New York furniture and accessories designer Carole Gratale investigates a different rusticity in pieces inspired by 20th-century metal master Diego Giacometti. "He was a master of scale," she explains, "and I stayed as close as I could to the originals." A side table cast in bronze reiterates a delicate armature of branches; a coatrack has been rendered as a graceful sapling. "We all seem to resonate with a sense of nature," adds Gratale. Like the sapling itself, the cast bronze conveys a simultaneous lightness and strength, and in doing so, may explain the richness of such woodland imagery: The beauty of a single leaf is a lesson in transience, while a branch reveals that suppleness and strength are natural compatriots.

Right: "Giacometti Coat Tree Rack," $4,425, Carole Gratale through John Rosselli (212/593-2060).