Vanity: Jeremy Scott for Adidas

C'mon now, who at Adidas Originals gave Jeremy Scott a free reign. Whoever you are, you deserve sexual favours, because it's all incredible.

I'm still regretting not picking up this hoodie he brought out last season, that I saw in Tokyo:


And while I was umming-and-aaahhing about it for a while, I've now decided that the Winged Attitude sneakers are also bostin':


Next season's looking just as good with this goddamn beautiful coat:


I want it SO MUCH. Please also note the insane triple-tongued sneakers. Oh my soul.

And the hideously, sublimely stupid concept of boots that look like snowboard boots, but which aren't.


They're terrible... but in a way they're WONDERFUL.

OK, mostly they're terrible.

But still...

Ask the Magic Building

Magic Building, are my new sneakers the total and absolute bomb?

Y'know, you're alright Magic Building.

The Magic Building lives in downtown Sapporo and will give any outfit the thumbs-up.

I'm sure you can guess...

It comes as no surprise, huh?

What did you buy over the holidays Alex?

I bought:

A T-shirt that came in a miniature shoebox.

A Batman: The Dark Knight toothbrush with logo embossed cover.

A novelty webcam of Medama Oyaji from GeGeGe no Kitaro.

Winter Trainers

I got new trainers today:


No, wait! I didn't just by these because I'm developing an alarming "Sneaker Habit" (although several people today did take one look and say "More sneakers?"). These shoes were primarily a pragmatic purchase, because they're Winter Sneakers. They're not real leather they're some kind of waterproof pleather; the tongue is sewn into the shoe with extra panels to make it waterproof and snow resistant; and they have ruthless looking grips on the bottom too for snowy and icy weather. Pretty much designed for a Sapporo winter y'know.

Now I'm curious as to whether these shoes are available outside Japan. All the big sneaker companies make them, basically a rugged snow-ready version of one of their other shoes, but mostly they're only made up to 28cm which is the standard Japanese upper size limit. I really dug the New Balance and Vans ones, but they didn't stretch to 30cm. Converse miraculously did, so that's what I got, and they're tagged with Converse Japan labels. Last year I emailed Vans to ask if I could get their snow sneakers in my size and they didn't seem to know what I was talking about, so I have to figure that this is another one of those lines of awesome shit that is made by the Japanese arms of western companies, only for Japan.

And hopefully I'll fall on my ass less this winter.

Tokyo! The official recovery post... mostly about shopping.

So a week since I left for Tokyo I think I may be taking some tentative steps towards recovery.

That's kind of a joke, I was already getting sick by the time I went to Tokyo, and staying up all night, racing around like a crazy person, meeting friends, shopping and seeing Radiohead was just a silly idea all around. It did however mean I was walking through Shibuya at 7am to take photos like this, which was strange and fun:


So what can I tell you about Tokyo this time? I feel like every time I go to Tokyo I spend 50% of my time on trains getting from one place to another. And you can never sit down on the trains. Apart from that it's always really awesome to meet my friends in Tokyo, and if you ever go to eat Korean yaki-niku in a neon lit hole in darkest Kabuki-cho where the hot plates don't even sit straight on the tables, all the furniture looks to be made out of garbage bins and you seem to be leaning on a box of cabbages - the food will actually be really good. I guess the clue was in the fact it was wallpapered with celebrity autographs. Also I still hate Shinjuku Station. Fuck that place.

After the lack of sleep, the Radiohead and the kimchee and pork, I managed to get some shopping in too. I tried to go to the Original Fake store near Omotesando once before when it was closed, but this time I succeeded, and stepping inside was like breathing the kind of bottled air that is released in a limited edition, and reserved for the unbearably trendy. I really love Kaws' work and his all-round design and visual style, and the store did look incredible (photos would have felt like sacrelige so I refrained), but his current clothing line under the Original Fake label mostly leaves me cold. It's awesome, but it's not my style. It's filling an increasingly popular space in the street-wear scene for tailored, high-end, high-quality goods, but it's just way too muted for my tastes, especially since his splashy flair was what turned me on to him to begin with (and what he still seems to be doing in his painting and design elsewhere). There was one hoody I loved, but - of course - not in my size. I love seeing the old Kaws collaborations with BAPE because they're just so fucking gharish.

And speaking of BAPE:


The BAPEXCLUSIVE store in Minami-Aoyama (practically Omotesando) is just crazy. Adrienne was just reeling around the place getting lost in mirrors and colours. These two pictures of the BAPE stores are hers because I was too chicken to get my camera out. The downstairs is a super-fancy clothes boutique, but the upstairs is just a crazy shrine to a dazzling rainbow of patent-leather sneakers. They have shoes rotating inside glass cases, floor to ceiling displays of classic BAPESTAs, and a freakin' conveyor belt displaying shoes that haven't even been released yet. All this and still somehow it feels minimal. And the crazy thing is that you're surrounded by sneakers... so many sneakers, and you can only buy the 8 styles in a tiny area on the right. The others are only for show. So goddamn frustrating. That said... they had some good stuff in the back - if you know what I mean. I left there a happy man.

And then about three blocks away is the Harajuku BAPE store, which is also a trip into boutique wonderland. Their shoe floor isn't as spectacular, but they do display their shoes in a glass bar, which the assistants stand behind to serve you.


That's me emailing a picture of some shoes to Olivia to see if she wanted them, a terrifying piece of hi-tech shopping that for better or worse resulted in the following:


Zap!

My favourite object in the world / Something about blogging.

I hereby present to you, for your... delictation and universal appreciation the Nike Air Max 90 burger, by Ole Hemmendorff:


It was created for Nike, who commissioned 8 artists to interpret a classic Nike item for a big launch in Stockholm. Considering I still don't buy Nike it's kinda weird that I've posted two items basically about how cool they are, but they are nothing if not fucking prolific - and this combines two of my biggest crushes into one repulsive, irresistable whole.

Of course, it has been posted on many, many, many blogs before, which made me think again about blogging. Well actually the list of "via"s made me laugh. (apparently this is an internet shorthand for "I'm ripping off someone else's blog" that I wasn't aware of).

I originally saw it on High Snobiety, then was prompted to use it here by seeing it on Kanye West's blog. Yeezy is kind of an asshole though, coz he never credits his sources and he rarely links out, so I googled it to get closer to the source... and here's what I found:

a blog
via
via
via

And amusingly that last link is to Vice magazine who seem to be organising the launch for Nike, meaning that they commissioned the artist really, not Nike.

Many blogs seem to fall into two categories: linkblogs, trawling the internet for the cream, and personal blogs writing about events in the person's life. I recently got involved with the creative groupblog Loom in direct opposition to the first of these, and I've been trying to make this blog more like the latter, with occasional internet finds and so-on dropped in because, frankly my life isn't all that interesting and I can't post everyday otherwise. Those seem to be the blogs I like - a combination of everything - and I guess I'm still feeling my way here.

So I'd like to make the following my statement of intent for this blog. "I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm trying not to be a wanker. I'm sorry."

Thank you.

Nike: Delivering on the childhood dreams you may have forgotten you had.

There is a huge, long running and increasingly popular meme that the future in which we are living is not futuristic enough. To wit: “Where the fuck is my jetpack already?” Now at least one company has stepped forward and attempted to make our present look more like how people thought our present would look when it was their future twenty years ago.

That is Nike have finally brought out a shoe that is kinda like the one in Back to the Future 2.

The Nike Hyperdunk (only nicknamed the McFly, for fear of stepping on toes, legally speaking) is pretty clearly inspired by the sneakers that Nike created for Back to the Future 2, and it looks pretty awesome really. It’s not the exact shoe: in terms of the design, and especially in terms of the fact that it doesn’t light up (it does glow in the dark though) and the laces don’t tie themselves. I’m gonna put my neck out however, and say it probably looks better than the one in the movie, and it is after all a basketball shoe, made for sports, and the original looks kinda like a ski-boot. Some people are never satisfied though, and you can still sign the online petition to get Nike to release the real things here. I like that these guys are purists, and they ain't gonna settle for anything less than the complete and perfect realisation of their dream.

I first saw about the sneakers a while back on a… sneaker site somewhere, but CNBC actually has a remarkably comprehensive article here. Interestingly Nike’s sneaker braintrust Tinker Hatfield did patent the movie shoes back when the movie came out.

Oh, and in other news Nike’s sneaker braintrust, and the man who invented cross-training shoes is called Tinker Hatfield.

All this and still no hoverboard? Can’t you do anything right, Science?