Meet the Titans of Taste.(design)

Paola Antonelli

CURATOR, MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Her criterion is simple: "I try to decide," says Paola Antonelli, curator of architecture and design at New York's MoMA, "whether the space an object occupies on Earth is well used." If that sounds like a high bar to clear, just look at what Antonelli is holding. And wearing. "Post-It notes are smart, beautiful and cheap. That's the apotheosis of great design," she says. "Yellow is an attention-getting color. And square is a classically rational shape."

Since joining MoMA in 1994, the Italian-born Antonelli has emerged as a star in the design world. She has a lively eye and a gift for crystallizing ideas. "Just like people can tell good steak from bad, I want it to be the same with design," she says. Someone ought to write that down. Got a pen?

Murray Moss

FOUNDER AND OWNER, MOSS

When murray moss opened his Manhattan store nine years ago, he put a steel garbage can in the window to make a point: design is everywhere-- and everything. Give him five minutes, and he'll convince you that a single object can change your life--like the wineglass he's holding, a 1917 Austrian design made of ultrathin muslin glass. "When you go from a normal glass to this, it modifies your behavior. You become more graceful," he says. "And that's an extraordinary thing to get for $70."