Fashion and Design Trends.(Brief Article)

Whoever knew computer hardware could look so good? With the advent of Palm's ultra-thin handheld organizers has come a bevy of fashionable covers, from Hermes's gold matte alligator skin ($1,525) to the classic Burberry check ($195). According to Sunny Kate, an actress by trade whose eponymous company has begun making the cases, it was a niche just waiting to be filled. "I was on the set one day, and while looking up something on my planner, I stopped and thought, 'Why is this thing that I use all the time so boring?' " she says. "I wanted to create something that would be functional, sexy and fun." That she has, with covers in faux zebra and leopard skin, Lichtenstein-like comic images and an aloha print called Bikini Girl. Among our favorites from other image-conscious companies: the Louis Vuitton in screaming orange glace leather with a nifty hand strap ($350), the elegant traditional Gucci logo ($135), the water-resistant neoprene PalmGlove by Body Glove ($24.95) and the eye-popping diamond-encrusted case from Houston-based Ash ford.com for $24,000--by special order, natch. Guaranteed to keep you from ever misplacing your organizer again.

FURNITURE

New Meaning for the Term 'Put a Cork in It'

When Kevin Walz gets tired of the chair he's sitting on, he can use some of it to stop up a bottle of wine. That's because Walz, 51, has been molding cork into everything from furniture to cushion covers to vases. "Cork floors have been around since the 1950s," he says. "But cork furniture is a very new concept." Cork is strong, waterproof and antibacterial, says Walz, an acclaimed American interior and product designer who lives in Rome. It's also environmentally friendly: cork trees, which are found mainly in Spain, Portugal and Italy, naturally slough off their bark every 10 years. Even then, Walz's company, KorQinc, uses only what is left over from the wine industry. "What we get looks like Swiss cheese," he says. He then granulates the cork scraps and melds them together with an adhesive to form cubic blocks, from which he builds his ...