luis Barandiarán
• Area: 168.0 m2

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• architects: David Chipperfield Architects
• Location: 74653 Künzelsau, Germany
• Project Year: 2020
• Photographs: Simon Menges
• Area: 5500.0 m2

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Representation of the real world is, without any doubt, in the genesis of cinema, an art originated from photography, by creating a sequence to convey the impression of movement to the viewer. In fact, the earliest known film recording is from 1895, picturing the arrival of a train at Ciolat station in France, a trivial event in the daily life of 19th-century European cities.

However, even though tangible reality plays a big role in cinema, one cannot ignore that the fascination caused by this art comes, to a great extent, from its capacity to create imaginary worlds, to activate mental spaces, and to unleash emotions. In this sense, the real world may often provide insufficient fuel, inspiration, or background for the directors' and screenwriters' storytelling, so the art direction and scenic design teams are required to create other intangible realities that serve as a basis for the narrative.

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