Found this little beauty at a Brussels vintage shop last weekend. Dead cheap. Guess because they’re from 2007, so not really vintage. I hope the missus fits in them as she wasn’t with me and they’re half a size off. Oh well, nothing a little surgery can’t fix. After all remember what the Chinese were able to achieve.
Anyways, they’re Nike Zoom Blazers retro style with black suede and grape shoelaces, swoosh and sole. They’re inspired by the basketball shoe legend Blazer from the early 1970s. The Blazer was Nike’s first basketball shoe with such a huge Swoosh, so really everyone could see it.
This is about as good as a woman sneakers can get. Perfect I tell ya!
Filed under: Design | Tags: BapeSta, ice cream, MY41, puma, PUMA MIHARA, sneakers
Remember these Bapesta sneakers? They just found their rivals.
These brand spanking new ‘MY41′ Puma’s - designed by Yasuhuro Mihara (say thàt 10 times fast) – are certainly as dazzling as the Bapesta sneakers.
And why do I suddenly feel a need for ice cream?
via: Knotoryus.com
Filed under: Art, Design | Tags: Centre Pompidou, Park, Pencil eraser skull, Pointdextr, Printemps Design boutique, Skulls, Skullz, Toykyo, Vienna, Wien
Skullz galore! My favourite ones at the moment:
Pencil eraser skull.
For sale at the Printemps Design boutique @ Centre Pompidou.
Skull candle (black or white, different sizes)
For sale at Park, Vienna.
‘Keep The Flame Alive’ skull candle by Pointdextr.
For sale in different colours at Toykyo, Ghent .
Filed under: Design, Music | Tags: Aidan Moffat, Arab Strap, box set packaging, Chemikal Underground Records, How To Get To Heaven From Scotland
With record companies complaining about the decline of CD sales there are musicians out there who know how to persuade their fans into buying the cd-version of their output.
Take Aidan Moffat (ex-Arab Strap) who just released a new solo album ‘How To Get To Heaven From Scotland’. The album is available as a ‘deluxe box set’ that really pushes the boat out and offers more in the way of content than most artists would provide over three seperate releases.
This is what you get:
• Full enhanced CD version of the album.
• Full 12″ LP vinyl version of the album.
• An exclusive 5 track EP with alternate versions of album tracks + bonus track.
• An exclusive 7″ with covers of ‘I Got You Babe’ by Sonny & Cher and ‘Love Is Not A Game’ by Glen Campbell.
• A ‘How To Get To Heaven From Scotland’ board game with die and counters.
• A Valentine’s Card with envelope – individually numbered and signed by Aidan.
And they only ask £30 for it which – if my memory serves me right – is less than what Radiohead asked for their ‘In Rainbows’ box set.
And the artwork is super too (click the image for a better view). Look how they took the album cover and turned it into some sort of MB toy packaging. (Although we’ve seen that one before)
Filed under: Art, Design, Webstuff | Tags: Bue, Fixit, Kaiser, Parra, Pest, Pointdextr, Remed, Toykyo, ZetKa
TOYKYO is a great shop in Ghent that sells art prints, art books, spray cans, t-shirts, etcetera. TOYKYO grew out of the ZetKa street art crew (Pointdextr, Kaiser, Bue, Fixit and Pest) who are responsible for the Kalashnikov carpet on top of this page.
TOYKYO also doubles as a creative studio and production company that pretty much designs everything you want to get designed. For this work they use some of the best street and graffiti artists/designers/illustrators in the country (the ZetKa guys, Hell’O Monsters,…). They’ve done stuff for Mercedes, Hugo Boss, Nike, Culture Club, Disko Drunkards (the new cd artwork) and many many more. One of my favourites is the graphics they did for a Jean-Paul Gaultier perfume launch. The cassette tape wallpaper is just super. See pictures below.
Photos from a great deal of their productions are now available on their brand new website toykyo.be. It’s a real treasure trove full of stuff you could blog about for weeks. Don’t worry, I won’t. Check out this great site for yourself.
(Pity the web-shop is gone though.)
Filed under: Art, Design, Music | Tags: At Arms NYC, Daniel Johnston, Jeremiah the Innocent, vinyl toys
There’s no stopping the vinyl toy craze. Now they’ve even made toys of Daniel Johnston’s famous Jeremiah The Innocent frog character.
I love how they try to sell these things to people. With stuff like “Only 20 of the green edition of 250 include limited edition signed card.” Blimey! Or even better: ”includes tree stump base and collectors box”!
It has a tree stump base! So what’s holding you back?
And a collectors box! In which you can put the toy, so you can no longer see what you’ve bought. Just what you needed!
[I have to admit though, I quite like the box. A lot more than the toy itself.]
Filed under: Design | Tags: Austria, dasparkhotel, Ottensheim, sewer hotel
While we’re on the subject of hotels, I just bumped into some photos of dasparkhotel in Ottensheim, Austria that I want to show you. The hotel consists of 3 modified sewer pipes. There’s a large bed in there and the pipes even have a funny little sky window. It’s a bit ironic though that while you’re sleeping in a sewer pipe, you have to go to a nearby building to find a toilet. This is compensated by the fact that you can decide for yourself how much you want to pay for staying in the hotel.
All very nice, but the thing is: I’m sure this is just a plot by some fun-loving locals. This is what happens: they all go out for a drink in the pub, wait until a pipe is occupied, then sneak up to it in the middle of the night and start rolling it around the park. Inhabitants and all. So really you should be glad there’s not toilet in there. Image the results. No wait, DON’T imagine the results.
But I don’t think we should be too worried as I don’t think anyone knows where the fuck Ottensheim is. And even if we did: why the hell would we want to go there? Someone? Please?
Filed under: Art, Design | Tags: Blastus, Design and breakfast, Design hotel, Desro, Ewing 33, Gent, Hell'O Monsters, Tatone, Toykyo
Hell’O Monsters is a street art collective from Brussels formed by Blastus, Desro, Ewing 33 and Tatone. They are without a doubt Belgium’s best street art collective, along with the ZetKa guys.
Hell’O Monsters were recently released from their cage to do their monstrous thing in a room at Design & Breakfast in Ghent. This bed & breakfast is owned by model An Oost and her boyfriend (who’s a modern antiques dealer – and it shows). They gave some artists the change to give the place a face-lift resulting in the kind of rooms like you see below. Niiiice! (If you’re into three-eyed people, split skulls and dog cat-faced girls that is. But then again, who isn’t?)
Filed under: Art, Design, Music | Tags: album art, Eero Johannes, Planet µ Records, planet mu
…goes to the self titled debut album by Eero Johannes. Johannes did not only write the music (the record label calls it synthetic funk, high-on- sugar-electronica), he’s also resposible for the album artwork.
The cover somewhat looks like someone raided the medicine cabinet, swallowed all the pills and puked them out again, leaving an outburst of colour on the bathroom floor.
At first you are just overwhelmed by this eruption of shapes and colours, so it takes some time to notice that they actually represent letters that form the name Eero Johannes. Which makes this cover even better. Hell, it would have been my cover of the year even if the shapes didn’t represent anything at all (well, anything else than pill vomit that is). I could perfectly see this hanging on a wall as a piece of ‘real’ art.
The back cover and most of the other album related art is done in a similar multi-coloured seventies style vein. See examples below.
Filed under: Art, Design | Tags: bart simpson, damien hirst, rotofugi, The 40 Year Old Virgin, vinyl toys
I have no idea what is up with this whole vinyl toy collecting frenzy that seems to be going on at the moment. Someone please tell me what it’s all about?! I’m sorry, but it just reminds me a bit too much of The 40 Year Old Virgin and his sci-fi toy collection.
I just bumped into a great video, which seemed to make fun of this whole vinyl toy collecting.
The thing is, in the end it turns out to be a commercial for … a vinyl toy store. Oh hell.
Still a bloody great commercial though. Excellent idea and all the details are so spot on (the people they use, the things that are being said,…). Click the image below to watch it.
PS I have to admit though, I quite like this Bart Simpson goes Damien Hirst toy:
