Bicycle Film Festival x Puma: The Re-Bike Project

by Jacob Resneck

As the Bicycle Film Festival winds its way from city to city, part of their unique sponsorship with Puma includes the Puma Re-Bike project that helps bike charities in five North American cities.

What Puma did was donate $200 to seven magazines challenging each to build a cycle from recycled parts reflecting their periodical's theme. Don't worry, they didn't waste two c-notes on Men's Health and Look!, they gave cash to faves like Vice, Swindle and The Fader and the results have been impressive. Each bike is being auctioned off with the proceeds going to worthy groups like The Bike Kitchen in San Francisco and other righteous bike charities based in cities where the film fest sweeps through.

Participating magazines: The Fader, Vice, URB, XLR8R, Theme, Swindle and Anthem.

Artysm Sweats

by Tim Yu

Even as a fashion statement, sweat suits are best reserved for the gym but these Jack'Art versions by French brand Artysm are undeniably fresh. Made in Paris and 100% cotton, the harlequin-like diamond pattern lends a touch of European flair. With all-over woven construction and contrasting stitching, they ooze original style while prioritizing comfort.

My favorites are the sweatpants, as I'm always looking for a way to feel like I'm in bed all day on Sundays but still be able to leave the house. I've even been kinda wishing it were a little colder out so I'd have an excuse to wear them.

Different colors and varieties of the sweats, including v-necks, crews and hoodies, are available starting at €205 at Le Bouclard or Styleserver.

Mondaine Watch

by Ami Kealoha

As soon I saw Mondaine's playfully crisp design in the display case among all the brightly colored and other "design" watches in the Conran Shop display case, I knew it was the one for me.

I'd recently decided to put an end to digging out my phone to know the time and, after discussing the idea over dinner the other day with Josh, Evan and CH's go-to watch master, was even more enamored with the idea of a watch as a proper, functional accessory. I tried on a few of the men's watches at the table, all steel and of course too big, only getting as far as deciding on something classic but not boring.

Designed in 1986, the award-winning Mondaine's clean, bold lines and exaggerated dot on the end of the red seconds hand combine for a pop art-like effect that's characteristic of the era. The original design however comes from the Swiss railway's official clock which was designed by engineer Hans Hilfiker in 1944. (I like to call the combined design references of the two time periods "feighties.")

Hilfiker developed a unique trick to ensure precision, moving the minute hand to the next minute when the seconds hand is only at 58 seconds, a method that has helped make Switzerland "the most punctual city in the world" and also a feature of the watches.

Green Tee Clothing Company: Gifted

by Jacob Resneck

MomiMomi has consistently been one of CH's most-liked t-shirt lines, so we're happy to see that one of the designers is going green with his new line, Green Tee Clothing Company. Now based in Florida, designer Danny Leder, launched the collection printed exclusively on organic cotton using only water-based inks last month at the Project tradeshow.

The theme for their second collection, which will be out just in time for the holidays, is "Gifted," exploring the inherent contradiction between natural beauty and modern materialism (both referred to as "gifts" in our language).

"Humans have a funny (and often seemingly arbitrary) way of giving value to the 'gifts' that nature's bounty bestows upon them," observes Leder. "They ascribe the promise of a fulfilled wish to blowing apart the fuzz of a dandelion blossom; infinite monetary worth to strange rocks that come from the belly of the planet ... The graphics in our second line give a subtle nod and a little thanks to these peculiar relationships."

This latest line of clothing hasn't been posted on the website yet, but you can contact Green Tee directly to see what we're talking about.

Battle: Vinyl War

by Phuong-Cac Nguyen

Four years, three painstakingly-detailed sets, 28 sassy characters, a head-shaking 10,000 photos later and Terpins Greco, the 40-member Brazilian team responsible for producing Battle: The Vinyl War, is finally seeing the juicy fruits of their labor. This month and next their stop-motion animation will be shown on Brazil's Cartoon Network channel in a four-part weekly series.

The shorts, which clock in at a brief five minutes each, follow the story of a vinyl shakedown between two DJs set in the favelas of São Paulo. Though all fictional, it's the classic story of the established versus the newcomer. DJ Black Jahmantha, a man who needs no introduction, faces DJ Air, a new up-and-comer, while DJ Thiade oversees the battle. Staying true to real life scenes found in Brazilian street and hip-hop culture, famous underground hip-hop DJs King and Cia were recruited to be the voices and music behind the main characters and Thiade got to cameo as himself.

The successive shorts, which began last Friday, 21 September 2007, will air over the next few Fridays at midnight on the Brazilian cable network. The rest of us will have to wait for their plans to expand the broadcast to all of Latin America and eventually land in the U.S. at a future undetermined date. For now, check out the trailer here.