One of my favorite Japanese designers (although now Brooklyn Dwelling), Motomichi, has a couple of gorgeous new prints for sale for the holiday season. He actually introduced these prints back at the Pictoplasma Conference in October, but hasn’t put them up on his site for sale until now. These pieces entitled Dream Texture are signed, hand silk screened, $75 a pop, limited editions of 50, and almost to good to pass up!

The origin of the word ‘Metabolics’ comes from the word Metabiosis, meaning intermediary symbiosis: a more indirect dependency in which the second organism uses something the first created, however after the death of the first. Alexandre Orion’s work ingeniously captures the Metabiosis between Sao Paulo, Brazil street paintings and the photographs Orion captures in his Metabolics Project. We had a chance to see some of Alexandre’s work at the Photo Maimi fair last weekend, and it stood out as something truly special– a photojournalistic register that encapsulates ‘the endless duel between photograph and painting, that in the information era, makes us think of how fragile images are.’ Alexandre’s work can be found at the Foley Gallery, and you can also purchase the Metabolics book from his website, which has 80 pages, 12 x 12 inches, of Alexandre’s work.

If you are like me, and are in desperate need of last-minute Christmas and Hanukah gifts for the fashion nut in your life, look no further than San Francisco-based Azalea Online. Started in 2003 by two Cornell grads ‘with a shared obsession for the runway and sale racks,’ Azalea is a great one-stop place to shop for everything style oriented– from streetwear, to couture, to denim, to body care items. The best part– they’ve assembled great holiday gift guides for you, so you don’t have to do anything but punch in your credit card info: for her, for him, budget gifts, green Christmas, editors’ top 10, and customers’ top 10. On top of that, holiday purchases come with a free his or hers gift, and they offer free shipping on UPS ground orders as well. I dug through some of the online store, and there really were some steals in there. If you are feeling indecisive, but know that your giftee would like something on Azalea, pull the trigger on a gift card. Finally, props to Azalea for their extensive community involvement in SF; always great to see.

Pronounced Ve-lo-chay, Veloce Coffee is a relatively young coffee company possessing all of what I look for in a coffee brand. All of Veloce’s coffee is hand roasted in small batches, each batch hand perfected by their roasters to ensure that every bean reaches its maximum potential– no industrial processing here. They’ve harnessed technology (tops in the industry) to carefully replicate their roasts down to a single degree. Of course, the coffee is certified fair trade and organic. Veloce has also taken the liberty of leaving us instructions about to make the perfect cup of coffee. You can buy all 11 of Veloce’s flavors directly from Veloce’s website for a great holiday gift. I also have to give Veloce ‘the nod’ for their branding choices; from their logo, to their packaging, they’ve created a product that just looks enticing.