A-Trak, Kimbra and Foster the People frontman Mark Foster have joined forces for “Warrior,” the latest track in Converse’s Three Artists, One Song series. The song is part of the launch of a line of footwear that will be sold exclusively at Journeys shops; it will be made available as a video and free download from the Journeys website on April 5th.
This week, I launched a new digital initiative experience called KICKS ON A PLANE. I wanted to create a platform to document my travels around the world and the shoes that have accompanied me. I’ve been flying steadily since 2002 and I think I’ve worn a different pair of shoes for each flight or at least for most of them (sick, I know). One of the things that I love most about traveling is people-watching and seeing what type of footwear people travel with. If you’ve ever worked in the fashion or footwear industry you know exactly what I am talking about (I know you do the same). The psychology behind some people’s choices of travel footwear is fascinating to me. The choices of travel footwear usually revolve around style, comfort and functionality, while others just want to break necks at the airport. Back in ’02, I started taking hundreds of pictures of my travel footwear, never really knowing what to do with it all. Those pictures just ended up buried on hard drive somewhere. The real idea of the name came to me after watching the movie Snakes on a Plane starring one of my favorite actors: Samuel L. Jackson. I thought flipping the name to “Kicks on a Plane” would be funny, especially because there are always so many “kicks” on a plane. Since then, I started compiling a comprehensive list of destinations, seat numbers, gate numbers and other pertinent travel information. I bought the domain, held onto for a few years and then voilà, the timing and space was right for a launch. I shared the idea with my friend Shane Stirling who came up with a brilliant design to document the experience and since I’m about community, in a few weeks you will also have the opportunity to submit your travel footwear pics to the site. In the meantime, please document all your travel footwear with the hashtag #kicksonaplane and #koap. I hope you enjoy it! Happy and safe travels!
Fashion Retailer Simons has recently picked up some of the worlds best international designers and brands. Simons is one of Canada’s oldest retailers with retail stores across Quebec. You can find most of these brands at their Flagship store in downtown Montreal.
It is remarkable to see Bentley get into the SUV categorie. The EXP 9 F looks sweet! The EXP 9 F is a fusion of contemporary crafted luxury, advanced in-car technology, commanding driving position and all-terrain capability in a spacious and high performance SUV. A full look at the concept car goes live here today. www.EXP9F.com.
“We are very excited by the potential of a high performance, ultra-luxury Bentley SUV,” says Wolfgang Dürheimer, Chairman and Chief Executive of Bentley Motors. “We know that many Bentley customers already own SUVs, admiring their style, luxury, performance and versatility. With EXP 9 F, Bentley is making a clear statement of intent that we have both the expertise and desire to meet and exceed their expectations.”
Unmistakably a Bentley in its signature British sporting character and high attention to hand-crafted detailing, the EXP 9 F could herald a third Bentley model-line alongside the bespoke Mulsanne and the high performance Continental GT, GTC and Flying Spur.
Please see below for more specific details regarding the new model’s key design features and additional resources.
Exterior:
Signature Bentley cues such as matrix grill, round lamps, and strong power-line and haunch along each flank
Turbine theme of the 23-inch alloy wheels which includes spokes reminiscent of the shape of turbine fan blades
Rear lights inspired by the forms and details of fighter jet engines
Interior:
Light, airy, contemporary cabin design with exquisite British “sporting” detailing such as handcrafted wood, leather and polished metal elements
Panoramic glass panel roof design that is inspired by the roll cages of rally cars
Luxurious and reversable silk wool floormats: one side finished in durable ribbed saddle leather
One-piece wood veneer dashboard
Technology:
Touchscreen and tailored interface technologies throughout the car
3D navigation flanked by two analogue reverse-read dials
Rear seat business mode with fold-down keyboard and internet connectivity via an iPad or tablet, powered footrest and infotainment movie screen
Cooled compartment for champagne and glasses under rear armrest
Two-piece tailgate that may be used as a viewing bench or picnic table
I’m very excited and honoured to partner up with Penfield to bring you guys an amazing online contest and journey. I love being able to give back to all the people who have been supporting me for all these years.
Penfield will launch an online competition revolving around one of their original styles: The Summit down jacket.
Penfield ‘Race for the Summit’ is a worldwide campaign that invites web users to embark on an online quest in search for the answers to ten clues – the first of which will be revealed through Penfield’s website: penfieldusa.com. The clues will lead participants on an online trail around a selection of influential blogs and websites. Once the answer has been found, the participant enters it via the competition page within their penfieldusa.com account and, if correct, the next clue is revealed. Two clues are released each week culminating in the final clue to be given out on December 15th, 2011.
What’s in it for you? The winners will be announced on December 20th, 2011 with a very special first prize of a one-off, custom-made ‘Race for the Summit’ premium down insulated parka (as seen above.) In addition, 3 classic Summit down insulated parkas, 5 Outback down insulated vests and 20 Sanford beanies from Penfield’s Fall/Winter 2011 collection are available to runners-up.
This is awesome! Have fun and good luck!!
It all kicks off on Thursday, make sure to like Penfield on facebook, follow @PenfieldUSA on twitter, and create your Penfield Account at their official website.
I am very excited about this!
Levi’s® Vintage Clothing, part of the Levi’s® XX division, is pleased to announce the launch of a new website, levisvintageclothing.com, the first ever global online presence for Levi’s® Vintage Clothing. “The Levi’s® Vintage Clothing collection is a unique undertaking for Levi’s® and a collection who’s rich history provides an almost endless opportunity for story telling.” Said Maurizio Donadi, senior vice president, Levi’s® XX. “With the launch of this website, we think we have found the perfect outlet to share the LVC story with the Levi’s® connoisseur.” The new website will offer a look inside one of America’s oldest and most iconic clothing companies, with historical information dating back to its founding as a California Gold Rush dry goods outfitter in San Francisco in 1853. Levi’s® Vintage Clothing takes pains to create near exact replicas of pieces from the Levi’s® archives, including many versions of the 501® jean, the first style of blue jeans ever created. Viewers can read about the history of the 501® jean and explore its design timeline and evolution from 1890 all the way up until 1966. Additionally, for the first time, denim enthusiasts will have access to images of the entire Levi’s® Vintage Clothing collection and will be able to locate a local retailer via the Levi’s® Vintage Clothing stockists.Eight versions of the iconic 501® jean are represented in detail on the new site, with images and historical background surrounding each pair’s release in the years that it underwent significant design alterations. In addition to history about the 501®, more images from Levi’s® extensive historical archives will be accessible in a way that was previously only possible by visiting the Levi’s® archives in San Francisco which are not open to the public. The site will be available in both English and Japanese, and readers can sign up for the Levi’s® Vintage Clothing newsletter, which will regularly send updates and news about the brand
Today in Los Angeles Nike released information on the release of the Nike MAG, featured 22 years ago in the Back to the Future II movie. I received a phone call today from Tinker Hatfield and Tiffany Beers to talk about the release of this iconic shoe and why this new initiative is so special.
See my conversation with Tinker & Tiffany below.
So the first question I have is, I want to know, why have you guys decided to release the shoe now, like, why now?
(Tinker)
We started this project roughly five years ago, based off of our desire to, I think, develop the shoe, because we knew that there was some demand for it in the sneaker world, but also because we originally wanted to do something to help the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Parkinson’s Disease. So that started five years ago, and we are simply releasing the shoe now because it’s ready, at least ready enough. The sooner the better, so that people gain more awareness for Parkinson’s Disease and also the money that’s going to be raised will be very helpful, too.
How did you guys keep such a monstrous project under wraps for so long and release it at such a last minute, how did you guys go about that?
(Tinker)
(Laughs) Well, for the first year and a half or so, the only two people that really knew anything about it were myself and Tiffany Beers and, just to clarify Tiffany’s role, she is the developer for this re-issue, this redesign of the movie shoe. So she’s been working with the engineers and she’s done some engineering herself, as well as just follow-through, going back and forth to Asia to make sure the samples were coming along. We were the only two that knew much about it, and then we spoke — when we had a decent sample, we then approached Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, and told him about our idea. He greenlighted the thing for further development and for more expensive processes and ultimately that little group grew to — just really in the last few months was this project really revealed to our own promo staff. That’s really how it stayed so quiet, at least up until it got revealed to our own internal promotions group, and then they’ve done just a remarkable job of conversing with their connections and making sure that people respected the privacy until the time was right.
That’s awesome. When did you guys decide to bring Michael J. Fox on board and what was his reaction when you told him this was happening?
(Tinker)
I went with Mark Parker and Pam McConnell. We have a good connection with Frank Marshall, who’s a producer and director for lots of Universal Studios stuff. Because of that, we were able to go have lunch with Michael J. Fox just a few weeks ago and tell him about the whole thing. He was overjoyed, and realized how this was going to benefit his foundation and was emotional and happy, and then agreed to go on the David Letterman Show. That’s how it got rolled out.
That’s amazing. So, when you guys designed the shoe about 22-23 years ago, did you ever have plans to release it or was it just for the movie?
(Tinker)
It was just for the movie. We designed the shoe, built roughly ten pairs for use in the movie and we got a couple of pairs back, if I’m not mistaken. And then the other pairs went missing, I think, for the most part.
(Laughs)
We have so many other projects that, we did the movie and then went on with our normal business. It really became, over time, obvious to us that there was something special about the movie. That particular scene in the movie where the shoes were introduced by Marty McFly, you know, where he put them on in the future?
Right.
And then this petition popped up a while back — just everything all lumped together sort of indicated to us that maybe if we went ahead and made the shoes and sold them that we could make it a sizeable contribution to charity, and in this case the charity is the Michael J Fox Foundation.
Do you remember the original influence for the design of the shoe back then? What were your influences?
(Tinker)
It was a unique project because normally, sitting down and collaborating with athletes there’s usually a really strong functional purpose behind all of the design work that we do, as you well know. But, all of a sudden, being asked to design a shoe for a fantasy world, a future fantasy world, it kind of took the shackles off and was kind of fond to think about what could you do if money and time were no object, or technology for that matter. The real inspiration was really more about trying to understand the script, the movie, the character, Marty McFly’s character and then trying to design something that was just unlike any other shoe at the time. What’s been mentioned today and we’ve noticed ourselves is that all these years later, the shoe still has a futuristic look and still seems unique. I guess maybe we were a little bit lucky.
How much work did you have to revise for the new version? Did you guys have to go back and re-tool everything, or was it kind of like an easy transition, how much work was actually involved?
(Tinker)
I’m going to just say upfront that there was nothing easy about this project, and then I’m going to let Tiffany talk to you about some of what it took to bring this shoe, essentially to the marketplace.
(Tiffany)
To my surprise, there was nothing left from the original make except for the few archived shoes that we had, so we literally had to start from scratch, completely over on the entire thing, basically explore the whole thing and figure it out again and do it in a way that it still duplicated the original as close as we could but became a little bit more durable and wearable. The first shoes were really built for a few wears and now we wanted to build it so that it could last a little bit longer.
Oh yeah, that was my follow-up question, if the actual original shoe was functional or not, so you’re saying it wasn’t really functional, it was only for a few wears, right?
Yeah, I’ll let Tinker speak to that.
(Tinker)
We built the shoes to essentially hold up for just four, five or six wearings, or whatever how many scenes it was going to take, and then the shoes were pretty much done. We had to engineer some lighting into those shoes back in the 1980s, when there wasn’t digital lighting or special little tiny cool lightbulbs or anything. It was really what I would call a quick — it was kind of a project where I would say that we had to come up with a futuristic design using very low-tech components.
(Laughs)
It was a difficult project and we delivered it on time to the movie and then, through the magic of movies, they made the shoe do what it did, and — they did light up, but it required a big battery pack that was in the back pocket of Marty McFly’s pants, which you weren’t supposed to see, and then there were wires down the legs of his pants, and the shoes had holes cut in the bottom, just different things that had to be done in order to complete the movie. All of that had to be miniaturized and put into some kind of form that would fit in a very low-profile, very minimalistic type of shoe. Tiffany,in particular, and a bunch of other teams really came up with some good solutions and over time we were able to achieve what we wanted. Like I said before, we are releasing this shoe now simply because it’s ready. And so, the sooner the better, again, for Parkinson’s.
Awesome. Thank you guys. One last question: were there any major design challenges for the re-issue?
I would say, of course, the electronics. Most of us think that electronics are second nature, you see them in everything, but really you don’t see a lot of sophisticated electronics in things that need to contort or bend or undergo a lot of shock and/or stress. That was not easy to engineer and I would say that was the singlemost difficult thing to do. Tiffany can give you more details on that. I just wanted to add that Mark Parker, our CEO, who was also involved in the original process of concepting the original movie shoe, we would take him samples over the course of time and he has a keen eye, he is a collector and has a collector mentality, really a sort of great sense of detail, so we kept bringing samples to him and he became our kind of go-to guy to make sure we were on the right track in getting us as close to the original as possible. Tiffany can now talk a little bit about the electronics because I think it’s actually an interesting story.
(Tiffany)
We really had to work hard to get it shrunk down and put into the shoe because it wasn’t only like a lot of other lighted shoes that there’s lights at the bottom only, but this had lights in the strap, it was in the upper, it was in the heel counter, pretty much we had to put electronics everywhere we could possibly fit them. Because the design was so minimal and so futuristic, it was really challenging. We did finally get it to work out and were still were able to – to your earlier question, we didn’t change much from the original. i mean, we had to shave things off. A couple millimeters here, a couple millimeters there, but nothing that’s super noticeable. As you see, the shoe is pretty much identical to the original shoe. We did add a few comfort features, like a little more foam here, a little more foam there, things like that, but overall, it’s an almost-identical replica.
Were there any new technologies that you used that are not found in other Nike products?
Well, Tiffany had to work with various engineering companies to basically put together connections for wires that were resitant to moisture. This whole notion that things have to bend and flex and move and take impact when you wear things on your feet. I think that they did things there that people haven’t done before.
(Tiffany)
We used some learnings from other industries, like some of our wire were from helicopters. I mean, it was super-precision electronics, some of the stuff was. I don’t know that it’s anything we’ve used in any other shoe.
OK. (laughs)
Even the exterior main material is a little bit different than the original, because it has to withstand the more abraision, has to be more UV stable. A number of things we normally do in the course of shoe design here at Nike that wasn’t done in the movie, because, again, it wasn’t going to go to the marketplace. Those things are unique to this shoe, and it’s kind of like whoever — there’s going to be a limited number of people that get these shoes, and whoever gets them are getting something pretty special, very unique, with a good story.
Are there any plans to ever release them as a regular release later on in the future?
No. To preserve the value of what people will spend for these shoes and the money that will — and hopefully, again, that’ll be as much as we can get for each shoe, so the amount of money to charity is the most we can come up with — In order to preserve that, we’re not going to re-release this shoe and we’re not going to commercialize it any further. What you will see, though, probably sometime in the future is that there will be some– this shoe has already helped inspire some unique design features on some new shoes and we are committed to designing shoes in the future that do come alive and do sense your body and do certain things, so this is a precursor to the future of probably all athletic shoes we design.
Great. And will you be wearing a pair yourself?
Will I be wearing a pair?
Yeah.
(Laughs)
Well, I don’t know if I’m gonna get a pair or not, to be honest.
(Laughs)
Our policy here is to not give away shoes, to treat these shoes as true vehicles for change in the fight against Parkinson’s Disease and, therefore, we’re really limiting, or actually, eliminating the whole practice of just giving shoes away to VIP’s and whatnot. People have to bid for them, they need to pay for them or do something really, really super-special to get them. Whether or not I get a pair remains to be seen.
(Tiffany)
Yeah, we’ll see if designing the actual shoe qualifies.
(Laughs)
That should qualify but I know it’s for a good cause and I think it’s great. I think people are gonna be really excited to kind of get their hands on them tonight.
We’re all getting these email messages and people are going crazy trying to figure out how to get a pair of shoes. You got your standard crowd who are used to getting things because they’re VIP’s and they’re not gonna get them.
I know a lot of people that are going to be upset if they don’t get them, but I mean — no, it’s for a good cause, When things are for causes it’s better off to pay the money and get it if you really want them, you know?
(Tinker)
I’ve just simply been telling people that if you want a pair, you have to bid, and that’s just sort of the end of it. -Marcus Troy
Special thanks to Jane, Matt, Mario,Tinker & Tiffany.
Today I had the opportunity to get the full look of the collaboration between Simon Kneen, creative director Banana Republic and Emmy Award- Winning MAD MEN costume designer, Janie Bryant.
The collection looks great.
Gramfeed allows you to see your instagram feed online. Great tool for reblogging your pictures and looking up other peoples instagram.
Ever wonder how amazing your instagram account is going? Well Statigram gives you a real comprehensive look at your account. Things like the first picture you posted, your best followers and your favourite filter.
Enjoy! Don’t say I never shared dope things with you guys.
The art of matching influences… Have you ever wanted to be inspired by design, product, pictures, landscapes, settings, people and especially color? Well I think Pantonism achieves just that with influences from all around the web. I am very excited about this site and I am more inspired than ever.
Yellow and Camo are my favorite sections, even though I get lost in Blue and Orange I really enjoy Camo anything.
pic via committee design
RECENT COMMENTS