It’s Electric! The gasoline-free Tesla Model S “epitomizes efficiency, embodying the grace and performance of a world-class athlete,” says lead designer Franz von Holzhausen.

Upstart automaker Tesla has been busy earning its share of cheers and jeers. Autombile Magazine has selected the Tesla Model S as its 2013 Automobile of the Year (the third-generation Porsche Boxster earned Design of the Year honors). “We weren’t expecting much from the Tesla other than some interesting dinner conversation as we considered ‘real’ Automobile of the Year candidates, but in fact, the Tesla blew them all away,” writes associate editor David Zenlea in an article that will appear in the January 2013 issue. How? The car’s pure electric powertrain, long driving range, and performance, with a “crazy speed [that] builds silently and then pulls the edges of your face back,” according to Automobile editor-in-chief Jean Jennings.

However, the the Model S’s sleekly flush door handles (they power out to meet the passenger), 17-inch touchscreen (to tweak audio, navigation, climate, and other vehicle functions), and 265-mile range-cum-battery life aren’t enough to win over everyone. The country’s 18,000 new-car dealers, accustomed to getting a sweet slice of sales, are up at arms at Tesla’s bold move to sell directly to consumers: at a growing network of Tesla stores and online, where you can reserve your Model S for a (fully refundable) $5,000. Some dealers have already lobbed lawsuits at Tesla for circumventing the longstanding automaker-dealer system (which is governed by state laws). Elon Musk is undaunted. “Existing franchise dealers have a fundamental conflict of interest between selling gasoline cars,” the Tesla CEO told the Los Angeles Times. “It is impossible for them to explain the advantages of going electric without simultaneously undermining their traditional business.”

Copenhagen silver smithy turned “Scandinavian luxury lifestyle brand” Georg Jensen is set to get a new owner in Investcorp. The private equity firm has agreed to pay $140 million to acquire the retailer from Axcel Capital Partners, which gained ownership of Georg Jensen in 2001 as part of its purchase of Royal Scandinavia Group. Investcorp plans to bring on David Chu, founder of Nautica, as chief creative director and co-chairman of the board, according to a statement issued yesterday. Founded in 1904 by the eponymous silversmith (that’s his Magnolia collection at right), Georg Jensen had 2011 revenue of 914 million Danish kroner (approximately $160 million at current exchange), half of which comes from jewelry sales.

Better Together. Fernando and Humberto Campana’s “Panda Banquete” and Henri Michaux’s “Composition” (1959) are among the artfully juxtaposed offerings in “Moss, the Auction.”

“In Sonnet XVIII, Shakespeare famously compared his lover to a summer’s day, not to other lovers he might have had or could have had,” notes Murray Moss. “In this auction, I propose for a moment that you compare Maarten Baas’s sculpted “Clay” table to a bronze torso by Alberto Giacometti, and not to other tables. Apples to Oranges.” In this case, the “apple”—a.k.a. “Unique Torse de femme”—is estimated to sell for between $2 million and $3 million when it goes on the block later this morning at Phillips de Pury in the Moss sale to end all Moss sales.

The 120 lots in “MOSS: Dialogues Between Art & Design,” showcased in one of the most stunning catalogues in recent memory, are drawn primarily from the private collection of Moss and Franklin Getchell as well as the studios of designers who have had longstanding relationships with the pair’s beloved SoHo design emporium, which they closed earlier this year. (Some works, including the Giacometti, come via ArtAssure.) The Moss gang is all here—Baas, Hella Jongerius, Studio Job, Marcel Wanders, the Campanas, and more—looking as fresh as ever alongside the work of everyone from Gio Ponti and Louise Nevelson to George Condo and Candida Hofer. Meanwhile, Moss and Getchell’s casket carrier coffee table (estimated to sell for between $6,000 and $8,000) is sure to be a hit at your Halloween party.

Naval Battle. From left, Emeco’s famous Navy Chair and a Restoration Hardware ripoff.

Fresh from a scandal that saw its rugged spokesmodel and unofficial mascot Gary Friedman ousted from his post as CEO, Restoration Hardware is back in hot water for ripping off Emeco’s Navy Chair, the aluminum classic designed by the Hanover, Pennsylvania-based company in 1944 for the U.S. Navy and in production ever since. The cut-rate clone (pictured at right), which appears throughout the company’s phonebook-sized fall catalog, is called—wait for it—the “Naval Chair.” The lack of nomenclative creativity may make things easier for Emeco, which is suing Restoration Hardware and Friedman for infringement of Emeco’s trade dress and trademark rights for its Navy Chair. “The irreparable harm caused by Restoration Hardware, an established company, to Emeco’s reputation and significant goodwill is massive, incomparable to that caused by a typical, small-time counterfeiter,” noted Emeco in a statement issued late yesterday. CEO Gregg Buchbinder compared the knockoff to “stealing the Nike Swoosh or the Mercedes Benz logo, and then exploiting our brand and reputation to produce an inferior product.”

The lawsuit comes just days after Restoration Hardware filed for a $150 million IPO. Emeco seized upon a pre-IPO SEC filing as fodder for its cause, highlighting a section in which the company states that, “at our core we are not designers, rather we are curators and composers of inspired design and experiences.” By “[e]xternally discover[ing] and curat[ing]” others’ designs, as opposed to “[i]nternally design[ing] and develop[ing]” its own products, Restoration Hardware can cut the product development process from “12-18 months lead time” to “3-9 months lead time” and “reduce product costs.” In contrast, Emeco pegs its own product cycle of designing, prototyping, research and development, engineering, and tooling at approximately 2 to 4 years. While Restoration Hardware has yet to issue an official response on the matter, it has hastily renamed its Naval Chair “Aluminum Standard Side Chair” and sliced the price from $169 to $129. The authentic version, which comes with a lifetime guarantee from Emeco, sells for $455.

Gio Ponti died 32 Septembers ago, but you can still have dinner with him. A large set of silverware created by the Milan-born architect, industrial designer, poet, painter, and founding editor of Domus goes on the block this afternoon in Chicago at Wright’s Living Contemporary auction. Estimated to sell for between $5,000 and $7,000, the 85-piece set includes a five-piece service for 12 with 26 additional serving pieces. Ponti designed the “Diamond” pattern in 1958 for Taunton, Massachusetts-based Reed & Barton, which promoted it in advertisements that asked “Are you ready for it? The most advanced sterling of our generation.” Other highlights of today’s sale of more than 300 modern and contemporary art and design objects include a Dandelion sculpture by Harry Bertoia, an aerodynamic Wendell Castle rocker, and a smashing oil and enamel work by Rudolf Stingel.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Build a company that “crowdsources,” manufactures, and sells those better mousetraps (or, say, superior power strips, like the one pictured), and venture capitalists will come bearing cash. Heck, you might even get a reality show out of it. Social media-meets-product development company Quirky, which brings two new consumer products to market each week (among the latest is a 21st-century take on Starck’s Juicy Salif), has secured $68 million in financing from a group of investors led by Andreessen Horowitz, with significant participation from new investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Scott Weiss of Andreessen Horowitz and Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins will join Quirky’s board of directors. The Series C funding round, its largest to date, brings three-year-old Quirky’s total funding to $97 million.

In announcing the cash infusion, Quirky founder and CEO Ben Kaufman highlighted three changes that are in store for the company. First, the company plans to increase the pace at which it chooses ideas and brings products to market, “We aren’t taking on more for the hell of it, we are taking on more because it will produce better products, and more vibrant communities,” he wrote in a blog post. Also in store (literally) for Quirky: experimenting with its own retail spaces. Finally, the company is looking to invest in U.S. manufacturing. Added Kaufman, “It will take quite some time before we will manufacture a majority of Quirky products here in the U.S., but over time I believe we can and should.”

A child’s wheelbarrow designed in 1923 by Gerrit Rietveld and manufactured in 1958 by Gerard van de Groenekan. © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/PICTORIGHT, Amsterdam

From this Gerrit Rietveld wheelbarrow to Yves Behar’s XO laptop, designing for kids is not simply a matter of scaling down stuff aimed at adults. The global awakening to this reality—and the resulting explosion of architecture, objects, and books for the younger set—is the focus of a must-see exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. On view through November 5, “Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000” offers a global tour of design types, materials and scales, tackling themes ranging from “Avant-Garde Playtime” to “Designing Better Worlds.” Can’t make it to New York? MoMA has launched this gorgeous interactive site dedicated to the exhibition, making virtual visits child’s play.

(Photo: Wright)

The modern and contemporary design experts at Wright know that when the urge hits for a buttery leather sofa designed by Josef Hoffmann or a fractal-inspired Arik Levy chandelier, it can be awfully difficult to wait for the Chicago-based auction house’s next lovingly curated (and gorgeously catalogued) sale. Satisfy your design cravings instantly with Wright Now, a new online marketplace of great design ranging from classic pieces to exclusive one-offs—and a glass turkey (Toni Zuccheri for Venini). Among our favorites from Wright’s click-to-buy assortment, restocked regularly, is this 1970 set of “Arc-en-Ciel” bookends by Lucio Del Pezzo. From an edition of 500 by Plura Edizioni, the stainless steel and Plexiglas pair would be equally at home in a kid’s room, on the groaning gift table at a same-sex wedding, or under the tree this Christmas with a tag that reads “To: LeVar, From: Santa.”

“We work in an industry where it’s getting easier and easier to copy things. So we’re always looking for more difficult and personal textures, finishes, techniques, and finding secret recipes for glazes where you can’t really control the process. We’re kind of letting go of that absolute consistency, which a lot of manufacturers and a lot of designers strive for. We were looking at influences, from The Flinstones to Art Nouveau, to try and find something that’s a bit earthier, where each object is as different from the other as possible. It will be interesting to see how these take off and whether people get it, or if they find the natural variance difficult to handle.”

-Tom Dixon on his new Lustre series of pendant shades (pictured), the first stoneware object in his collection, in an interview with Dan Rubinstein in Surface. Dixon will debut Lustre next month at the London Design Festival.

American Spirit. Industrial designer Raymond Loewy with one of his designs, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s S1 steam locomotive; filmmaker and Loewy admirer David Lynch.

The late-night show of our dreams is hosted by David Lynch. What this theoretical program lacks in guests or commercials (you’ll recall how the filmmaker feels about product placement) it would make up for in good ‘ol fashioned variety: one night our distinctively coiffed host is screening The Seashell and the Clergyman or enthusing on his favorite hobby of chopping wood (especially pine) and the next he’s shooting on site in the dream forest at Club Silencio, the members-only Paris nightclub he designed. The Wall Street Journal recently caught up with Lynch in the penthouse suite of the Chauteau Marmont, where Steve Garbarino posed “20 Odd Questions” that covered topics ranging from his accessories (“I have a deep love for my Swatch watch.”) to his stint as a WSJ deliverperson back in the 1970s, when he was making Eraserhead.

In Lynch’s words, his L.A. paper route has all the makings of a haunting film. “I’d pick up my papers at 11:30 at night. I had throws that were particularly fantastic. There was one where I’d release the paper, which would soar with the speed of the car and slam into the front door of this building, triggering its lobby lights—a fantastic experience,” he says. “Another one I called ‘The Big Whale.’ There was a place, the Fish Shanty, on La Cienega. A big whale’s mouth was the front door you entered through. I’d throw a block before it, and hit the paper directly into the mouth.” Lynch is not inclined to fandom, preferring to get his kicks from a mix of coffee, transcendental meditation, and American Spirit cigarettes, but he does cop to a love for Loewy…Robert [sic] Loewy. The famed industrial designer usually goes by Raymond, but as far as we’re concerned, Lynch can call him whatever he wants. Meanwhile, the WSJ has corrected the error in its online edition.