DESIGN:

Vintage cars are no easy thing to come by, but now LEGO has given Porsche fans a chance to own their very own 1974 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0. Constructed with 180 toy bricks, LEGO has recreated the 70’s racing icon for its Speed Champions collection, a must-have collectible for diehard fans of the two-seater.

Dressed in a clean white, the LEGO’s 1974 911 is a detailed replica inclusive of Porsche’s logo, realistic rubber wheels, and the iconic “whale tail” spoiler at the rear. The model comes with a removable windshield that allows you to place into the driver’s cockpit an all-new classic Porsche 911 driver minifigure complete with his own black racing helmet. The set also comes with three small orange cones for your racing needs. The entire car stands at 1 inch tall, 5 inches long and 2 inches wide — a perfect collectible size for your model car collection.

LEGO’s 1974 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0 will be available at its stores August 1 and will retail at $14.99 USD. The car will also make its digital debut in the new Forza Horizon 4: LEGO Speed Champions on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs this Summer.

Falling behind a long history of collaborations for its famed Star Wars series, Disney has now tapped Filipino designer Kenneth Cobonpue for a furniture collection themed around the franchise. After first launching in the Philippines last fall, the galactic homewares later debuted in Europe at the Salone del Mobile trade show in April and have since officially made their way into the U.S.

Consisting of chairs, lamps and tables, the assortment combines Cobonpue’s knack for traditional craftsmanship and “organically-inspired” furniture with details reminiscent of some of the movie’s leading characters. Chewbacca’s furry brown body gets reinterpreted through the “CHEWIE” rocking stool, for example, which is constructed of brown microfiber strips and adorned with a fabric belt to emulate his signature bandolier. The infamous Darth Vader is reimagined into a swivel chair, complete with an imprint of his mask outlined in the all-black stitching. Meanwhile, the wings of the Imperial Fleet have been turned into a hand-woven armchair featuring expansive, webbed sides.

“We wanted to incorporate the essence of each Star Wars character into the designs, while staying true to our aesthetic and process of creating by hand. We reimagined the Star Wars universe through the lens of the Filipino craftsman and creative. Finding the balance was a bit of a challenge, but it was also a lot of fun,” said Cobonpue.

The Cobonpue x Disney collaboration ranges in price from $1,345 USD-$2,800 USD and can be ordered through the distributors listed on Kenneth Cobonpue’s website.

For more design news, check out LEGO’s life-sized Star Wars X-Wing spacefighter.

Just as Omega has built a Grade 5 titanium watch capable of diving to the deepest point on Earth — the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench — Vacheron Constantin has taken timepiece technology in the other direction, to reach the highest point on our planet: Mount Everest.

Professional photographer and alpinist Cory Richards recently embarked on a treacherous journey to the summit of Mount Everest for the third time, and accompanying him was a prototype built by Vacheron Constantin. The Swiss luxury watchmakers took its Overseas Dual Time model and mountain-proofed it with an array of high-caliber upgrades. The 41mm casing is constructed with lightweight titanium and reinforced with tantalum, one of the world’s hardest metals, with the same materials used to create the crown and protection. This incredibly tough case then houses an in-house automatic featuring a 22k gold oscillating weight, holding a power reserve of 60 hours, and engraved with a design inspired by one of Richards’ photographs of Mount Everest. It also features a second timezone with day and night indication and a date display at 6 o’clock. Tying the high-performance timepiece together is a Ventile strap constructed from a technical waterproof fabric.

To learn more about the watch and Cory Richards’ expedition along with some of his photos, head over to Vacheron Constantin’s site now.

Paris Air Show is the largest aerospace industry exhibition in the world, and this year it gets even bigger with the attendance of LEGO‘s very own life-sized X-Wing spacefighter.

After previously constructing a 1:1 scale, fully functioning Bugatti Chiron, the toy company has now built the Rebel fighter jet first seen in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope for the French event. Though unlike the Bugatti, this X-Wing can’t fly, the model is nevertheless life-sized and as movie-accurate as the toy bricks allow, standing at two meters tall, 10 meters long and nine meters wide, and weighing a whopping three tons. The entire plane required 1,584,000 LEGO bricks to construct and took 2,500 hours of work in the span of three months to complete.

The LEGO Star Wars X-Wing Rebel spacefighter will be exhibiting at the Paris Air Show 2019, which takes place June 17 to 23. Fans of the franchise who happen to be in the neighborhood should definitely not to miss the opportunity.