PUMA at SoleGoodz

With the official opening scheduled for this Sat, Aug 1st, we decided to warm up the SOLEGOODZ space with PUMA and friends 3 nights before. An easy night of food, booze and shoes.

We invited about 20 friends to come in and check the latest PUMA goods, at the same time, catch up on what has been going on in this crazy city of Shanghai.


From DJs to interior designers, streetwear brand owners to tv hosts, hip-hop dancers to corporate directors, we had the crowd-mix of a Chinese hot pot dinner. I hope the interactions that took place was fun for everyone. I'd rather have this than a 300 people crazy party where you won't even remember how you got home...


DISC BLAZE is definitely making a strong comeback. Diggin' those ill colors.

A good friend from the PUMA camp, Erik Troppenz, was in town. He was commenting on what was on the feet of product designer Scott Hung.

Soon after, Nicole and I joined the conversation... Notice how we talk... with all eyes looking on Scott's shoes.

This type of judgement was no fun for Scotty! Okay, we were just being mean.


The boyz from DUSTY and Hitz trying on a few pairs.
With some things, you just have to try it on for size.


Yoyo and Denson. Both dance-a-holic.
Yoyo is responsible for alot of our management work at adFunture, she's also the one with that Bumble Bee fixed-bike I blogged a while ago. Yah, that's HER bike!


Eddi: "So, what was it?? The water? The milk? The steaks? How da hell do I grow taller?? Tell me!!"


I went with the PUMA Suede Angeler. Not a limited edition or what not, but just a fine looking pair of kickz.

So, back to Scott Hung and what he had on...

the PUMA Cabanna Racer.
We were actually saying how nice this shape is, and we understood why Scott chose to use this Cabanna Racer as base for his 8 designs for 2009 Winter collection. It was a very good choice on Scott's part.

Scott, it was nice seeing you again. I'm sure we'll work together again, be it on shoes or on some other platform. You are a cool dude, take care.

"BROTTT!!" ...ARKIV

"ARKIV INSTANT", "BROTTT"... These 2 terms had been floating around the web for a lil' while now, but this past weekend was the first time collectors being able to see the actual ARKIV INSTANT vinyl figure up close and personal. For myself, I found it just fun to hang out with its creator, a person whom I talk to everyday online for the past 8 months; Arkiv. And I must say, he's one cool cat.


Arkiv surely was kept busy all weekend at TTF where we got him to custom the special batch of GID ARKIV INSTANT figures on site, and paint a big canvas on the last day.






The canvas was used as table mat while he customed his figures, so, all the paint from the custom paint process got on that canvas. Then, he painted his painting on it, and for us, it will remind us what a fun weekend this was for all of us involved in the adFunture booth at TTF.

Big thanks to Arkiv for being such a good sport and put up with all our arrangements.

DGPH.

Diego and Martin from DGPH.
We produced Buka for Series 1, 3 variants of TOPO, 2 Berenjena, and a few YOKAs together in the past 2 years, however, this weekend was our first time meeting face to face. Love how all this works....


The painting they did during the festival is now hanging at ONEWAY Taipei Store.
DGPH is now in Kaoshung hosting a workshop for an university; Exchanging ideas and experiences, in hope to help others to reach their goals. Appraud to that, guys.

Martin, Deigo, like I said, it was really nice to finally sit down for a pizza together. Take care.

Tools of the Trade / DGPH & ARKIV @ TTF

For this year's Taipei Toy Festival, our collaborative partners, DGPH and ARKIV, decided to perform live painting for the visitors. Upon arrival to the city, we all went to the local art supplier to pick up some tools of the trade.



Martin of DGPH was also picking up some paint for his private paint collection.


ARKIV shopping and thinking about how he'll custom his 30 glow-in-the-dark ARKIV INSTANT figures. He ultimately went with some brighter and sharper colors.


This marks the 6th annual TTF, and this is the 5th time adFunture participated in this summer event. However, this would be our first time showing with our own full setup, separated from our distributor. So, we figured we should do something fun. Yes, this festival is very much about retail, but at the same time, we dont see why we cant also use this chance to put a spin of the creativity part of this game.


Our booth was designed so that we have the whole side as a showcase window for our artists to perform. DGPH and ARKIV were cool enough to went along with this idea, and went to work they did.


Will show more of what we had going on at the other side of the booth tomorrow.

Taipei East Night

One of the busiest sreet in the East District of Taipei.
In all the years I have visited the city, I walked on this street alot..too much..


Noticed this the last time I was here, Taipei has one of the coolest police badge designs I've seen so far...



But the coolest stopped at the badge... the station itself.. well..

View from the Yang Ming Hills

Went up to the Yang Ming Hills for dinner tonight.
Never been up there for the past 4 years that we have been visiting Taipei. This was new to me. Quite a few nice restaurants up on the hills that over looks the night scene of Taipei City.


Amazing view of skyline, I think this is better than looking out from the Tower 101.
But that's just me.


Taking it easy for the evening.
Waiting for a few more friends coming to the city for the crazy week.

Taipei, I'm back

Arrived Taipei City this afternoon.
Did my usual shop checks, copped some goodies, watched the actual consumers browse & shop. Did that for a day, and figured that today was my only day to do that this trip. The rest of the week will be consumed by Taipei Toy Fest.

This year's TTF surely grew in terms of marketing.. there were roadside banners in both East and West side of the city. This one is right in front of the hotel that I'm staying in. Hope all these will translate into foot traffic to the exhibition.


Not produced by adFunture, but this ONEWAY Edition of Devilrobot's Tofu vinyl will be available at our booth (B40 & 41). These were made in celebration of ONEWAY's 3rd anniversary last month. Each one stands 5" tall. Some ONEWAY YOKAs will be available as well.

REMIX TAIPEI x adFunture G-Robot

Something we are working on.
Want to produce something that I can actually use...

FIRE PANDA will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, and we'll be curating its anniversary exhibition for them in Shanghai. Bee Wong, the founder of FIRE PANDA, was in town this week for preparation meetings. After work, we all headed over to Red Dot on the Pudong side for a nice group dinner. No work talk during dinner, that was the unspoken rule.

Bee must had a long day.. "Why the long face??"
He's usually a cheerful fellar.


Ken. A new friend introduced to us by Bee. Pleasure to meet you.


Ming, or as I like to put it: MING.
Malaysian interior designer working hard in Shanghai, MING is also responsible for our new store's interior design. Talented in what he does, the fact that he's also a sneaker freaker doesn't hurt our project neither!


I'll be off to Taipei tomorrow, I thought I'll post this for you.
Taiwanese streetwear label REMIX's take on the Mini G-Robot project.
Is cool to finally work with these good friends from REMIX. We've been talking about doing something together for years. This is a small step forward for sure.
See you boys tomorrow, Eric!

BUMBLE BEE fan art bike: PHENOM CYCLES for Yoyo

A little "fan art" done up by our friends at Phenom Cycles for our studio member Yoyo, whom is a huge fan of Transformers. Is an one-off, just for kicks. Is gonna be fun watching her ride this on the streets of Shanghai, I'm sure alot of people who just go "wtf??"

Thanks to the boys at Phenom!

Artists at TTF: Wrong Wroks & DGPH

Got more designer vinyls to lay on you today.
I personally love going to these toy fairs, other than the fact that we do business there, these are also the times we get to meet up with the different artists that we actually work with. If not for these exhibitions, most of our interactions are via emails/MSN. You can work with a guy for 3 years and have never met once. This year, we have a number of artists meeting up at Taipei Toy Fest (next week), including Tony from WrongWroks and DGPH from Argentina.


Tony will be there to release his 10" edition YOKA he designed for adFunture.
We will also release a collaborative t-shirt with his WrongWroks label.
If you know WW's works, then you know there'll be a girl on that tee graphic somewhere somehow.


DGPH, we actually worked on a lot of products in the last 12 months. Again, never met them face to face! This time, they'll be at our booth signing for fans and also dropping the TOPO DE MADERA vinyl. Should be fun. They will be doing live painting session in our booth all day on Friday (July 10th), don't miss out if you'll be at TTF. Come say hi.

REVELATOR G-Robot

I'm a fan of Wade's work with his REVELATOR brand in Taiwan, that's no secret. So Jukai and I were discussing who to invite for his G-Robot Series, this was a no-brainer really.

Always keeping his designs clean, (I usually say "lazy" in his face), Wade has chosen a lime-green color that made his REVELATOR G-Robot stood out from the pack. I like this end result alot. And frankly, I treasure this design alot as well, because the turnaround time for Wade to design something is usually one year! Ahem..... I'm just playin', (but not kidding), Wade is a good guy and please be on the look out for this bomb in next week's Taipei Toy Fest. And for the guys in other countries, you'll be able to get your hands on these a lil' bit later.

Lastly, I would like to give Wade / REVELATOR a big thanks for the contribution, I'll see you soon, bro!