Beijing Day 2: After the Sparkles

Chinese love a good firework for celebrating a special occasion.
We go nutz lighting up cash during Chinese New Years. This is no news to many.
The brief is that the more fireworks you light up, the more noise you make, the more wealth will come to you in the new year. Not so true, but that's the brief of many.

Wishful thinking.

But how much sparkles are enough?


Well, I dont have the answer to that, but I do know that some one lite up a few too many in Beijing this past New Year...

The well-known CCTV Building here in Beijing, phase 2, with a Mandarin Hotel inside, got burnt down due to firework-mishap. My first time seeing the end result with my own eyes today when we drove by. Man oh man... someone is gonna get fired big times.

Nothing funny about this, really. Actually, very sad.

Beijing Day 1 : I Miss the Old 798

Arrived Beijing this morning.
Is now a routine that I visit this city once every 3-4 months, for different reasons, and still, on every visit, I see something totally new, or, at least well-improved. The Olyimpic city is still transforming itself even after the world event.

After visiting a few shops early on, we went to the now well-known art district 798.

This is one place I personally least of to see changed, but of course, it has, again.
What was once an artie pot-hole is now very commercialized. What was filled with trashy individual artist workshops, now are basically filled with world-class galleries. Most if not all pieces are far beyond the reach of a regular joe. If you hear an acceptable price, chances are, he meant US dollars!! I was more intrigued by this dark alley inside the district this afternoon.

Nice restaurant... this was only one of many shops in 798.
I was surprised to see so many clothing boutiques in the district this afternoon.
Hmm... I miss the old 798.
But anyways, enough low blows about the district. And by no means am I trying to knock the restaurant pictured above. This is run by Ullens Center of Contemporary Art (UCCA). The food was actually great, we had dinner there tonite. The HUGE gallery by UCCA is simply amazing. Spacous, with interesting pieces. Just look, don't ask for a quote. Beautiful.

And this current exhibition inside UCCA by Qiu Zhijie is a must-see if you happen to pass by the district. $2usd admission, well worth the money, the installions by Qiu was mind blowing. And do yourself a favor, get the small booklet up at the front counter before you walk into Qiu's huge exhibition. The whole thing will make much more sense when you look at his works. See, we did it backwards, and the feeling was a bit confusing before we read the introduction in the booklet. Just a small tip.

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Issey-san and Sen were visiting Shanghai from Japan over the weekend.
They were gathering content for their sneaker magazine, and did a shooting with me and my collection at our studio. Quite interesting for me because I rarely do press on the topics on kickz, but I do love a good sneaker when I see one. Apart from that, we were checking out different spots in Shanghai, including places where you can find bootlegs. Sneaker bootlegs are no news, but still, our new friends were shocked when they saw the offerings of fake sneakers one can find in the marketplace. "Exactly the same!!" that was pretty much their reaction. Yes, quite close to "exactly the same", but you can still find the flaws if you look close enough. Buyers beware.


In the same mall, there are bootleg figures as well.
I must admit, there was that funny feeling when I saw bootlegs of our own products.
Rage? Well, I'm over that by now. Flattery? Well, you can flatter us by selling authentic adFunture products! So, I'm in between the emotion of rage and flattery. Yes, is a conflict disorder of sort.

Cupco, I bought this for you. Not sure if the Cloudman ever came out officially.

CASTER / Fortress

The hip-hop culture is booming stronger than ever in Mainland, and with dancing being a huge part of it. While Mainland-made hip-hip music is not yet on the map, dancing is. As mentioned before, Battle of the Year has already held a Shanghai stop, and stired things up even more. But to host such a well-respected event on a new turf, BOTY organizers needed a strong partner from the new turf. Their answer was Caster Studio. Headed by Danny Wang and Rock, Caster Studio is now, and for a number of years, the strongest group in its field. A few months ago, they opened up a second location in Shanghai, a new dance studio. This I heard before, what I didn't know until I met up with Danny last week for our upcoming event was that the new studio is a 4-storied building. This setup alone put Caster on high ranks within the whole Asia community, hardware-wise.


Software, the mother board is powered by Danny Wang.
Judge of choice for all national competition, held by government or underground organizers. That speaks volume. I'm a total outsider to Danny's profession, I'm just watching and learning. And this recent organized event allowed me to watch Caster Studio at work and see how this group operates.

Tight. That's all I have to say.
We look forward to the event next week. If you'll be visiting Shanghai next weekend, make sure you come by Club Candy on Sat nite.


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F.Fortress has been busy getting ready for his exhibit as well.
Definitely a Teddy Troop reunion.
Series 3 got a strong support by you folks, and we sincerely thank all of you out there. Fortress and I are already talking about Series 4. But you don't worry, you know it'll prob' take us another 2 years to come out with it.



If you are close, definitely go check this out!

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Just caught wind that DKE is offering Dacosta Bayley's DCTO again, the Temple Red edition. This is the big version.

"These futuristic figures called DCTO:('dik-toe') Jibun Project are a modern interpretation of the ancient Japanese Zen doll. Based on the legend of Daruma, a 5th century monk and the founder of Zen Buddhism, each figure sits 18cm/7 inches tall by 16cm/6.25 inches wide.

The figure is weighted so that it will right itself when jostled. This feature symbolizes the Japanese saying, 'Nanakorobi yaoki' ('Fall 7 times, rise 8 times').

Temple Red is an edition of 400."

Grab a few big ones, these will go well with the small ones that will come out soon.

SUITMAN in HK / Brotttt!

The SUITMAN has been busy doing his thang in Hong Kong lately.
When I first got his invites for his series of "DJ Sessions", I thought they would be in some club in HK. I seem to have forgotten that this is Suitman we are talking about, nothing is that "usual" for the Suitman.

As it turned out, his "DJ Sessions" were held on the street-side.... This one was held in Sai Kung, Hong Kong. Go to his blog and check out the many photos he took from that day, and other sessions in the past.



The interaction with different walks of life is part of what I personally love about Suitman's outtings. Too bad I couldn't join any of these sessions since I was always from HK. Next time, Young, hopefully I'll make it to one of your sessions.

Anton, belated-happy birthday.



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"What? You guys still make figures??"
Oh yes, very much so.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
Hope you are enjoying the day with your love ones.


Working with Danny on an event in Shanghai for the end of Feb.
It is a b-boy competition in China. Been working on this one for some time now.
While this is no new concept, China didn't have its own authentic b-boy competition in years.
Battle of the Year, from Germany, was held in Shanghai last year, and had a great turnout.
This one should be no less in terms of community support.
Got some big guns on the judge panel as well.
We were at the venue last nite to finalize all the setup designs.
Will tell you more about this soon.

ICONIC-1 YOKA / new shoe / INVINCIBLE TW

Hope the folks who went to NYCC last weekend had fun.
Saw alot of good stuff came out from different companies, and the scene is definitely still growing in a positive direction. Happy to see that. While we missed this year's New York fun, adFunture has new items continuing to come out, and some new stuff arrived to our distribution center in the US this week. So hopefully, you will have the opportunity to grab some in your local retailers soon.

We saved this bit of info until they arrived, and they are now ready for distribution:
The black version of the Iconic-1 YOKA.
Black on black coolness.



Got a glimpse of a new shoe platform at the PUMA camp.
Even with no other background information, these joints are lightweight, this was my first reaction. Looks comfortable as well. More info to come out as PUMA winds down to its official launch date.



My boys in Taipei out-done themselves once again.
Jimmy, Wade, Steven and Shin-jiang at INVINCIBLE Store did a total rennovation to the store.




Not just a paint job, they took over the store's downstairs space as well.
Now INVINCIBLE is at least twice its original size, with a full sneaker display wall to spare.
Now, the HUF, OF, New Balance, Undefeated, Resonate, and many other brands that they carry can finally have enough room to breath and be nicely displayed.

Super clean space. I love it.

G-Shock & CASIO's Biggest Flagship

Our crew was in Hang Zhou yesterday for the grand opening event of watch maker CASIO's biggest flagship store in the world.

The two-stories space displayed the newest CASIO products and tons of G-Shock archived goodies from day one. The first floor being a retail space, and the second floor serves as a gallery for the cultural iconic G-Shock.




G-Shocks by Eric Haze and Spike Lee were on display as well as many others, including the t-shirt collabos with DQM, Remix, SBTG, and Subcrew, etc.


We were a bit surpised by this section of the show upstairs....


as we noticed my picture on the wall...Huh??
Oh right, I was one of the five artists invited to design 5 watches for G-Shock's 25th Anniversary last year. They had our watches in this section. I almost forgot I did this... Nice. haha That explained why people looked at me funny when I was downstairs... Thank you for putting me in the show.

Unfortunately, due to other appointments in Shangai, we couldn't stay longer in Hang Zhou. Next time, next time I'll spend more time to walk around the city. It is a beautiful city.

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If we have went to New York this weekend for New York Comic Con, we'd be doing the same thing on Friday nite as we did in Shanghai; Party til the sun comes up.

It was a birthday party for one of our crew members, and the whole gang showed up.
Very nice seeing everybody together for the first time in 2009.

And of course, Happy Birthday to you.




Tactics, a Hawaiian collector from the KR board, posted his collection online.
A nice group shot of all the Teddy Troops he has in his cabinet. I love seeing our stuff in people's homes, opened and displayed. We didn't make these fine goodies to be kept in boxes or traded around on "da bay". We do look on da bay to see what people are trying sell on there. And believe it or not, we enjoy the fact that there are never over 100 adFunture items on there. To us, it means that people who bought our stuff actually love them and want to keep them in their collections. Yes, secondary market has its meaning and affects, but that's not the kind of hype tactics that we are going for here.

Tactics, thank you for sharing with us your collection. Very cool. Hopefully, soon, YOKAs will fill your lower deck in that cabinet as well. Cheers.

Andre is Busy!

Parisan street art legend, Andre aka Mr. A, has always been "busy".
Apart from spreading love in form of graffiti, Andre is involved with other business industries, including hotels, retail shops and commercial collaborations.

In the latest iD Magazine, readers can find a spread picturing Andre painting his iconic character on the back of his wife, Ed Banger recording artist, Uffie. KR would like people to note that Andre was using a KRINK pen that day.


Grab your copies, Andre fans.


Apart from the iD Magazine appearance, Andre also worked with Belvedere and their Luxury Reborn campaign recently. Always love Andre using that magenta. I think that color is as iconic "MR.A" as the character itself.

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And speaking of magenta, saw some photos of one of my favorite kickz models on Hypebeast today; PUMA Disc Blaze. And what colors were used? Yup...

Jose Parla's take on Japanese Bizen Ware

Always been a huge fan of Jose Parla's artworks.
Have the pleasure of seeing his artworks up close and personal last year in both Beijing and Hong Kong, I fell in love with his art even more.

Today, via Hypebeast and Jose's Honeyee blog, we got to see Jose implementing his art with the traditional Japanese bizen ware.


The end result was simply breathe taking, and can see Jose's art style meshed into the bizen art form perfectly.

No need to say too much here, you can read Jose's own introduction of this art journey.

MEET the Wooster Collective's M&S

Two of my favorite people in New York; Marc and Sara Schiller.

They are the heart and soul behind street art info site Wooster Collective.
Known within the community to be two of most sincere people you'd ever meet, this, I will always agree with a big "O hell yeah!" I stayed at their flat during one of my New York visits a few years ago, with M&S offering me the chance to save some money from the high hotel expenses in the Big Apple. Very kind of them. And they have introduced me to many great friends in the time that I've known them.

Haven't said hello to them in a long time, but I still check their site every now and then. And this week, I came across their article on Etsy.Com And that's where I stole this photo. Check out the article, M&S pointed out some interesting items currently out in the market.


Apart from their web presence, they recently did something very interesting in bricks and mortars. Won't call this a "project", because I'm pretty sure this will be here to stay. MEET the Apartment. It is a very well decorated venue built for creative meetings. The right space can help the creative juice flow, and this space might just do the job! I'm sure I can't describe it correctly, I'll just post how they describe it on the MEET website:

"Meet at the Apartment is a two-story, 2,500 square-foot, highly stylized open loft in the Soho district of New York City. Fully engineered for creative thought to flourish, Meet has been intuitively outfitted with idea-generating essentials: a library stocked with art, design and photography reference books; a kitchen pantry filled with goodies; and breakout rooms that could double as private rooms in the trendiest NY clubs.

The upstairs area is 1,300 square feet with windows on three sides and curtains to divide the space into four sections. Accommodating 35 for sit-down presentations or 100 for product launches and premiere events, the space includes a library, two breakout rooms (each with lounge furniture, phone chargers, iMac station and 65” high-definition presentation screens) and a bright, open loft kitchen complete with fully stocked pantry, refrigerator filled with beverages and “kitchen table” large enough to accommodate 10 individuals.

Downstairs, a well-lit 1,000 square-foot conference room features a Vitra conference table that accommodates 18 in ultra-cozy Vitra Worknest chairs, a mobile 65” high definition presentation screen, whiteboard walls with gator shelving to present creative boards and computer, TV and telephone access. Leather couches create a casual meeting environment and a 200 square-foot Green Room offers added space for privacy"

If you are looking for a space in New York SoHo to host a product launch, this is a nice option.

When I saw the photos my jaw dropped.
Not so much because the decors are so nice, but more because they did this at such location. Very cleverly done idea, but needless to say a very expensive idea.

Congrats to Marc and Sara on their new venture.
Hope to see you two again soon, and oh yeah, Samantha as well!

Undefeated x PUMA Mid

Have seen photos flying around the web for some weeks now, and finally got to see these in person. UNDEFEATED x PUMA joints. Photos don't do them justice.

The suede on these sneakers are sweet, much softer than the in-line models.
The guys from UNDFT found a nice spot on this PUMA Mid model to place their 5-Strikes motif as well. Studded, kool.
5 colorways in total, with the 5th one being the gold-foiled ultra tough to get variant. Some of you lucky people can get those on Feb 7th at Undefeated and various sneaker boutiques in the US.

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Dinner is always an issue for us at the studio. With the economy being how it is today, getting to have dinner is always an issue all in itself! But luckily, we are not at that point yet. Our issue is where to have dinner near the studio.

Found a nice small Japanese sake bar with great food near by.
I don't drink, but the food I love.


Yummmmmmy!

Anthony, I'll bring you there next time you come by. You'll love it!