The level of the designer's participation varies, too: In some projects it's only skin-deep, but in others it extends down to faucets.

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Built with a sleek, stylish frame that is only 0.36-inches thin, and surrounded by premium metal trim to provide designer-level styling, the LG Optimus L9 is the latest in the style-focused L-Series of smartphones from LG.

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It's highly imaginative thinking for a designer who still feels some level of outsider status after all these years.

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In any event, the Fusion's weird Aston Martin-ness was a matter of board-level sign-off, the judgment of designer Chris Hamilton, design chief J Mays and CEO Alan Mulally.

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Capacity building, through artisan and designer collaboration, transferred and honed the skill level of the craftspeople in pit-loom woven fabric, chunri making skills, embroidery and ralli-making and developed designs to attract the contemporary market demands.

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Corky had found a terrific designer, and we worked with her on a three-level, 9, 000-square-foot house.

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When fashion king Calvin Klein first purchased the South half of the 5, 000-square-foot, two-level penthouse in the iconic Art Deco building at 55 Central Park West, the designer installed a hot tub on the rooftop terrace.

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