Cool Hunting
| 27 February 2007view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Sneakerplay: The AF1 Playoffs
by SummerSeventySix
It's fair to say that we at Team Cool Hunting havn't gone for the whole Nike Air Force 1 anniversary in a huge way, but this collaboration between Nike iD and our favorite social networking site for sneakerheads could change all that.
Starting 6 March 2007, Sneakerplay members will be able to design their own AF1's on Nike iD and then have their handiwork voted on by the community. The pair that gets the most votes by the end of the week will then be specially made only for the winner, complete with bling sneaker jewelry. You know, it's a bit like Threadless, but with sneakers instead of t-shirts.
On the downside, you have to be a Sneakerplay member to take part. Luckily for you, we have 25 invites to giveaway, so go to the contact form at the bottom of the page and select "Sneakerplay Invites" from the pull-down menu to email us by the end of today, and we'll randomly use them up—but you have to promise to vote for my design!
Paula Ferber Shoes
by Ami Kealoha
Looking deceptively innocent among the other fashions at Surface To Air's new São Paulo boutique, the Brazilian designer Paula Ferber's flats appear to be a girlish shoe with just the right amount of au courant glam metallics. Looking more closely, they are in fact De Sade-worthy scenes of orgies, hand-cuffs and other sex toys. For more images of the subversive shoes, go here.
New Zenith El Primero Chronographs
by Watchismo
Black is the new black with the all-black titanium limited edition (100 models) Zenith Defy Xtreme Open Stealth Chronograph (pictured left). An El Primero (a famously advanced automatic movement developed in 1969), it features the latest caliber 4021SX automatic movement from their brand-defining engines. Appearing to have high speed fan blades for chronograph registers, the Stealth version ends up more dangerous-looking than the original Defy Xtreme Citius, Altius and Fortius. (Just try your best not to laugh at the ridiculous looking models in their ads, I failed.) The new Stealth also comes in an edition of white titanium, also limited to 100.
Another new El Primero, the Rectangular Grande Port-Royal Tourbillon Chronograph with El Primero 4007 (pictured above right) was inspired by martial arts and New York City bridges according to Thierry Nataf, CEO and Artistic Director of Zenith.
See more info here and for an overview of vintage El Primeros go here.
The Burning House
by Wendy Dembo
I was recently in L.A. for the weekend and was lucky enough to catch “The Burning House,” a collaborative installation by Faile, Swoon and David Ellis at New Image Art now extended through 17 March 2007.
Walking into the gallery is overwhelming. Much like Wooster on Spring, Every inch of wall, window, or door has been wheat pasted or painted over. (Click above image for detail.) As your eyes adjust, you start to see that a Swoon fish cut-out intertwines with a David Ellis “motion” painting, which are on top of a Faile sign. A beautiful and cohesive collaboration, it's hard to tell where one artist’s work ends and another begins.
There also are individual works by each artist. Ellis has cute cut-out and painted trucks, Swoon has a few individual portraits including a striking pregnant woman called, “Zahra” and Faile has an array of their pulp fiction-inspired canvases. See more images here or catch it in in the “Guest Room” of the Museum Hetdomein Sittard the Netherlands starting this May.
The Burning House
20 January-17 March 2007
New Image Art Gallery
7908 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046 map
tel. +1 323 654 2192
The Burning House
11 May-18 June 2007
Museum Hetdomein Sittard
Kapittelstraat 6
NL-6131 ER Sittard
tel. +31 46 4513460
Yao: Plaintain is Public
by Ami Kealoha
With an eclectic, densely-layered soundscape featuring everything from re-mixed 70s-era funk guitar over 90s beats to ominous and weird Kool Keith-style sounds, Oakland-based DJ Yao is very much a product of his generation—in the very best of ways. His recently-released debut album, Plaintain is Public, is a seamless trip through different moods and genres, "each track a vignette or short story," according to the press release.
But those looking for mellow background noise won't find it on Plaintain; even traditional Latin music gets reworked and chopped under Yao's hand and he splices in dialogue sampled from films and found sounds, just to name a few of his techniques. The frenetic stops and starts as well as the fluency of his widely diverse references are more hints at the young producer's age, which is to say that Yao's album feels fresh and intelligent, the result of a broad range of influences skillfully mixed into a cohesive and energetic whole. Pick it up from Solos, the SF-based label Yao helps run.
