The Hippest Gifts In Every Category For Everybody This Holiday Season.

Let me be your personal shopper this Holiday Season. Seriously.

I have spent the past several years creating specific shopping lists on the community shopcasting website This Next. The lists I have painstakingly compiled include images of the items, a description and a link to purchase, making it very easy for you to find and buy the perfect gift for just about anyone this holiday season.

My Christmas Gift To You.
You can benefit from the fact that I've already scoured the online (and offline) stores for the hippest items in tons of specific categories. The coolest products for designers, kids, pets, friends, fish-lovers, art-lovers, buddha-lovers, dog-lovers, gun-lovers, tattoo-lovers, graffiti-lovers, luxury lovers, casual acquaintances, signficant others and more. Home decor and furniture, technology and gadgets, piggy banks and jewelry... whatever you need, if it's hip, it's here.



From $10 items to $100,000 items, from trendy items to classic items, there's a total of 4,643 items to choose from, starting with the hippest holiday home decor.

Here's how it works. Click on the category below that interests you and you'll be taken to that list of items. Click on the name of the item that interests you and the screen will change to display that item. Lower down on that page it says : shop for this 'here' and you just click on that! Easy, peasy.

• MODERN CHRISTMAS DECOR (wreaths, trees, ornaments, etc) -205 items

Now, for the selections of gifts:

• PANTONE AND PANTONE-INSPIRED PRODUCTS (great for designers) -30 items

• SALUTING DESIGN: An Army Of Military Inspired Items - 35 items

• AQUARIUMS THAT ROCK: the coolest fish tanks - 40 items

• BUDDHA BOUNTY: All Things Buddha - 76 items

• MODERN DOLLHOUSES & ARCHITECTURAL MODELS - 44 items

• THE COOLEST WAYS TO WARM UP (candles, radiators, towel racks) - 131 items

• THE DISH ON DISHES (hip dinnerware and tableware) - 229 items

• EARTH-FRIENDLY AND ECO/ GREEN PRODUCTS - 87 items

• DIVINE DAMASK (home decor and products with damask patterns) - 72 items

• TAG, YOU'RE IT! (Graffiti inspired and related products) - 74 items

• WOOD WONDERLAND (wood furniture, toys and more) - 156 items

• GREAT GIFTS FOR GEEKS - 20 items

• REALLY ROMANTIC GIFTS -104 items

• FOR THE HIP BABY OR CHILD - 250 ITEMS

• LIST FOR LEGO LOVERS (Lego® everything) -50 items

• LIGHTEN UP (The best lighting and lamps) - 160 items

• MONDRIAN MADNESS (products inspired by Piet Mondrian) - 46 items

• ALVAR AALTO INSPIRED ITEMS - 14 items

• CHAIRS THAT ROCK (modern rocking chairs) - 56 items

• OBSCENELY DECADENT GIFTS (luxury products)- 60 items

• DEATH BECOMES YOU (over 160 things with Skulls) - 164 items

• FANCY FRIGGEN FLOORING AND RADICAL RUGS -163 items

• OUTDOOR ITEMS (from furniture to birdhouses) - 142 items

• HEDGEHOG HEYDAY (items inspired by Hedgehogs) - 33 items

• IF IT'S HIP & STICKS TO THE WALL (art and more home decor) - 180 items

• READY, SET...GLOW! (illuminated items and furniture) - 77 items

• CONTEMPORARY ART I WISH I COULD AFFORD - 117 items

• THE HIPPEST ANIMAL/PET STUFF (for both people and their pets) - 203 items

• TECHNOLOGY THAT ROCKS - 215 items

• TATTOO YOU. AND THIS. AND THAT. (tons of tattoo-related products) - 77 items

• HIP JEWELRY FOR MEN AND WOMEN - 216 items

• MODERN PIGGY BANKS OR MONEY BOXES - 65 items

• DIY STUFF FOR FRUSTRATED ARTISTS - 96 items

• PUT THAT DOWN, THAT'S MY GRANDMA! (modern cremation urns) - 27 items

• SHOP OR I'LL SHOOT! (gun-shaped products of all kinds) - 71 items

and lastly, many of the items that have been featured in this blog :

• IF IT'S HIP IT'S HERE - A list of items that celebrate design, functionality and art. Things to appreciate and admire. - 2056 items


Now, you have no excuse not to have found the perfect, or at the least the hippest, gift.

Metallica, Queen, AC/DC, Coldplay Turned Into Lullabyes For The Hip Baby

My generation must be thrilled with these ingenious "lullabyed" takes on the rock music we grew up with, now re-recorded as melodic instrumental versions for their little bundles of joy.

AC/DC, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Cure, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Eagles, U2, Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, the Ramones.. even Metallica turned into lullabyes for mini hipsters-in-diapers.

Even the album covers are a hoot, taking the album art and transforming it into teddy bear and cartoon juvenile versions of the originals:








No, it's not just 'old folks' music you stinkin' young 20 and 30-somethings, they've also got your grunge: Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, your chick singers/bands like Bjork and No Doubt. Popular "alt" rock like Green Day, the Pixies, Coldplay, Tool and Radiohead. And of course your metal and rock such as Nine Inch Nails and Guns n' Roses.







Rockabye Baby! transforms timeless rock songs into beautiful instrumental lullabies. Guitars and drums are traded for soothing mellotrons, vibraphones and bells, and the volume is turned down from an eleven to a two.

They charge just under $17.00 a CD in their own online store, but all of the 29 Rockabye baby! titles are just $13.99 here at Amazon. They make great gifts for new parents or the holidays.


About Rockabye Baby!

Rockabye Baby! is staffed by music lovers from all corners of the world. Headquartered in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake, the label was born of the need to make children's music cool--not only for babies but for their parents too. We turned to our record collections for inspiration: punk, metal, classic rock. The resulting albums are revolutionary yet reverential. In other words, the perfect gift for a newborn, new parents, or yourself.

Part of the CMH Label Group, a thirty-year-old independent bluegrass and roots-music stronghold that houses a variety of musical styles under its umbrella, including metal, rap, punk, and string quartet tributes, Rockabye Baby! is the latest addition to a diverse musical family. Says label Vice President Lisa Roth, "First and foremost, we're fans, so we take care to make every album musically interesting enough to satisfy adult listeners. Believe me, making an album that's gentle enough for sleeping babies but won't bore Mom and Dad is trickier than it sounds." Producer/arrangers would agree! The job's not easy, but it's immensely gratifying to hear from pleased parents that Rockabye Baby! is now a treasured piece of their family history.

FLOWmarket, Next Generation Luxury In A Can.

Just prior to their product launch, I wrote a large post on the selling of consumer awareness via an unusual retail store concept called the FLOWmarket.


above: God in a can? And for only $19.97? That's a deal.

Here we are, over 2 years later and it's time for an update. FLOWmarket is a temporary or pop-up store that travels around the world, selling what they term" new generation luxury".

Previous stores:
Zurich, may 2005
New York, june 2006
Taipei, jan-march 2007
Shanghai, july-sep 2007
Singapore, jan 2008
Seoul, may 2008
Copenhagen, 2005 - 2009

At current there are no brick and mortar stores, but their collection of products can be purchased online. However, the items available are different than when I first wrote about them.




Whereas the items in their pop-up stores are in diverse packaging, like those shown above, they now sell 73 different items online, but each is a single small can costing $19.97 USD.




Here are a few examples:






In their own words:

FLOWmarket is a store that materializes our immaterial needs. FLOWmarket is about next generation luxury. FLOWmarket is designed from the notion that change happens when we as individuals change our mindset. FLOWmarket has due to its simple and universal form been able to succesfully cross cultural boundries between Europe, US and Asia. FLOWmarket is often asked by journalists if they should label it as design, as art, as business or as activism. FLOWmarket have had temporary stores open in Copenhagen, Zurich, New York, Taipei, Shanghai, Singapore and Seoul. FLOWmarket opened its first store in 2004. FLOWmarket is created and designed by Mads Hagstrøm.

Shop FLOWmarket here.
Product photography by Niclas Jessen.



To read about their original project and philosophy, the FLOWinstitute and more, go here.