collaboration

If we weren't saving up all of our spending money (in a Harry Allen-designed piggy bank, naturally) for Art Basel Miami, we would be snapping up one of those freshly discounted airfares to London. Once deposited across the pond, we'd head straight for the Ed Ruscha retrospective at the Hayward. After stopping off to check out the Glenn Brown show at Gagosian and a tour of Gensler-designed Horseferry House (Burberry's new global headquarters), we would repair to our hotel for a scone or two. That hotel, of course, would be Claridge's, and not just because it is home to a sublime set of suites designed by David Linley. The hotel has signed up Christian Dior creative director John Galliano to work his magic on its Christmas tree. He is the first fashion designer to get the gig.

Upon hearing the news, we wondered if Galliano would return to one of his great themes of seasons past: pirates, geishas, toreadors, Joan Crawford? He's elected to go tropical by way of the orient, with a papier-mâché tree adorned with crystals, sparkling leaves, and orchids. The shimmery blue and white palette recalls that of the Empress Josephine-inspired gowns he sent down the runway for the spring 2005 Dior couture collection. "I hope to bring a twist to the traditional tree," said Galliano in a statement. "I want to combine the festive with the innovative, the spirit of Dior with the beauty of Claridge's, and create something spectacular that will inspire the perfect start to the season!" The tree will be unveiled in the lobby of Claridge's on December 1.

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Here's your chance to walk a mile in Christoph Niemann's shoes—or those of John Maeda, James Victore, Ellen Lupton, Jessica Helfand, or Louise Fili. Each of these design world luminaries has customized a pair of TOMS shoes that are now up for auction on eBay to raise funds for the Art Directors Club scholarship fund, which is open to sophomores and juniors enrolled in accredited U.S. art schools and colleges. Neimann kept the focus on feet, while Victore created DIY Nikes, complete with swoosh. Lupton's handpainted pair, a ribbon-strewn take on chirality by way of Stubbs & Wootton, is our pick for prettiest, and Helfand wows with a scrapbookish take on the Geneva Convention. Get a closer look at all the shoes here. Bidding starts at $100 and closes Sunday.

As if you needed another good reason to purchase the fine formulations of Kiehl's Since 1851, the L'Oreal-owned apothecary brand has launched a limited-edition holiday collection of its famed Creme de Corps that features label artwork by KAWS, the artist also known as Brian Donnelly. Better still, Kiehl's is donating 100% of its net profits from the sale of the creatively labeled lotion to RxArt, which brings contemporary art to healthcare facilities. The label's mix of color planes and cartoony gloved hands marked with an "X" is indicative of KAWS's more recent paintings, which deconstruct his graphic signatures and trademark characters. The limited edition KAWS Creme de Corps is available in three sizes, and prices start at $26.50. "Continued use for 10 days will provide a skin texture heretofore unattainable," promises Kiehl's.

Mongoose Civique. Pastelogram. Utopian Turtletop. These were but a few of Marianne Moore's inspired suggestions to the Ford Motor Company when, in 1955, an executive approached the poet to suggest some names for its latest product line. Writer Danny Heitman recounted the story in a recent New York Times op-ed piece that suggests a literary bail-out for the beleaguered auto industry.

Moore apparently had no qualms about enlisting her muse in the service of the automotive industry. She was also willing to embrace the risks of the marketplace, agreeing to be paid only if she came up with a winning name. As Moore's biographer Charles Molesworth points out, she "had always enjoyed the language of advertisement, delighting in its inventiveness and ebullience, and even relating it to the poetics of praise."

(Photos: Discover Today's Motorcycling)

Continuing with last week's cycling theme, we bring you this pair of motorcycle helmets painted by Mike Shinoda (left) and Troy Lee (right) for "Celeritas," an exhibition of motorcycle culture-meets-street art that is on view through August 16 at SURU in Los Angeles. The show includes motorcycle helmets and "leathers" customized by the likes of Barry McGee, Mark Dean Veca, Audrey Kawasaki, James Jean, Stash, and Futura, whose spatter-painted headgear conjures visions of Sam Francis astride a Harley. Championed by actor John Hensley (Nip/Tuck) and Linkin Park's Joe Hahn, Celeritas kicked off earler this month with an auction that raised more than $65,000 for Riders for Health, an organization that provides motorcycles and maintenance training to aid workers in Africa who provide medical care to remote populations.

With the season three premiere of Mad Men only weeks away, AMC is rolling out a slew of online gewgaws (which we prefer to "social media-based viral marketing initiatives"). Along with the typical quizzes and e-cards is Mad Men Yourself, a just-launched site that allows user to create their own stylized '60s avatars (that's us, at left, going for a chic Betty Draper look that is very Michael Kors fall 2008) by choosing from an assortment of body shapes, facial features, hairstyles, and accessories—including a martini, a cigarette, and a doughnut, recalling a time when all three were acceptable to savor in the workplace. Drop your avatar into settings such as the Sterling Cooper offices, a picnic, or a pattern that looks ripped from the Draper family sofa. The illustrator behind the application's infinitely customizable characters is none other than Dyna Moe, who you may recall as the creator of Mad Men Illustrated, the delightful series of drawings inspired by scenes from the show and the New York-based illustrator and designer's own cache of period advertisements. "The show is famous for its meticulousness," she said recently. "And I try to reflect that in the simple cartoony way that I draw." Now go forth and Mad Men Yourself.

(Photo: Giovanni Troilo)

Weekend project alert! Grab that rusting Huffy and give it a baroque makeover à la Dzine, who created this custom lowrider for the Nike-sponsored Stages art exhibition to raise funds the Lance Armstrong Foundation and its LIVESTRONG campaign. The show, which opened last week at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris and travels to the United States in October, also includes works by Ed Ruscha, Cai-Guo Qiang, Richard Prince, Catherine Opie, KAWS, Shepard Fairey, Christopher Wool, Tom Sachs, and Rosson Crow.

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Following in the sponsored tire tracks of artist Robin Rhode, who recently used a BMW Z4 as a 300-horsepower paintbrush, Brussels-based graphic designers Pierre Smeets and Damien Aresta have created a typeface using an iQ (pictured at right), Toyota's answer to the Smart Car. Smeets and Aresta teamed up with interactive artist Zach Lieberman and seasoned racecar driver Stef Vancampenhoudt to trace and digitally map letters and characters on the floor of an airplane hangar (watch the design process in the below video). The result is iQ Agility, a Eurojaunty typeface that reveals the iQ's incredibly tiny turning radius.

Next up for Smeets and Aresta? The pair are at work on a typeface inspired by the title sequence of Antonioni's Eclipse and another one for a club. In the meantime, they have a ongoing project to spot first names—from Adam to Zorba—in commercial signage. Both Stephanie and Steve remain elusive, but check if they've found your name here.

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Comic books and video games are going straight to hell—all nine circles of it. Beginning Thursday, Electronic Arts and DC Comics will preview their adaptations of The Divine Comedy at Comic-Con in San Diego. Both companies are hellbent on bringing the first infernal cantica of Dante's epic poem to a contemporary audience, one that would rather skip the 14,000 lines of verse and jump right into the vivid doom. EA's Visceral Games division is developing an elaborate video game version, Dante's Inferno, in which "a soldier...defies death and fights for love against impossible odds," picking a path through the afterlife with the help of a soul-reaping scythe, holy powers, and the ability to tame horrific creatures. For those who prefer to prowl the underworld on paper, DC Comics is at work on a comic book mini-series based on the Inferno. Illustrated by Diego Latorre (The Incredible Hulk) and written by Christos Gage (X-Men/Spider-Man), the comics go on sale this December, just in time to prime audiences for the 2010 launch of the game. Can't make it to Comic-Con? EA's website invites you to view a trailer for the game and "Explore Hell," where you can Twitter in Limbo.

What happens when Western and African cultures meet in a Victorian warehouse in central London? The Double Club, Carsten Höller's latest art project. Backed by Fondazione Prada and directed by Jan Kennedy, the temporary space offers a unique approach to entertainment and hospitality with a restaurant, bar, and disco that are equal parts Western cool and Congolese hot—but never a lukewarm fusion. In practice, that makes for deliciously bifurcated meals: diners at the Double Club restaurant can choose from parallel menus (family-style Congolese dishes or bistro classics) in a room that is a cultural checkerboard, with dark African hardwood and humble plastic tables alternating with French brasserie tiling and supersleek Breeding Tables by Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram, who led the design of the project's "Western side." Hungry for a wild boar terrine served on a Congolese tablecloth, a goat brochette fresh from the oil drum barbeque, or just a night of Ndombolo dance hits? Stop in soon, as the cultural coexistence ends July 11.