James shaped his hats directly on clients' heads, cutting, twisting, and scrunching the felt or straw into whimsical shapes.
Even neighborhood candy stores carry chocolates in whimsical shapes like pine cones, Champagne bottles and compact discs.
His giant whimsical shapes in shocking shades of bright yellow, green, blue and pink will festoon the entrance to Lincoln Center's plaza from the New York State Theater to Avery Fisher Hall.
These days, speakers come in whimsical shapes like rocks, fish, frogs and angels, or just painted green to blend into the bushes and trees.
Mr. Wood begins by poaching sweet, juicy pears in red wine spiced with cinnamon, star anise and peppercorns, then allows them to macerate while he rolls puff pastry thin and cuts it into whimsical shapes.
The pastry chef, Oscar Palacios, produced desserts in fittingly whimsical shapes, and he brokered inspired partnerships, like the cardamom dust over a peanut butter parfait and the grilled pine nuts with chestnut ice cream.
On Wednesday afternoon Ms. Kim, a hat designer, prowled Archangel Antiques, a purveyor of vintage clothing and accessories at 334 East Ninth Street in Manhattan, poking into nooks and alcoves in search of the whimsical shapes that inspire her designs.
The toy is the Cat-A-Pult, invented by Arthur M. Ganson, a sculptor who a decade ago invented a popular toy called Toobers and Zots -- bendable, brightly colored foam pieces in whimsical shapes that children can manipulate to create sculptures.
Andrew Geller, an architect who embodied postwar ingenuity and optimism in a series of inexpensive beach houses in whimsical shapes, many of them in the Hamptons, and who helped bring modernism to the masses with prefabricated cottages sold at Macy's, died on Sunday in Syracuse.
Why not market them in whimsical shapes with appealing names?
