CHI'S

Warrior: Hip Sneakers from China

By Sean Leow From PSFK Shanghai

''During the 1970s, Warrior (回力) brand sneakers were the hottest shoes in China — its bright, clean design a sharp contrast to the drab homogeneity of Communist China. Continuing into the 1980s, the shoe remained a status symbol for Chinese teenagers who were well-off enough to don a pair of famous Warriors.

But as China opened up economically, so did the marketplace for sneaker brands. While the 50 year-old Warrior name was still well-known in China, it was no longer well-known as one of the premier Chinese brands. Instead, Warrior shoes became the shoe of the working class — worn by poor construction workers, elderly women and rural citizens looking for a pair of cheap, durable shoes, not an expensive brand name (and mark-up).

Fascinated by this story, a graphic design student from China recently released a photography book which features people wearing Warriors in various areas of China. Each copy of “Book of Warriors” comes with a pair of Warriors. The author, Shumeng Ye, hopes to use the Warrior brand “to tell the story behind the shoes and show a different side of China. Not the industrial and economical power, but the daily life of a country with its own distinctive sneaker culture.”

Interestingly, Warrior-type shoes are making a comeback among the (ironically) hip set, who covet the relative obscurity of the Warrior in Western culture. In Europe, a similar shoe retails for EU 40-50, which is a significant markup over the China price (EU 2-3).

Below are a couple of Shumeng’s Warrior pictures along with the cool retro packaging that some Warrior shoes come in.''

(Pictures from Warrior website)

Nike Flywire

Prada - Trembled Blossoms

No I Am Not On F*!#cking Facebook

From Howies

Louis Vuitton first TV ad [where will life take you?]

What do you think?

Levis Eco Jeans

Crocs Shox

From Z-CoiL  via IO9

Marketed as a high-tech solution to people's walking problems. Let's pray they won't become trendy...

UCL: Global Denim Project

From Global Denim Project via Josh Spear

''The intention behind the global denim project is to provide a meeting place for anyone from any discipline who wants to carry out academic research on the topic of denim. We hope to provide on this site individual web-pages for each of these projects so that anyone carrying out denim research can describe it and update it with news of its progress.''

Topics include branding, the denim supply chain, globalization, fair trade, technology and many more..

Slate: Vanguard is the new edgy

From Slate

Vanguard is the new Edgy
Cocktail Chatter: How to fake your way through fashion week
By Josh Patner for Slate

It's Fashion Week—again! For style-challenged readers who don't know Rag and Bone from Rodarte, and who can't think of anything to say about Fashion Week besides "It's Fashion Week—again!" we offer this conversational cheat sheet. Read the following, and you'll talk like an insider, even if you don't look like one.

1) Don't call it a "catwalk."

A brief note on terminology: Fall Fashion Week kicks off in New York on Friday, before moving on to London, Milan, and Paris, where the season will wrap up on March 3. During this time, an international battalion of editors, stylists, buyers, celebrities, reporters, and fans will see thousands of looks (fashion-speak for "outfits") paraded down what's known as the runway in New York, the catwalk in England, la passarella in Italy, and le podium in France.

If a look is particularly stunning, the editors will pronounce it to be genius. (Genius is still the new brilliant, while vanguard is this year's edgy.) The stylists will have their edit done at the end of every show. (An edit is a list of favorites to be called in for meetings about upcoming sittings, or photo shoots.) But the buyers won't lay down paper (retail jargon for "place an order") until they've reviewed the collections at writing appointments.

2) Defend Marc Jacobs.

 

...
Full article here

Benetton's Fabrica: A Creative Utopia

Via Pingmag

Fabrica is Benetton's creative research centre and most well-known for its magazine COLORS.
Pingmag interviews Fabrica's General Manager Alfio Pozzoni at the opening of its ''Les Yeux Ouvert'' exhibition at the Shiodome Italia in Tokyo.

Fabrica! Do we need to say more? Since 1994, the legendary Italian research centre has invited forty bright young artists from all over to its vast villa in Treviso (that just got a new makeover from acclaimed architect Tadao Ando.) Established by Benetton group founder Luciano Benetton and photographer and its then art director Oliviero Toscani, the institution serves as breeding ground for artists who devote themselves entirely to creative studies for one year. Now, after making a stopover in Milan and Shanghai, you can see Fabrica’s Les Yeux Ouvert (“Eyes Open to the World and the Future”) exhibition at Shiodome Italia in Tokyo, organised by the Pompidou Centre. It was a perfect opportunity for PingMag to grab Fabrica General Manager Alfio Pozzoni for a chat.

...
Click here for the full interview

Deconstructed Denim: How many countries are in your jeans?

From Marketplace Via Murketing

Murketing reports about an interview on Marketplace with  Rachel Louise Snyder's book ''Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade'' (whatever happened to short titles?)

I haven't read the book yet, but here's the interview...

Ryssdal: Rachel, nice to have you with us.

Rachel Louise Snyder: Thank you. Hi Kai.

Ryssdal: So listen, bear with me for a second, would you?

Snyder: Sure.

Ryssdal: Alright, if I take my jeans off right now and look at the label inside -- I'm not actually wearing jeans, but if I were -- it would only really have one country as the "made in" label, right?

Snyder: Probably. I have to say, I'm so tempted to ask you if you're... you are wearing pants right?

Ryssdal: I am actually wearing pants -- the beauty of radio -- but just for the sake of it, if it was jeans, only one name in that label. What's the real story behind that?

Snyder: Well, really, it's not representative of the number of countries involved. You'll have the cotton grown in a place like Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan -- and in my book, it's Azerbaijan -- and maybe Turkey and then that's woven, all the cotton from those countries is woven for consistency into one large roll of fabric and then its dyed in a different country like Italy and then sent maybe to India, where it might be cut, and then sent somewhere else. But you might have six or eight different countries involved in that process because of the way trade rules are set up.

Ryssdal: How do we then, as American consumers, who want the cheapest prices but the best quality products... I mean, is there a way for us when we go to the store and finger through all these jeans... I mean, we can't possibly know all this.

Snyder: No, that's the real disappointing thing is that we've now come up with these standards for food where it has to say where our food is processed and where it's grown, but we don't have those same standards for clothes and I think we need to. There is some ministry movement toward more accurate representation, but as of yet, no law.

Ryssdal: We are now so conscious in this country of the pesticides on our foods and where they come from and organic everything... you couldn't if you tried do that with clothes because, first of all, they are so chemically involved, but also it's so obscured by the route that they take through the global economy.

Snyder: That's true, that's true. It's been said that there are three-quarters of a pound of chemicals used in the production and manufacture of our jeans. A lot of those chemicals are washed off by the time they get to our shelves, but they do have to go somewhere. I think the environmental consequences are far graver.

Ryssdal: Is there a moment in time that stands out for you in the lifespan of this book -- not, that is to say, of the two-and-a-half years you spent writing it, but a moment in time of the life cycle of this product?

Snyder: One of them, I would have to say, was just sitting out in the countryside in Cambodia with this garment worker after I'd known her for about two years and connecting all that she did in the factory to all that she was able to give to her family. You know, they had a big house, they had all these cows, they had a fish pond, they had a vegetable garden, all kinds of things that they never had.

Ryssdal: All because of a pair of blue jeans.

Snyder: Yeah.

Ryssdal: When you really sit down and think about it, do you think they are happy and pleased with their role in the life cycle of the pair of jeans I have on right now?

Snyder: I would say that they are more satisfied professionally, but I would say that lives are more complicated than just simply profession. And so there's things like, with the Cambodian women, you know, they still live in a misogynistic, patriarchal society. So they still have to contend with the fact that they're expected to go off and put their brothers through school, but they themselves may never have a chance at education. So in that way they're unhappy, but I think they're happy to be earning money.

Ryssdal: You've heard Rachel Louise Snyder on the program before. She's got a new book out. It's called "Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade." Rachel, thanks a lot for your time.

 

FT: Guerilla Retail

Via the Financial Times

Edgy, secret and slightly illicit
By Becky Sunshine of the FT
Published 26 January

Pop-up or guerrilla shops have been lurking in the shadows of the world’s cities for the past few years. Rei Kawakubo of fashion label Comme des Garçons is often credited with launching the concept five years ago, when she set up a temporary retail outlet in a disused, dilapidated building in an unlikely neighbourhood of Berlin. The space was cleaned up – just enough – and equipped with rails of clothes, some design objects and a cash register. It was an instant success. Customers who found it felt they were in on something edgy, secret and slightly illicit: something that was hardly a business at all.

Since then, Comme des Garçons has created a handful of 12-month shops in cities such as Beirut, The Hague and Vilnius, while other big fashion brands including Uniqlo and Target have followed suit. And, perhaps not surprisingly, the idea is now trickling through to other realms. Designers and design stores in particular are embracing this raw, low-tech approach as an antidote to homogenised, glossy stores and as a way to create a sense of discovery and urgency among buyers.

“It’s about not knowing what to expect,” says London-based design consultant Jacob Peres. “People seem to want something less finished [and they] need a new destination to visit [so] what a great way to exhibit new work to a new audience. It forces a retailer to be more creative, spend less on a shop-fit and come up with an interesting new concept to attract people. That way the visitor is feeling like they’re in on something cool from its inception.”

There are practical considerations too, says Sean Sutcliffe, co-founder of UK furniture company Benchmark, which has its first temporary store on London’s Brompton Road open until October. “Benchmark primarily functions from its Berkshire farm shop base [and] we have a steady flow of business but it’s a long way to come [from London],” he explains. “A retail space in London gave us the opportunity to bring our new collection to a wider audience. It was purely about trying something different without too much commitment.”

Curator Libby Sellers, whose eponymous gallery featuring work from young British designers opened from the London Design Festival until the Frieze Art Fair and during Design Miami last month, thinks guerrilla stores are often the best way for fledgling retailers or gallerists such as herself to launch. “Doing things organically is affordable,” she says. “There is an added frisson, an excitement in an underground feel, of course, but it’s about [business] development [too]. I imagine my gallery website as shop window and then I’ll take on spaces when I have a particular show to exhibit. That also means I can find appropriate venues to suit specific pieces. Design lends itself to that. It should be functional and in fact a [non-traditional] setting might work better [than a conventional space].”

Having sold several pieces and garnered plenty of press attention in London and Miami, Sellers believes the element of surprise is the key benefit of utilising a temporary venue. “It was a sense of visitors discovering something new every time that kept it all fresh,” she explains. “The downside of this, particularly if showing internationally, is maintaining the brand or a following – staying in people’s consciences. That’s where a website becomes even more important – acting as a shop window while the real window is being redressed.”

London seems to be a hub for pop-up activity. Aside from Benchmark’s shop and Sellers’ gallery, the city has seen a Hector Serranco-designed collaboration between Noel Hennessy and the Spanish embassy that showcased the work of eight Spanish designers from the London Design Festival until early November; a pop-up from UK retailer Greenwich Village in Covent Garden; and art dealer and curator Kenny Schachter’s private gallery The Apartment, which showcased limited edition pieces from Ron Arad, Fernando and Humberto Campana, Alessandro Mendini and Philip Michael Wolfson.

This weekend curator and writer Janice Blackburn has a pop-up selling exhibition, “Small show huge talent”, in London’s Notting Hill. It showcases the work of 11 British and Dutch artists and designers who aim to blur boundaries between art, craft and design. The space, a large house in Hillgate Street owned by architect Seth Stein, is ideal, says Blackburn. “It’s such a brilliant opportunity to use a great modern space for a short time with no commitment or ongoing obligation. It’s great for independent people like me. I am not, nor ever wish to be, a dealer or have the aggravation of my own permanent gallery.”

But the guerrilla movement is without question a global one. In China, pop-up retailing is quickly becoming an essential tool for the young experimental crowd as well as larger commercial brands looking for a new angle, says PT Black, the Shanghai-based partner of Jigsaw, the consumer lifestyle research house.

“Rogue shows or pop-up spaces appear all the time now,” he says. “Retail is still quite chaotic in China and therefore the smaller, less established designers and retailers setting up have a better chance. Beijing is arguably more accessible for pop-ups as there are more informal retail spaces, while Shanghai retail is incredibly expensive. And the art and design scene is blossoming in China so there’s no shortage of domestic and international interest.”

The concept has also made its way to the US. Last May Tobias Wong, an artist and curator, and Gregory Krum, director of retail for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, opened the Wrong Store for two months in New York. A compact shop brimming with limited edition or rare pieces from designers such as Fredrikson Stallard, Marcel Wanders, Yves Behar and Ineke Hans, it didn’t offer anything for sale but the look was certainly more shopping environment than exhibition space.

Casa Décor is an example that predates even Comme des Garçons, having launched in 1985 in Buenos Aires. The aim was for architects, designers, builders and even homeowners to experience new trends and technology. At Design Miami last month more than 60 international designers, architects and manufacturers moved into a 50,000 sq ft space for five weeks to explore new design possibilities.

“We’re showcasing the work of everyone from the carpenters and painters who install to the architects and designers whose work is shown,” says UK president Kersti Urvois. “Casa Décor is the ideal, direct way to speak to both industry and potential domestic clients. The concept has worked so well that we’re now opening in Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan and Belgium next year.”

Other pop-ups at Design Miami included a collaboration between the Deitch Project and Paper magazine, a guerrilla space from Gallery Libby Sellers and an intriguing pop-up tattoo parlour called As Long As It Lasts, with creations by designers such as 5.5 Designers, Tord Boontje and Hella Jongerius. “I loved the idea of a fleeting venue for something as permanent as a tattoo,” says co-organiser Aric Chen. “Getting a tattoo, after all, is often an impulsive act: one that stays with you – though our tattoo parlour won’t. If you think of pop-up stores as being about rarefication – get it now, or lose out – then it seems to make sense to take it to the next level: the body. Almost all the tattoos had takers; for one guy, getting his Kaws designer tattoo was like a life-changing event. We had asked how far design and art lovers will go and apparently the answer is pretty far.”

Tattoos return

Should we thank Amy Winehouse?...

Pictures from the New York Times, Levi's and Style.com

Italian Vogue

Levi's ad

Juicy Couture

Jean Paul Gaultier Paris show January 2008

Red Light Fashion

Video by Bright Magazine

From the Red Light Fashion Website:

The Red Light Fashion Amsterdam project originates from a collaboration between the municipality of Amsterdam, NV Stadsgoed and HTNK, consultancy and recruitment agency of the fashion industry. In order to redevelop the centre, NV Stadsgoed bought several brothels. For the period of one year these buildings will be loaned to Dutch fashion design talents and used as shop-windows, workshops and living areas.

Smartex Clothing

Via Wired Magazine

Ready to Ware: Clothes That Look Hip and Track Your Vital Signs, Too
By Clare McGrane of Wired Magazine
Published 18 January 2008

I'm sitting in the offices of Smartex near Pisa, Italy, admiring a jogging bra into which a piezoelectric sensor has been woven. A muscular young man wearing a skin-tight gray tank suit walks in. Without a word, he sets up a laptop and begins jumping up and down. His heart rate pops up on the screen and climbs as his exertions become more vigorous.

Since we're in Italy, of course, the tank looks fabulous. But that isn't the point. Smartex, cofounded by biomedical engineer Danilo De Rossi, aims to create clothing that not only provides cover, warmth, and style but also keeps its wearers healthy.

"If I want to monitor a whole body," De Rossi says, "why not use clothes?"The "Wealthy" outfit (the name is a loose acronym for "wearable health care system") worn by the young man is the most developed of Smartex's recent designs. Powered by a tiny embedded lithium battery, it's a washable unitard that reads the wearer's vital signs and beams the data wirelessly to a computer. Information on posture and movement is measured by the stress on sensors built into the garment. Other components gauge electrical activity, yielding EKG data. Heat sensors measure temperature. In the not-so-distant future, De Rossi says, health professionals will be able to monitor cardiac patients by unobtrusively tracking their vital signs as they go about their lives.

De Rossi, who has worked on robotic skin and motion-capture tech for Darpa and the US National Institutes of Health, began exploring the idea of fabric as a data-collection medium 12 years ago. Most of his designs employ thin, pliable strands of conductive steel spun with cotton or polyester fibers into yarn. The Wealthy suit has nine electrodes and conductive leads woven in, yet the fabric looks and feels completely normal.

The challenge in incorporating sensors into clothing — even skin-tight unitards — is that the fabric shifts when the body moves, resulting in sloppy, irregular signals. To deal with this, De Rossi's team developed software algorithms to clean up the data, along with code to reconstruct the wearer's movements. These programs are the real genius behind the company's work.

After the tank suit demo, De Rossi takes me upstairs to the University of Pisa lab he runs. There, an assistant shows me a piezoelectric shirt that will let disabled people operate a wheelchair using only shoulder nudges. Another researcher slips on a Spider-Man-like glove made of red Lycra and begins performing sign language that a computer translates into words. In another corner is a truck seat upholstered in fabric that recognizes the driver by monitoring "load distribution" — a polite way of saying it reads the precise dimensions of your backside.

As De Rossi leads me through his atelier, I mention that most of the clothes he designs are hipper than what's in my closet. He replies, "Even when you are sick, if you have something that doesn't look nice, you don't want to put it on."

UPDATE - Refinery 29: The Countdown

From Refinery29

Refinery29 goes behind the scenes at 5 upcoming designers preparing for New York Fashion week.

Episode 1: Thom Browne
Episode 2: Shipley & Halmos (below)
Episode 3: Erin Fetherston

Chapter 7: Eat your Chiffon I - II - III

Victoria's Secret

Marc Jacobs campaign featuring Victoria Beckham

YSL fashion show

Via CR

Creative Review reports reports about the YSL film at the recent Paris show.
Click here to view the film on the CR website.

Uniqlo Reborn

Via CR

Creative Review has an interesting post about Uniqlo's revival and re-positioning as a global fashion brand. It has hired a lot of creative talent to roll out new stores and to build an aspirational campaign and brand image.
I was already expecting a lot when they opened the first new global flagship in New York combined with a brilliant website and new logo design. Based on its success in New York with its new store and fashionable product offerings it is now also re-launching in the UK.

Click here for comprehensive article in Creative Review