The Revere Hotel in Boston, Ma. celebrated its grand opening on April 18 with a vertical fashion show. The Boston Rock Gym provided the models who rappelled down the exterior of the 24-story hotel wearing outfits created by the students from the Massachusetts College of Arts and Design and by Ted Baker London.

Photo: A model walks down the side of Revere Hotel in Boston during a vertical fashion show for the Massachusetts College of Art and Design on April 18, 2012. (Photo by Dominick Reuter/EPA/Lauren Fish/Lauren Frohne/Globe photo)

“Romain de Tirtoff (23 November 1892 – 21 April 1990) was a Russian-born French artist and designer known by the pseudonym Erté, the French pronunciation of his initials, R.T. He was a diversely talented 20th-century artist and designer who flourished in an array of fields, including fashion, jewellery, graphic arts, costume and set design for film, theatre, and opera, and interior decor”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Romain de Tirtoff (Erte) – “Symphony In Black” (please click to enlarge).

“Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Zaitsev (Russian: Вячеслав Михайлович Зайцев), more commonly known as Slava Zaitsev (Russian: Слава Зайцев), born 2 March 1938 in Ivanovo, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, is a Russian fashion designer, painter, graphic artist and theatrical costume designer”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A models wears a creation by designer Slava Zaitsev during his fashion show on Day 1 of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia Fall/Winter 2011/2012 at the Congress Hall on March 31, 2011 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

A design studio has launched its own dogs of war – by cleverly blending iconic Second World War planes with their canine counterparts. Photo: Wellington bomber with Golden Retreiver camoflage. A design studio has launched its own dogs of war – by cleverly blending iconic Second World War planes with their canine counterparts. (Photo by BNPS)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

A model waits to present a creation by Chinese designer Hu Sheguang for his collection show during China Fashion Week S/S 2016 in Beijing October 26, 2015. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Through handmade craftmanship, multimedia artist Faig Ahmed creatively explores the ornate patterns and traditional designs of Azerbaijan carpets. He draws upon the culture and artistic traditions of the country in order to produce his unique and contemporary sculptures. By directly manipulating the wool, Ahmed transforms iconic carpet designs into modern creations.

Israeli designer HIlla Shamia has found a way to mix “oil and water” or aluminum and wood – two materials I’ve never seen fused together. The product designer has created a novel way to meld both poured aluminum with irregular wood chunks to create modern tables and benches with a warm industrial feel. Old world and new world in one.