Monthly Archives: July 2010

And finally, some lasting impressions from World Cup’s 3rd place winner, Germany:

by bobbyhundreds

It’s 3am in Berlin and the night wants desperately to break into day.  We’re so far up north in Europe that it only stays true dark for a few hours really.  The sun is always fastened to the horizon.

Ben, Scotty iLL, B.Mo, and I have just left our last party.  The cabbie drops us off at an all-hours Turkish cafe and we’re seated at a sidewalk table, between dueling trios of weathered Turkish men engaged in smoldering conversation.  The waiter starts doling out the dishes: piping hot kabob plates with creamy yogurt drinks and mixed grilled vegetables.  Beef and lamb marinated in grease and spices and more grease and even more spices.  Turkish food is gooood.

A girl pedals up on a creaky bicycle.  She’s sweet and cherubic, plucked right off of the Sistine’s walls. Her hair is unkempt and mousey, probably the last thing on her mind.  The headphones are out of place, maybe a bit too designed for her laissez-faire life, but fittingly, she’s a glowing WESC advertisement.  Without looking up from her phone, or getting off her bike, she mutters rapid-fire German. And then she asks again. In German.

“Sorry. We don’t speak..”

“Oh. Do you know where Bar So-and-So is?”  Now she speaks fluent English, although infused with an unmistakable Australian accent.  Her name is Ava, she tells us, she grew up Aussie but moved to Germany 8 years ago for no real reason.  (I still find it so cool, and subsequently embarrassing, that most people outside of the States are proficient in multiple languages).  Ava has an Audrey Kawasaki piece tattooed on her arm — I wanna know about it.  She’s impressed that I’m familiar with Audrey Kawasaki’s art, and then I realize how spoiled I am to live in L.A. and be exposed to great artists all the time.

Ava is a goldsmith.  She is trying to get her jewelry off the ground, but running into a wall when it comes to slick marketing efforts.  She just wants to create!  She shows off some of her wares. They’re really good.

The bar she’s looking for turns out to be right around the corner, and it also turns out to be a gay bar.  She invites us along, but we decline.  She tries one more time, gives up reluctantly, and then Ava rides off.

Berlin, Germany is actually a strong bohemian city.  Supposedly, young artists can get by sufficiently here, in the wake of the political and socioeconomic crises that their parents endured.  As I’ve reiterated plenty times before, the greatest creativity comes from struggle, and Ava is proof of that.

by bobbyhundreds

Jeff Carvalho (High Snobiety) and Woody (Sneaker Freaker):

Jeff walks us back to the High Snobiety headquarters here in Berlin, Germany:

David proudly shows off an actual print run of High Snobiety magazine.

Afterwards, we gather out front for a late afternoon kickback.  Chill.

by bobbyhundreds

So hey, remember that whole bit about my photo exhibition, STRIKING ALMONDS, taking place here at the Bright Tradeshow in Berlin?

Yeah. No.

Thanks to FedUp FedEx, that show has been pulled from existence.  We got into Berlin earlier this week to find out that FedEx in Germany had run into an issue with a broken scanner, meaning all packages were delayed at least 10 days.  Long story short, this week was nothing more than a series of setbacks and frustrated midnight phone calls trying to sort out the mess. The photos are still lost in a sea of thousands of backed-up parcels somewhere outside of Colon, along with many of the sample sets and lines that other brands here at the show were supposed to showcase.  So don’t ever use FedEx.  Not only did they ruin my life this week, but they have a stupid logo, no matter how many design professors tell you that it’s ingenious for the “hidden arrow.” Zzzzz

Anyways, the show must go on, so I’m gonna figure out another way to get this show up somewhere in the world soon.

In the meantime, here’s a recap of Day 1 at Bright Tradeshow, the ultimate skate & street tradeshow in Europe.  This year they held the show inside of an old social hall in what used to be East Germany.  The building has been virtually abandoned since, so it’s kinda eerie to walk around and see the structure frozen in time.  There’s an old theater where they used to screen propaganda films and concealed phone booths to place secret phone calls. Craze.

Gold interviews Stash (WESC).

Aylin (A-Game) represents The Hundreds to all of Germany.  She’s been with us forever, if you’ve been following us over the years, I’m sure she looks familiar.

Speaking of being with us forever, Aylin introduced us to this guy, who was one of her first accounts that she distributed The Hundreds to in Germany.  He was a fan then, been ever since.

These are the guys behind a British streetwear blog called The Daily Street, inside of our booth at Bright.

Yeah man. Eli Reed rides for CONS.

Charlotte HATES having her photo taken. Can you tell?

One of our German riders. Rad kid.

Bianca (Nike)!  It’s been 4 years since we’ve seen each other, but feels like not a day has passed.

Bright is dedicated to skateboarding. Such a cool tradeshow, everyone’s milling around with skateboards, pros everywhere, all the players and major brands are exhibiting.  They also had a massive demo in the backyard.

Which soon ended up in the hands of the Nike Skateboarding team.  P-Rod gets in on the action:

by bobbyhundreds

Looks like everybody’s in the middle of a college entrance exam, but what you’re looking at is our International Sales Meeting for our Spring 2011 and Summer 2011 ranges of The Hundreds apparel, accessories, and footwear.

Here in this room are our distributors and reps for countries ranging from the Netherlands to France to Spain.  They all represent The Hundreds to their individual territories.  B.Mo here is running the meeting and educating everyone on what The Hundreds has in store for next year, which then gets trickled down to their respective accounts worldwide.

We have to expedite the meeting because tonight’s a big night.  Germany is playing Spain in the World Cup Semi-Finals and the game starts soon.  (counterclockwise from the right) Ben, Scotty iLL, Timothy (our Finnish representation), B.Mo in the corner, and Einar (our Swedish representation) pile into the taxi and head back down to the Torstrasse where we were yesterday.

Oh by the way, about 9 out of 10 streetwear-minded fellows in Europe are currently on the rolled-up shorts look. KEEP THAT IN MIND TREND PIRATES!

World Cup Fever is bigger than Bieber Fever everywhere outside of the States.  And since we’re on Germany’s home turf, there are German flags and colors flying high everywhere.

All the beer gardens are crowded with football fans, eager to see their country advance to the Finals.

We watched the game here with friends on the sidewalk in front of Soto.

But as the game progressed, things looked bleak for the Germans…

Even a surprise cameo by Louie Vito and Dingo fresh off the tourbus couldn’t turn the mood around.

And then it was final.  Spain : 1.  Germany : 0.

But the Germans were good sports about it, just stoked enough to have made it to the Semi-Finals. Quite a feat in itself.  Music started bumping, beers started colliding, and it was time to commemorate the night.

And back deeper in Mitte, at a local Spanish restaurant, all the Spaniards in town gathered to watch the game and celebrate Spain’s victory.  So here’s the other side of the coin.

Too bad, as far as sports goes, there’s nothing that generates this type of electricity back home.  World : 1. America : 0.

by bobbyhundreds

Berlin actually has a great shopping community, especially as far as street and skate goes.  One of the most promising retail experiences in the Torstrasse district belongs to that of Soto.

David from Highsnobiety and Philip, on the right here, run this shop together.

They have a select variety of product offerings, as well as cool antique furnishings for decor.

Here’s COS, H&M’s other retail experience.  You can only find COS throughout certain locales in Europe.

The Wood Wood shop is always a must-visit.

The crazy Adidas No 74 shop.  There are only 2 of these kinds of Adidas experimental concept shops in the world, this one in Berlin, and No 6 in London.

And Firmament, which is the high-end street boutique here in Berlin.

by bobbyhundreds

Here’s a shot from the plane over Zurich, Switzerland.  Too bad we were only here for an hour en route to Berlin, Germany.  I love their cheese and chocolate.

I was just complaining to Ben about why New York gets “Empire State of Mind” but the West Coast gets “California Gurls?”  But then he reminded me that we have Pac and Dre’s “California Love.”  Good point.

This guy is not Ben.  He’s our cabbie from the Berlin airport.  Right when we hopped in, he turned around and asked if we wanted some music.  First song?  ”California Love.” I don’t believe in fate, but I believe the spirt of Tupac was with us in that car.

It’s been 4 years since Ben and I have been here in Berlin, Germany.  I think you can still search through our archives around this same time in 2006 to see what we got into back then.  It’s still a beautiful city, and the people are awesome. Great flowers also.

We’re here in Mitte, this is pretty much the heart of Berlin.  Look how old these buildings are and the character that’s aged onto the walls.

We stopped by Crooks & Castles‘ pop-up shop where the old 95 Gallery used to be, behind what used to be Nort.

Speaking of what used to be, see those holes off to the right corner of the building?  You guessed it, bulletholes from World War II.  You see this kinda thing all over the city, there is so much history imbued in the streets, not to mention all the tales of East/West Germany.

There’s Nacho in the showroom.

Look up against some of the walls and you can see how bullets riddled the bricks and have left a lasting scar on Germany.

Just thought this was a cool looking market. “Hey Honey, I’m just gonna run down to AUSSERHAUSVERKAUF for some milk. Be right back.”

Plenty more from Berlin, Germany throughout this week.

by bobbyhundreds

(Make sure to read Citizenship Part I before this entry)

So we’re still at Citizens of Humanity‘s headquarters.  Jerome is proudly showing something new in the collection.  And hey, a return to front creases.

You might not be able to see a direct comparison between Citizens and what we do here at The Hundreds, but in fact, we’re not as different as you’d think.  Jerome is very protective of his brand.  While his previous project, 7 For All Mankind, was eventually whored out to the masses and the company sold for bajillions of dollars, Jerome keeps Citizens close to him.  He’s extremely strategic and picky about which stores carry his product, and he is mindful of diluting the name and product by flooding the market.  Thus, Citizens continues to hold onto an attractive draw amongst it’s customers, even after all these years in an extremely finicky market.

Stacks and bundles.

Good jeans.

As I was saying earlier, Jerome is involved in all the design that leaves Citizens.  We sit in as he does a fitting. Nipping, tucking, pinching, poking.

Rolling, stretching, pulling, tugging.

What is Jerome looking for?  2 things.  A girl’s butt has to look good, whether it’s due to pocket placement, seams, wash, etc. Check.  And the inner thighs have to be flattering.  Check check.

Of course, Citizens also runs tops, and they do them pretty well.

Rollin’ on out.

So you remember Jerome’s newest toy, right?  He’s stoked on it, but he’s already got his wandering eye on something else.

The grass is always greener.  He’s already inquiring about the Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss edition. There’s only 70 or so of these in the world, and as you can see, there’s no windshield. He’s currently trying to figure out how to legalize it for the States.  Amazing.

by bobbyhundreds

Today, we’re visiting a friend of ours.  His name is Jerome Dahan, and he is the designer and founder of denim enterprise, Citizens of Humanity.

I don’t think I’m far off when I say that Jerome is a luminary figure in the denim world.  Earlier in his career, he speared the innovative design behind Guess and Lucky Jeans.  Which eventually led him to co-founding a denim institution you may have heard of called 7 (For All Mankind).  After a falling-out with his partner, Jerome then moved on to create Citizens of Humanity.  I guess you can say he knows what he’s doing.

Aside from Adriano Goldschmied, I don’t think there’s any more pivotal figure in the modern trend of premium denim, what with the embroidered back pockets and detailed washes, than Jerome.  So I guess he deserves to push this around.

Although he’s the owner, Jerome is heavily involved in almost all ends of design.  ”I’m a designer!” he confidently defends, so it’s his job and duty to be hands-on with everything that Citizens makes.

This facility alone puts a roof over 130 staff, but there’s also an entire separate wash house not far away.  That’s where Citizens achieves some of the industry’s most innovative washes, like these:

Jerome has also built a solid reputation off of making top quality garments.  The attention to detail and sophistication is evident in how all the jeans are manufactured here. There are a series of checks and balances in place, multiple handlers and overseers, corrections, revisions, and filters, to ensure that every piece is on point.  It’s one thing to have such great design, but the business and branding end is run so tightly here that it has really pushed Citizens to the forefront.

By the way, all the employees seemed so happy to work here, it’s rare to get such a positive vibe from the employees at a company as big as this.  Again, trickles down from the top. Smiles all around.

What’s that in the corner?

Um.

Oh.

More to come…

by bobbyhundreds