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G ame on, guys. Hermès' new mobile app, Tie Break, beckons with digital dancing elephants and knotty savoir-faire about the French label's famed silk cravats. Updated daily, it's packed with great photography, clever quirks and interesting bits of history about men's neckwear. So long, Instagram. Hello, diversionary Windsor knot. Download from the App Store … Salvatore Ferragamo taps into the trainer trend, launching its first sneakers for men this fall, from luxe full-quill ostrich, crocodile and python high-tops (studded with gold hardware) to subdued calfskin low-tops. Most interesting is the color-blocking on lower-key styles. Price upon request, at the Salvatore Ferragamo boutique … The heat doesn't retreat until late October. Good thing Kiehl's new Oil Eliminator face wash, toner and moisturizer prevents midday shine which Texas temps frequently induce. Best of all, the skincare goods contain crushed apricot seeds to slough away dead skin, are unscented and reduce the size of pores. From $20, at Kiehl's, Neiman Marcus … Raf Simons collaborates with Adidas on a special-edition run of Stan Smith sneakers. Simons' designs are minimal and masculine, replacing the brand's customary three stripes on the shoe's side with a perforated "R" and offering two color ways, solid orange or white with green accents. $475, at mrporter.com … David Yurman continues to explore the materials men find precious. Last spring, the designer looked to the skies, incorporating meteorite fragments. For its fall collection of rings, necklace tags and keychains, the key element is forged carbon, an exceptionally lightweight substance found in aeronautics more often than in fine jewelry cases. From $375, at the David Yurman boutique … Nothing defines sartorial distinction more than 18K gold buttons from Coléoptère, in impeccably low-key recycled precious metals in all sizes. (The ascendant California jeweler even offers a golden needle with which to sew them on.) I'm dreaming of a bespoke navy blazer outfitted with these indicators of discernment. From $1,025 at coleoptere.us … Cartier's new Louis Cartier men's gusseted duffle bag is perfect in every way, from its simple finishing and minimal hardware to its technically demanding production, which requires two hides, 300 hours of labor, 100 different operations and 15 meters of thread per bag to create. $4,050, at the Cartier boutique … Navy is officially having a moment — witness these timepieces from Omega and Hublot, with both faces and straps and quiet silver bezels. Prices upon request, at the Omega and Hublot boutiques … Italian leather great Tod's veers into menswear this fall with the same ease and elegance that has long defined its footwear and accessories. Prime pick is a hooded zip-up in suede. Price upon request, at the Tod's boutique. Cheerio, Chaps! Seth Vaughan After summer slumbers, the art volcano rumbles. We're beelining to PDNB Gallery for adman photog Geof Kern, whose creative genius for Neiman Marcus (including the luxe retailer's collectible 2007 Pop Up book) is delightfully, surreally inspired. As are the Kern images in PDNB's survey and its accompanying catalog, which the artist will sign on opening night Saturday, September 6 (through November 15) … Ro2 Art Downtown rolls out the perfect duo, Texas painters Erica Stephens and Julon Pinkston, whose lavish surfaces are celebrated in the doubleheader "Luscious" (September 13 – October 13). Mark this pair for your collector's radar … Meadows Museum of Art mounts the great graphics of Goya, which still startle centuries after they were pulled from the presses — a fitting way to toast the Meadows' golden anniversary (September 21 – March 1) … "Isa Genzken: Retrospective" at the Dallas Museum of Art serves up a wildly inventive take on contemporary sculpture in the artist's first American museum tour, co-curated by the DMA's Jeffrey Grove (September 14 – January 4) … In Fort Worth, we're truly, madly excited about the upcoming look at the decade that changed it all — when women began to achieve parity in the art world. Michael Auping curates the dramatic "Urban Theater: New York Art in the 1980s" at The Modern. I'll be driving in to visit Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons (and his fashion-hued Hoovers in a vitrine), as well as Basquiat, Scharf, Salle and Mr. Warhol (September 21 – January 4) … Thrilling news on the gallery front, as two fresh spaces unveil. Lab Art hits the Design District September 18, opening a Texas iteration of the famed L.A. street-art imprint. It was brought to Dallas by finance gents Adam Persiani and Eric Rosiak; the duo tapped cool So-Cal curator Iskander Lemseffer to bring more aerosol action to town with an ambition 4,500-square-foot space at 315 Cole … Dallas Contemporary exhibition director Erin Cluley has struck out on her own, with a bold eponymous space with programming to match, while pioneering the Trinity Groves area at 414 Fabrication Street. The debut show features Texas-born, Baltimore-based René Treviño's flags, smart mediations on race and gender (opening night, September 13 – October 11). Catherine D. Anspon Art Notes SEPTEMBER | PAGE 10 | 2014 Contemporary Canvas: Anthony Discenza BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE TEXAS CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR One of the headliners in Catharine Clark Gallery's booth, Oakland-based Anthony Discenza, has promulgated an art practice that has resulted in solo and group shows from Berlin to London, while his hypnotic videos have screened at museums and film festivals from Geneva to L.A., including the prestigious Getty Center. In Texas, Discenza's art and moving images have been highlighted at the Dallas Video Festival and that temple of cool, Ballroom Marfa. This summer, as part of a San Francisco public art project "Way Out West," his billboard in the Mission district — Sell Your Hopes — went viral, while addressing displacement and gentrification in one of the city's storied neighborhoods. We caught up with the California College of the Arts professor via email for a preview of what he's planned for Clark's booth — and why he's mad for text on a page or as outdoor statement: "The works being shown at Texas Contemporary — [are] two pieces from the Teasers series and four of the Pulps series … For the past four or five years, a lot of my work has been text-based, although it has taken many different forms, from street signage to wall text to audio works that use professional voiceover actors. While the tone of these different projects varies greatly, there is a continual interest in the use of descriptive language — comparative forms like similes, or types of descriptive 'shorthand' such as the Hollywood 'elevator pitch' that the Teaser series investigates [are] informed by the language of advertising, mass culture, and clichéd speech, albeit slightly distorted and de-contextualized." On his Pulps, where language becomes objects, recreated upon faded paper, calling up cinematic noir classics like The Maltese Falcon or the front pages of a Dashell Hammett detective thriller: "These text fragments are completely made up, though each is an attempt to channel the style of different literary sub-genres such as horror, sci-fi, mystery and romance." About the roots of the artist's text-suffused offerings and why he's obsessed: "[It] owes a direct debt to movements like conceptualism and fluxus, but the practice really leads all the way back to the interest of many of the Dada and Surrealist artists in language and appropriation … Paradoxically, because we live in such an image-saturated culture, text seems to me to be a key means to recuperate visuality, precisely because of its ability to both evoke and withhold the visual at the same time." Anthony Discenza's Teaser #8, 2013, at Catharine Clark Gallery COURTESY THE ARTIST AND CATHARINE CLARK GALLERY, SAN FRANCISCO Anthony Discenza BEAN GILSDORF Tiffany & Co. enlisted quite the femme for the position of design director (left vacant by the retirement of John Loring, who helmed the design role for the American institution from 1979 to 2009): Francesca Amfitheatrof, a classic beauty whose haunting resemblance to film icon Audrey Hepburn and impressive CV make her the perfect T girl. A trained jeweler and silversmith and graduate of Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, Amfitheatrof's has designed jewelry for Chanel, Fendi, Gucci and Marni, as well as fragrances for Creative Perfumers; furniture and lighting for the interiors projects of Muriel Brandolini; jewelry and silverware for Asprey & Garrard; china, crystal and flatware designs for Wedgwood; and designs for Alessi. In her post at Tiffany & Co., she heads up design across the board — jewelry, handbags, crystal and china, eyewear and more. Her debut collection, the Tiffany T, is comprised of modern architectural bracelets, pendants, rings and monumental cuffs engineered to stack and pivot seamlessly in the shape of a solid T — 64 pieces available in 18K rose and yellow gold and sterling silver, with modern nods of white ceramic and glowing fine gems. $350 to $95,000, at Tiffany & Co. Megan Pruitt Winder to a Perfect Tiffany T necklace with citrine, turquoise and diamond in 18K gold, $95,000 Tiffany design director Francesca Amfitheatrof examines a cuff from the Tiffany T collection. Hublot's King Power Special One Omega's Seamaster Aqua Terra Master Co-Axial © TIFFANY AND CO. TIFFANY & CO. MARTIN CROOK The Raffish Rake Kiehl's Oil Eliminators Raf Simons Adidas Stan Smith collaboration David Yurman's Forged Carbon accessories Coléoptère's 18K gold buttons Cartier's 24 Hour bag Hermes' new Tie Break app Salvatore Ferragamo's sneaker collection Geof Kern's Dreams, 1991, at PDNB Gallery Erica Stephens, Roses, 2014 and Julon Pinkston's Constructing a Memory, 2014, at Ro2 Art Downtown September 4 – 7, 2014 H O U S T O N txcontemporary.com Tod's ready to wear