Every day we change something

The Moss gallery is a place to show that sort of work. “I put the word ‘store’ on one window and ‘gallery’ on another but I might have the same things in both places,” Moss says. “I’m doing that to have people be confused.” The most recent exhibition was a collection of one-off Swarovski crystal chandeliers and art objects designed by the likes of Tom Dixon, Ron Arad and Tord Boontje and priced from $3,950 to $140,000.

But this raises an important question. Isn’t art-as-design a somewhat obscene luxury, created only for the rich? Moss prides himself on an ability to “put $5 things next to $50,000 things and hold both of equal value”. But he also acknowledges that his is an elite market and makes no apologies.

He says he was forced to “trade up” after the September 11 attacks, which closed the store for a week and kept international visitors away for two years. “Suddenly I didn’t have tourists buying the $35 things, so I needed to sell more $20,000 things. I had to redo the shop, to include more costly objects, Baccarat crystal, Meissen porcelain. Also, I’m now 11 years older than when I started and the customer is 11 years older, more broad-minded, hungrier, more aware, more intelligent. So I’m going to a fuller brief with things that are more expensive.”

As if on cue, one of his 35 employees walks by, carrying a large wooden-and-wool sheep under his arm. Moss laughs. “It’s from this company in Germany that makes traditional toys, so I give it a function – it’s a stool – and I sell it for $1,000. I’ve sold 60 since December. That’s $60,000 that I’ve sold in sheep. I mean, why would someone buy it? But I’m very appreciative of the fact that they do.”

Let in the Light. Show Off the Tub. Who Needs Privacy?

Of course, the glass wall — which makes the interior of the bathroom visible from other parts of the loft — can make things difficult for guests. But Ms. Marpillero-Colomina has the consolation of knowing she is at architecture's cutting edge.

"At least it doesn't overlook the office," she said, referring to the part of the loft devoted to the couple's firm.

As attitudes toward privacy change, the American bathroom is shedding its old skin. Taking the place of the hidden-away box are translucent cubes dropped right in the middle of the action, their thin walls made of glass or new light-transmitting acrylics and resins.

In a society where store clerks chat about their social lives in front of customers and college students survive co-ed bathrooms, privacy just isn't the concern it used to be.

Joel Sanders, a Manhattan architect (and an associate professor of architecture at Yale), who has designed several bathrooms with see-through walls, said: "Shame about the body is no longer a factor for many of my clients. Ideas about privacy are becoming more relaxed."

For a couple with two young sons, Mr. Sanders designed a loftlike apartment on the Upper West Side with a bathroom sheathed in translucent blue glass. The bathroom sits between the kitchen and the master bedroom and reveals vague silhouettes.

"It's not about sex and seduction; quite the opposite," Mr. Sanders said, explaining that the new bathroom makes open-plan living more fluid. Other homeowners want to take walls down completely. Some have been inspired by boutique hotels with risqué rooms. The Clinton Hotel in Miami Beach, advertising its accommodations as "intimate and sexy," has clear glass panels separating bed from bath. In Reykjavik, Iceland, the trendy Hotel 101 has curtainless showers and toilets in frosted-glass booths.

Other devotees of the open bath — successor to the ubiquitous open kitchen — are driven by a desire to make the most of their square footage. In their Boston loft, David Hacin, an architect, and Tim Grafft put a tub and sink in an alcove that is visible from the master bedroom. "The bathroom takes up a lot of territory these days," Mr. Hacin said, "and if you can borrow back some of that space, it's a win-win."

The men, longtime partners, have no privacy concerns, Mr. Hacin said. When he shows the apartment to potential clients, "some people are intrigued by it," he said. "Some people are titillated by it. And some people, the more conservative ones, are distressed."

To keep two windowless bathrooms in a Lower Manhattan loft from inducing a sense of claustrophobia, Katherine Chia, a principal at Desai/Chia Architecture in New York, gave them ash wood walls dotted with rows of portholes. Their acrylic panes are less than four inches across and thus not terribly risqué. But they do reveal movements in shadow.

The owners, David Christensen and Dianne Dobbeck, don't mind sacrificing a bit of privacy, Mr. Christensen said. "The trade-off is that we get a unique architectural feature that glows like a lantern in the evening. It definitely draws oohs and aahs from our visitors."

Ms. Chia, who has used translucent bathroom walls in other lofts, said: "Our clients fall in love with the quality of light that gets transmitted through the bathroom skin. I don't think they feel exposed, but instead see themselves as being bathed in a luminous interior."

In homes that put less of a premium on space, open bathrooms can serve another purpose: showing off Philippe Starck bathtubs that cost as much as cars and shower heads studded with Swarovski crystals. "In what we call trophy baths, the tub is set up as the focal point, and people want to make sure it is seen, " said Gary White, a Newport Beach, Calif., designer, referring to clients with six-figure bathrooms (who probably use their king-size tubs as infrequently as they do their six-burner ranges). The show-off tub has pedigree. The designer Clodagh made the tub part of her own master bedroom suite 20 years ago and has since designed dozens of similar settings for clients. In one recent project on the Upper West Side, she placed the tub behind "a microfiber drape that you can pull if you're feeling shy," she said, adding, "We always include dimmers."

What's new is allowing the tub to be visible from more than just the bedroom. One of the first modern architects to push that envelope was Paul Rudolph, who in the 1970's sunk a clear Plexiglas tub into the floor of his Manhattan town house, allowing views through the tub from the entry area below to the skylight above. Mr. Rudolph, the one-time Yale architecture chairman and well-known provocateur, who died in 1997, was seeing how far he could push transparency in a domestic setting. His friend and business partner, Ernst Wagner, acknowledges that the tub was almost never used.

Boss `malicious' after diagnosis

A 35-year-old Brampton mother of three was dismissed from her job after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, a judge has ruled.

Deborah Fedorowicz, now 41, considers the ruling "a victory" for all cancer survivors.

"I feel so proud," Fedorowicz said this week, holding back tears. "If this can help anybody down the road diagnosed with cancer and wronged by an employer, then they'll have my case law to refer to."

Justice John Sproat of the Superior Court of Justice in Brampton ruled Fedorowicz should be awarded $100,766 from her former employer.

It's been more than five years of being in and out of courtrooms since the case began, which Fedorowicz called "mentally and physically exhausting ... defending my reputation."

Fedorowicz, a former bookkeeper for Pace Marathon Motor Lines, a Brampton transport company, filed a civil suit against the company and George Mallouk, a once good friend and her employer of eight years, for wrongful dismissal on Sept. 1, 2000.

She was nursing her third child and working from home on maternity leave when diagnosed with breast cancer.

"He (Mallouk) was very supportive and then he just turned on me when I was diagnosed," Fedorowicz told the Star.

`I'm hoping it will give others inspiration. Cancer is such an ugly disease.'

Deborah Fedorowicz, cancer survivor

Then Mallouk went to police alleging she'd been stealing from the company. Fraud charges were laid against Fedorowicz in May 2001 but were withdrawn almost two years later.

She then sued him for malicious prosecution. Mallouk and Pace filed a counterclaim, but it was dismissed.

In his ruling Jan. 31, the judge concluded Mallouk "acted with malice" and that $35,000 of the total amount was to be awarded to Fedorowicz for "malicious prosecution."

Sproat concluded Mallouk's company put Fedorowicz's "reputation for integrity, essential for a bookkeeper, under a cloud."

Fedorowicz and her husband, Ron, 40, have tried to make the best of a difficult situation. Fedorowicz designed a pearl and silver bracelet with Swarovski crystals and a pink-rhinestone ribbon motif to celebrate her five-year cancer survival last year. And her husband decided to market it under his company called Stardust Jewellery.

"I'm hoping it will give others inspiration. Cancer is such an ugly disease," Fedorowicz said. "It's like saying, `Look at me. I'm fighting this.'"

The Stardust Bracelet of Inspiration, which retails for $50 (plus tax and shipping), is sold at hospitals across Ontario; $10 of that is donated to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

Fedorowicz's employer has appealed the decision, so Fedorowicz said she won't get to see any of the money yet. Last month, Fedorowicz's lawyer Mark Klaiman filed submissions for further pre-judgment costs and interest.

The judge also wrote that during the trial he was "troubled by the fact that both parties acknowledged various tax evasions." He directed a copy of his reasons be sent to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Cinderella Bra in Singapore for Fashion Week

Cinderella's got her glass slippers and now she has a 'crystal' bra to add to her wardrobe collection.

Called the "Cinderella Bra", it's made with glass and Swarovski crystals, and carefully hand-finished by skilled craftsmen.

The beads are sewn on the sides, center panel and straps. Angel patterns were also etched onto the cups.

Although it's called the "Cinderella Bra", don't expect Price Charming to come knocking on your door to try it out for size.

But starting April 8, you can go to Robinsons at Raffles City to have a closer look at this one-of-a-kind "wonder bra".

Also on display is the Pearl bra specially flown in from Japan. It is valued at more than $207,000.

3,000 quality pearls have been carefully selected to decorate it.

These uplifting designs have been brought to Singapore as part of the Singapore Fashion Week which kicks off on Friday.