Comics meet couture in a clever mashup at Barney’s New York. This display for fashion designer Azzedine Alaia repurposes two mannequins as the iconic black and white spies from Mad’s long-running comic, Spy vs. Spy. Barney’s is known for its great windows, but the innovative aesthetics continue inside the department store, too. We love it!

The work of London-by-way-of-Berlin artist Boxi paints a dark picture. Described by the artist as a collection built around themes such as paranoia, grief, and mistrusts, “Grey Area” pulls together images of humans and the nebulous backgrounds they find themselves in. The multilayered gray-scale stencilling conveys this desolation with life-sized effect. After a decade of burgeoning success in Europe, “Grey Area” is Boxi’s first solo show in the U.S. and is set to appear at the Carmichael Gallery in Los Angeles beginning April 9th.

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Keen, a company that started with the question, “can a sandal protect the toes?”, has gone on to expanding their product line well beyond just active sandals. Admittedly, I have not checked out their site since I was shopping for my trip to Kauai a few years ago, but a few weeks ago I pointed Firefox their way and was impressed with what I saw. Their Harvest Collection of bags is particularly noteworthy.

One model, the Cornell, is a unisex messenger bag made of 100% reclaimed rice paper. For those of you who have ever bought large sacks of rice from an Asian market, you know exactly what that is. The design and graphics on each bag are completely unique, the bottom is made of 100% recycled rubber (from tires), and there is a lushly padded 17.4″ notebook sleeve built in. I will not say it’s perfect, however. The front zipper on mine gets stuck, and repeated pulls are slowly ripping the pouch from the bag. My only other complaint is a small one – occasionally the strap folds up onto itself within the metal loops. Other than these small quibbles, the Cornell gets my vote if you are looking for a comfortable, unique, and green bag.

The future is here! In this utopia we don’t have to use toothpaste and our toothbrushes are solar powered — two huge leaps for mankind. A Japanese company has developed a toothbrush that uses ions to remove plaque and cleans teeth with water alone. I want to say this is like an air ionizer for your mouth, but that’s probably wrong. Here’s a very scientific explanation of how it works:

“When light is absorbed by the embedded solar panel, and you begin to brush your teeth, electrons are transmitted through the water to your teeth via the titanium oxide semiconductor.”

Make sense? If you need visiuals to understand the next step in dental care, they have pictures on the site. But our question is: what about that minty fresh feeling?

At first glance, British artist Hush’s paintings have an obvious Japanese animation influence, but the chaotic backgrounds belie his street art roots that made his name in London. Take a look through a couple paintings made available as prints here. This year Hush is taking his art to America, beginning with the West Coast. Recently, he opened a show in L.A. (which included an original piece done just for gallery (check the video here). His Veiled Beauty project opens on April 2nd (Thursday) and running until April 26 at the Fifty 24 in San Francisco. We wouldn’t be surprised if a Hush wall piece ends up somewhere in San Francisco permanently. Keep your eyes peeled.

Full flyer for Fifty 24 show after the jump.

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Meeting artist and self-proclaimed “geekyfantastic” entrepreneur Willo O'Brien becomes a run down of phases that start with “I like your”… angel wing earrings (she makes them by hand), “Eat. Sleep. Rock. Repeat.” T-shirt (she sells them on the WilloToons shop online, laptop bag (reviewed in one of her recent blog posts), and the list goes on. The San Francisco-based illustrator and graphic designer said she was tired of making pretty things for other people and wanted to put her creativity and illustrations on her own products when she opened up shop two years ago. O'Brien's baby onesies and adult t-shirts featuring octopi and rocker squirrels have been a hit. The line should transition to 100% organic later this year and will be selling “Don't you know who I am?” apparel until then.