Last weekend we stopped by Space 15 twenty for Umami Burger and a game of Show and Tell with Dakota Solt and Lisa Ziven, best friends, RISD graduates, and the lovely ladies behind Crybaby Presents. One of the many perks of being Editorial Director (Yay Yasi gave me a fancy new title) at Cultist is having the opportunity to showcase the work of emerging artists, trendsetters, and other various talents, some of whom just happen to be my friends from high-school. Lisa and Dakota were cool back then (I was really intimidated by Lisa’s subversive birth control pill art and jealous because Dakota had all the newest designer jeans), so it makes perfect sense that nowadays they’re running this pop-up shop and web store stocked with 90s-inspired awesomeness and making rad stuff like fish bone pillows and found object art. For the first edition of Show And Tell we asked the ladies to show us their five favorite things in the store and tell us why they picked ‘em. This is what they said (in no particular order).

Photos by Rick Rodney

Dakota’s Picks:

1. Etten Eller – Long and Short Silver Bead Necklace

“The first piece I’m choosing is an Etten Eller necklace that has short and long bars in it. It’s a little punk rock but also really classic. It’s beautiful and lies right on the clavicle. Etten Eller is also a really cool jewelry designer because all the pieces are named after historical events with dates.”

2. Crybaby Presents – “Mr. Miyagi VS Cher Horowitz” Silk Karate Reversible Jacket

“This jacket is definitely one of my favorites. It’s reversible, made out of four silks, and a Crybaby original. It has Chinese silk on the front and washed silk on the arms, so it’s sort of a classic baseball-style karate jacket. For this collection Lisa and I named all of the pieces after 90s inspired movies, so this one’s called “Mr. Miyagi VS Cher Horowitz” from Clueless and The Karate Kid.”

3. Crybaby Presents – “NO! Pillow”

“My next piece is a ‘NO!’ Pillow. For this show, Do Not Remove, my art was exhibited on the walls. Lisa took the imagery from my prints and made 3D pillows, which is really awesome because I take 3D objects, flatten them, and make them two dimensional, and then she brought it back to a physical object again. This imagery originally came from a pin that I wear a lot that says “NO!”, and the other one is “I WANT IT NOW!” So having a gigantic version of that is just the coolest. And I think it belongs on any couch or bed.”

4. Molla Space -Peaceful Bomb Vase

“My next object is this Peaceful Bomb Vase by Molla Space. It’s a ceramic vase in the shape of a bomb. It’s at an angle, so it looks like it has penetrated the surface of any counter top, like it’s going inside the table. It’s really beautiful. It’s white. Flowers and plants look great in it. I think it’s a unisex vase. Sometimes they can be too ornate, but this one is just clever and iconic and attractive.”

5. Haas Brothers – Triangle Stools

“A big part of Crybaby is collaborating with artists and designers. We worked with the Haas brothers, who are furniture designers, to create all of the pieces is our store. When we were throwing out ideas with Niki and Simon, we knew we wanted all our pieces to be modular and geometric, based on the symbols that are a big part of our brand identity. The triangle stools can be piled up into columns, or turned on their sides. They can function in different ways. It’s cool to work with designers to create a vision that we both have, one that is very functional. We sell all of the pieces made-to-order, or you can come in and buy a stool and walk away with it.”

Lisa’s Picks:

1. Minimarket – Plateau Sneaker Suede

“The shoes I’m wearing are by a Swedish-based design brand called Minimarket. They’re called 3D Leopard Shoes, and they’re suede platforms – a modern day creeper. The thing that I really love about these, because I am obsessed with leopard, is that the leopard is actually three dimensional. The way that they made them is by cutting out different leopard shapes and sewing them on top of each other so that they’re actually 3D.”

2. Surface To Air – Porte Tout V3, Blue Suede

“This piece is a Surface to Air clutch wallet. First off, I just love the brand Surface to Air. It’s a Parisian brand that is both a clothing brand and an advertising agency. They do just about everything. I love the accessories and clothes they make. This particular piece is amazing because it’s the perfect size purse and wallet in one. It’s something you can wear everyday. It’s a great color -kind of this Yves Klein cobalt blue. It’s just an easy piece that I would recommend to everybody.”

3. Dakota Solt – Fortune Under 21

“This next piece is one of Dakota’s works, called Fortune under 21. I love it. I think it’s a perfect example of Dakota’s work. For this piece she took found objects, basically trash. She scanned them in to make these 3D objects into 2D objects. What I really love about this piece is that the type of objects she chose are very fun and light-hearted and kitsch. One of them is a little wristband that says ‘Over 21′ and the other is a fortune cookie wrapper. She plays with shadow, and I just think it’s a really fun, accessible, conversational piece. I actually have one in my room and I love it. It’s part of a limited edition of prints and I love looking at it everyday.”

4. Crybaby Presents – “Pump Up The Volume”

“This Crybaby button-up is named after the movie Pump up the Volume (that Dakota and I watched in bed one morning). This top really exemplifies our design sensibility. We tend to combine different kinds of materials like Chinese jacquard with a black chiffon. From far away you get this really great light quality that comes through; it looks like you’re just wearing this floating collar. You can wear with a bra or without one, because of the placement of the pockets.  It looks great with jeans or a skirt. I think people are kind of afraid of button-ups for some reason, and this makes it more feminine.”

5. D.A.P. – Ross Bleckner: My Life In The New York Times

“This is a book by Ross Bleckner, published by D.A.P., who is a distributor that we get a lot of our books from. I was really fascinated by why Ross Bleckner compiled this book. Basically he saved these clipping from the A3 section of the New York Times because he noticed this pattern of a Tiffany and Co. ad running next to stories about these really tragic world events. So he saved them over a period of years. It shows something that the Times is putting out there. Placing something  so glossy and beautiful, like Tiffany jewelry, next to these tragic events. For somebody to bring this to light in such a beautiful way is fascinating.”