Arkiv för inlägg med taggen: Nike

Berlin Summer BBB Day 2, 3 and more bcktrckng

3 augusti, 2012 //
1

Day 2 of the summer tradeshow trip. No rest for the wicked. Up early to a breakfast meeting with Vans to talk about secret projects. And as it is impossible to get a cab after 9 me and Peter decided to walk back to our hotel.

A few appointments this day, and with my bag lost and the deadline on Nike spring 2013 we had to split up after the visit to Seek. I had so much fun at Seek that I forgot to take pictures… Not really. But I will tell you that the Our Legacy collection looked decent. Shoes were alright, and there are some really nice pieces of fashion in their clothing line. You can expect to find Our Legacy at Sneakersnstuff any day now.

After that I took refuge to the hotel lobby with my laptop to nail down the Nike sp13 order. There are some true iconic classics within the Nike Air Max range (for example a super nice vintage Nike Air Max 90 Infrared) that will be back and the question was how to fit in a really huge order of those besides the rest of the collection that also looked nice. I think I managed ok. And oh yeah, the Air Jordan 5 Retro will be back for spring 13. In white/blk/fire red. However, Nike changed the rules of Jordan to not letting us order as many as we would want. Not even near as many. So it will be mayhem when we release them this spring.

Done and happy I walked in to the Supra showroom. I think they get my vote for best showroom this time as well. Nice food. Good coffee. Nice people. Shuttle service. What more could you ask for? I know I told you this before. I’m not a skater. But I am also not a hater, and Supra has some nice shoes out.

After Supra we rolled on to the Opening Ceremony x Adidas Originals press event of whatever it was called. Met Umberto and Rachel and the rest of the Adi crew. I love my job. I get to hang out with fun people all the time. The Spring 13 collection is way better than the Fall 12 if you ask me. So much easier to wear. But the second delivery of Opening Ceremony x Adidas Originals fall 12 is not shabby either.

And on to the Wesc x SNS x Vice party. Apparently the party was held in Goebbels old bunker. And apparently it was raining as hell when we started. But never the less. Me and Jonas was up for 2 hours on the decks. And we had a lot of fun. Smart man as I am, I left my phone in a puddle to charge it.. so it was dead for a good 4-5 hours… so no epic pics. But we had an epic time though. Thanks for putting us on WeSC. Let’s do it again soon. Perhaps in a sunnier and warmer place?

Day 3 was more of a sum up. We looked through the OC x Adi collection again to place the orders, and then dinner with Otto to talk more secrets. There was a lot of secret talks this trip. Had the privilege to hang out with our Sneakersnstuff Malmö store manager Tuan for the rest of the afternoon as we both was going to Copenhagen.

Back home it was time for vacation with the family. And the summer of rain and cold was well on it’s way.

Wow – what a pretentious sum up. Well, for what it’s worth I’ve managed to get David ”shitballs” ”nowhitesauce” Wilson to start instagram.

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Kategorier Family&Friends, Music, Sneakersnstuff, Travel, Uncategorized

Back in Berlin – Day 1 – Still back tracking…

27 juli, 2012 //
6

Tradeshow season is here, and it was time to head down to Berlin. Me and Tuan flew in from Copenhagen as my family stayed with the in-laws in Malmö. That could have started better I guess… my danish is a bit rusty at 7 in the morning. And well in Berlin it turns out that my bag was missing. Not sure how they even managed. They should have had about 15 bags, but only about 10 bags made it… And Charlotte, who flew in from Stockholm with Peter, Johan, Erik J and Thomas, also had her bag lost by Air Berlin…

So after filing the bags missing to the very German woman at that desk, we came into our hotel a bit later than expected. But after a steady breakfast at Oliv, things felt a little better. And then one Supra shuttle service (good service) to go to hell on earth… aka Bread & Butter. That tradeshow is the oposite of inspiration… Still, a lot of good people we know are there, so we kind of have to go. Besides, we had a few meetings booked.

First of was Asics, who told us that there would be no Asics for 2013… I mean, not for lifestyle anyway. All lifestyle products will be branded with Onitsuka Tiger. But the door was not completely shut for still releasing some LE’s from the GEL series. After that we bumped into big surf dude Magnus Wedhammar who is now at Converse in Boston. Magnus was our first apparel sales rep for Nike back in the days so we go way back and it was good to see him of course.

Then grabbed some invites for the party that we had with WeSC and Vice on the thursday and had a nice chit chat with the good people from Stockholms finest Skatewear brand. Danne Schön was still awake at this hour.

Well, showing face and chit chatting is very tiring, so we all decided to have lunch in the sun. And then on to the ”new” section. It was called fire department or something. Said hi to CP-Johan (Carhartt-Pointer) on the way, and then had some dried reindeer meat at Denim Demon who had showed up at BBB for the first time.

The main objective with Wednesday evening though, was to eat burgers at The Bird on Pontus’s expense. Not that it has to be on his expense, but it just is. And the best thing about going to The Bird, besides the killer burgers, is the fact that most of the good friends – and the reasons why you go to Berlin – are there too.

Oh snap – I forgot. We found David C Wilson somewhere between the Asics booth and meeting Wedhammar. He snuck me a ice cold Small Sake and I kept it in my pocket for 30 minutes. Small Sake is best enjoyed ice cold. But still. David C Wilson!

To sum up Day 1, we ended up at a Our Legacy/Rollerboys party somewhere… that was also fun. And for the record Viktor Tell could use a haircut. And you will find Our Legacy at Sneakersnstuff any day now.

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Kategorier Sneakers, Sneakersnstuff, Travel

A Tres Bien night in Paris – still back tracking

22 maj, 2012 //
13

Back from Las Vegas and New York, I just had time for my birthday and hang out with my wife and kids for a bit, and then back on the road. Or plane…
Nike Sportswear has a few collections under their umbrella, but perhaps the most exciting one right now is the Nike x Undercover line. The Nike x Undercover line, also known as the Nike Gyakusou Line is running clothes designed by Jun Takahashi and his Undercover team, and it has that perfect balance of extremely detailed, yet very clean. And that was the main reason for us to come to Paris for 2 days.

On top of that Nike also showed their Nike Pinnacle line, and some nice Nike Quickstrikes, and Nike TierZero styles. In case you are not as snowed in on this as I might be, I will give you a quick explanation of these terms.

Nike Pinnacle – almost what it sounds like. This has been the home for some top of the line clothing from Nike. You will usually find really well designed and underrated pieces of clothing in that range. With details as waterproof cotton, hidden zippers and so on. From what I hear, 2012 will be the last year for Nike Pinnacle. But you never know with these things.

Nike Quickstrike – if you like what you see and it says Nike Quickstrike – it means you have to strike quick. It also means that the productions is limited. For us it means a range of shoes that are outside the ordinary range that we buy into 4 times a year. Nike Quickstrikes are spread out over the year and have one drop every other (or sometimes every) week on Fridays (and some occasional Wednesday). I think there are about 5-10 Nike Quickstrike accounts within Sweden, but don’t quote me on that. But I know for a fact that Sneakersnstuff has been a Nike Quickstrike account since the release of the Edge pack with the Nike Air Force II, Nike Air Trainer 1 and the Nike Air Max 90. I think that was around 2002.

Nike TierZero – What we are gonna do right here is to go back. Back into time (hiphop voice) to 1999 when we opened Sneakersnstuff. At that time there was no Nike Sportswear. Just Nike. And the same guy that sold us running shoes was the same guy who sold us Nike Air Force 1 (What’s up Fryken). In fact, most of the styles we bought at that time were new styles. Not just retroed styles in new colorways. Some times I miss those days. Anyway – when the retro business started to blow up, Nike came up with the idea to tier all their accounts into different levels. Tier 1 was top level and stores on that level could get access to everything. Tier 2 was a bit more average stores, and they could not get access to all products. And so on. This was to segment the market to keep the interest in the brand as they grew rapidly. It would be hard to keep the attention from all the trendsetters if all, let’s say, price focused stores were able to buy all the coolest stuff. That could make even the coolest sneaker uncool.
Well – as the business grew, Nike had to keep pushing the boundaries of cool. And now they had a problem, since they already had some decent stores in Tier 1. But to top it of with even more limited runs of sneakers – they created Nike Tier Zero. So, at stores with Tier Zero account is where you can find even more limited stuff.
So far so good. But today this has all evolved a bit. Even though Nike Tier Zero still only has one door (yes, Sneakersnstuff are very proud to be Sweden’s only Nike Tier Zero account), Nike has lately added TierZero+(that really should be named TierZero- since it’s one level down from Tier Zero) and some other variations to the Nike TierZero world. So if you ask me what the rules are today, I don’t think anyone really knows anymore. Still – it is under Nike TierZero you will find some of the more hard to get styles.

And there you have it. A back dated update of my life. This updates brings you up to date to March 1st. Don’t be surprised if my next post will quickly sum up April and May to just get back to now. Because I am not really feeling this back-tracking thing…

And oh yeah – most of the time we go to Paris, we see the brothers from Tres Bien Shop. Not sure why, because most of the brands they deal with are Japanese. They should change their name to とても良いお店. Still, I like those guys. And they have a very good selection of brouges and such.

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Kategorier Sneakers, Travel

Nike Cortez celebrates 40 years

1 februari, 2012 //
22

But is it really the 40th birthday of Nike Cortez? To find out, we have to go back in Nike history to the late 60’s. Most of you might know that before Nike, Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight worked with Onitsuka Tiger, today also known as Asics. Bill Bowerman was a running coach at the University of Oregon with a lot of ideas. Phil Knight was a middle distance runner who studied journalism at the University of Oregon. And that is where the two founder of Nike met.

After graduating Phil Knight joined the Army where he was active for one year before starting to study economics at Stanford. This is where the Nike saga begins. Inspired by Bill Bowermans quest to improve the shoes for the athletes he coached – Phil wrote an essay entitled ””Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?” and that pretty much says it all. Adidas was pretty dominant at that time, and Puma was the runner up. Even in the US. So, in 1962 he went to Japan where he saw the Tiger shoes. As everything made in Japan, these shoes were of top quality. And they did not cost a fortune either. In a very American way, he called the owner, Mr.. Onitsuka who agreed to meet with Phil. Phil told some made up story that he was an importer/exporter from US, and wanted to distribute the Tiger shoes there.

Somehow he convinced Mr. Onitsuka to give him exclusive rights to the west of USA. When asked what his company was called, Phil was caught a bit of guard. He didn’t have a company yet, but had to make something up. Allegedly Phil said Blue Ribbon Sports, since his favorite beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. True or not, I like that part of the story so I am sticking to it.

Phil ordered samples, and went home. It took over a year to receive the first samples. I don’t know about you, but I would have given up after a few months. When Phil got the samples he mailed some of them to his old track and field coach Bill Bowerman who called back, not only with feedback – but he wanted to join Phil. Bill already had a bunch of ideas on how to improve sportshoes… And so it begun. Blue Ribbon Sports started to import shoes, and also to help Tiger with developing.

1968 Tiger launched the Bill Bowerman designed Corsair. It featured a full length foam cushioning, and a light weight leather upper. The outsole had a herringbone pattern. It was, compared to what could be found from the German giant adidas, a footwear revolution.

In the early days of the 70s BRS and Tiger Company parted ways. As Bill Bowerman was the designer of the Corsair, they agreed on slitting the rights to that shoe but not the name. So when Nike released it in 1972 they named it Nike Cortez. Today, Nike Cortez is a classic and has sold way more pairs than its origin Onitsuka Tiger Corsair which is still in production. And since the shoe was renamed, and also had the famous Swoosh added in 1972, I would say it is wrong to celebrate its 40th birthday this year.

Happy Birthday Nike Cortez

And by the way. If you haven’t checked out Gary‘s work on the complete guide to Seinfeld’s sneakers, you need to do that right now.

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Kategorier Sneakers

Alla som har lärt sig något om Nike x Undercover GIRA efter detta räcker upp en hand

13 oktober, 2011 //
0

På lördag är det äntligen dags för den nya Gyakusou linjen att släppas. Kollektionen har precis landat i butiken. Och jag kan, utan att försöka låta som om jag försöker sälja på er något, säga att den ser sjukt fin ut. Om du är löpare, och gillar design – det här är din kollektion. Om du bara gillar design men inte springer så mycket? Det här är ändå din kollektion.

För att fira releasen så har vi och Nike Sportswear bjudit in kvartersnykomlingarna Beijing8 att svarva ihop lite dumplings och dricka. Så, kom förbi Åsögatan 124 klockan 11.00 på lördag.

Osäker på vem fan Jun Takahashi är? Och vad Nike x Undercover GIRA står för? Well, let me tell you. I början av 90-talet så träffades två glada japaner på college i Tokyo. De kallade sig för Nigo och Jonio

Jonio var ju den lite tuffare av dem som redan kände lite coolt folk som till exempel Hiroshi Fujiwara. Och eftersom många tyckte att Hiroshi och Nigo var så lika, så fick Nigo heta just Nigo som betyder ”number 2” på japanska. Ni fattar va? Alltså, Nigo är inte född till Nigo – men eftersom han är större än rockstjärnor nu så går det knappt att få fram hans riktiga namn Tomoaki Nagao längre.

Anyways… Nigo och Jonio fick jobb på en tidning som hette Popeye & Olive, först som modeskribenter (typ som Café Daniel eller Elin von Sydow och Ebba Kling… fundera på det lite), och Nigo fick även lite stylistjobb. Men inspirerade av sitt jobb, och påhejade av Hiroshi Fujiwara så öppnade de sin egen butik 1993. Den hette Nowhere. Och som vilken butik av självaktning som helst så började de sin bana med att åka till USA för att köpa varor i väskor och ta med sig hem för att sälja i butiken.

Tokyo är ju en ganska stor stad, så det där fick bra fart och grabbarna fick damma över till staterna 2 gånger i månaden. Men de märkte ganska snart att genomförsäljningen började svajja, och att det började bli lite jobbigt att flyga fram och tillbaka hela tiden. Så dom testade att göra lite tishor. Och det gick ganska bra. Så Nigo sa till Jonio att ”det här var fan ganska roligt, och jag är fan ganska less på att ha typ en zilliard eurobonuspoäng som aldrig går att använda till något”. ”Jag håller med dig Nigo” sa Jonio. ”Jag tycker att du ska satsa lite på det här med t-shirts och sånt. Jag tror att det kan bli en stor grej för dig”.

”Själv ska jag nog sikta lite mer på fashiondelen” sa Jonio.

Allt detta sa de ju givetvis på japanska, så det är relativt fritt översatt.

Så – Nigo drog igång A Bathing Ape. Han har gett flera förklaringar på vad fan han menar med det namnet, men det vanligaste är att det anspelar på ”bathing in lukewarm water” vilket betyder typ – alla bara gör som alla andra, och var något av en pik till det likriktade mode som Tokyo bjöd på då.

Jonio då? Jo, självklart finns det en poäng med detta ändlösa rantande om japaner. Jonio är ju Jun Takahashi. Och ja, han drog i gång Undercover.

Och varför skulle då detta vara intressant för Sneakersnstuff? Ni spelar ju bara hiphop och har Mecka jeans och skitstora t-shirts? Nej, då har du inte varit förbi på ett tag. Pharell och Kanye West dödade ju hela den där prylen, så även om vi fortfarande spelar hiphop, och oftast samma hiphop som vi spelade för 15-30 år sen, så kan jag tipsa om att vi har svarvat ihop ett sjukt fint klädsortiment.

Men, vi är inte ännu så kaxiga så att vi har plockat in Undercover. Men det löste sig ändå för ett drygt år sen. Det visade sig nämligen att den killen som har mest fria händer på Nike Sportswear – Fraser Cooke – bor i Tokyo sedan en massa år tillbaka. Och han hänger ju med Hiroshi och grabbarna. Och gillar Jun Takahashi, och de har velat göra ett bra samarbete ihop under en längre tid men aldrig riktigt fått till det helt naturligt.

Men så visade sig det plötsligt att Jun Takahashi blivit löparbiten. Och då menar jag inte som jag, ut och springa 10-15 gånger på sommaren. Nej, han brann för det. Och han och hans Undercover polare (och säkert några andra) startade GIRA. Gyakusou International Running Association. Gyakusou är inte bara sjukt jobbigt att stava till. Det betyder också någonting. Motsols. Så, grabbarna (och tjejerna) i GIRA träffas alltså och springer motsols, alltså åt det hållet man inte ska springa i löparspåret. Martin har lärt mig (via en twitterdisskussion med Petter) att det heter Salmoning i cykelkretsar. Well, i Japan heter det Gyakusou och är skitcoolt.

Soo, trumvirvel nu, för det är nära slutet och då får jag gå och lägga mig…. Fraser Cooke såg till att Jun Takahashi fick göra en löparkollektion deluxe. Och för er som har sett de tidigare kollektionerna så är det just vad det är. Det är detaljer överallt, och han har tänkt på det mesta.

Jag kommer att köpa ett bra urval av detta. Om inte annat för att motivera mig att springa 10-15 ggr till innan året är slut.

Sådär, jag hoppas att ni har lärt er något i alla fall. Mycket var säkerligen upprepning, men det är så man lär sig också. Och glöm nu inte för tusan hakar att komma förbi butiken på lördag och käka lite dumplings. Dom är sjukt goda och värda besöket bara dom.

Etiketter ,
Kategorier Uncategorized
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