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April 8th, 2007 / 23:25:00
The second delivery of our 10th Anniversary Collection has just dropped in Reed Space and at your local Staple Authorized Dealers. (Or unauthorized dealers as the case may be.) I like to give some background information on how these collaborations came about. I think it’m important in today’s age of “Collabs Du Jour” that associations with different people are fostered on actual relationships.
Many of you are fans of Swindle Magazine and a lot of times, Shepard Fairey gets credit for the entire mag; but the actual founding art director of Swindle is none other than Florencio Zavala aka Flo. I first met Flo when he had his solo show, “Diamonds & Pearls” at Reed Space NYC back in May of 2004. I’ve always been a fan of his witty wordplay and playful illustrations. I gave him the anagram “Friend/Finder” and he created this highly complicated algorithm as the design.
You know when sometimes you know someone thru so many other people that you completely forget how you met them in the first place? That’s the case for Young Kim aka Suitman. Was it from John Jay? Adam Glickman/Tokion? Educated Community? Hiroshi? Ease? Gas Books? I can’t remember! Young, if you can remember, let me know! Anyway, his Suitman inspired artworks are just awesome. A great commentary on the public workforce and that everyday struggle we all go thru. For his anagram, I really wanted to incorporate the word SUITMAN into it and it just so happened that TSUNAMI was a perfect match. When I first commissioned him for it, natural disasters were really big in the news so it was fitting. He rocked this ill concept where the t-shirt has a hidden surprise when you see it in the dark.
You want to talk O.G.? Brian Siswojo has been repping Hong Kong since before the Brits had control. He was repping HK way back when you thought Japan and Hong Kong were, like, the same country and shit. Hip-hop, skateboarding, streetwear…Brian and his brand Know1ledge and store, 852 have been laying deep roots in Asia for a long time. And now with the internet, the world can share in his spoils. One of the nicest gentleman in the game. His anagram was a no brainer: SHOE/HOES. I think sometimes, when you get a design assignment that is so obvious, coming up with a dope solution is tough. Brian killed it with this one.
And to round out the 2nd Delivery, we present none other than the legendary Alife Crew. When Alife first opened on Orchard Street back in the day, they were really trailblazers in this neighborhood. They got kids to cross over The Bowery and side step crack needles and used condoms to get their Air Wovens, Surface to Air rings and KR prints. Then they followed that up with the most bit store concept ever in history. They practically carved out a completely new category of retail. A lot of people assume we are rivals but in fact the respect we have for each goes deep. There’s enough room in this industry for all us to have our own flavor so it’s all gravy. I gave them the anagram, “CENTS/SCENT”…in other words, the smell of money. Jest and Co. did this hilarious “inspired” design but used pennies instead of whatever is usually used…10K diamonds or some shit. The result is genius.
I guess this would be the equivalent of a hyperstrike. We just decided to link up with my man Tyler Askew at Rude Movements and re-release their legendary RUDE t-shirts. As seen here by the ever lovely Delia @ Staple in monochromatic black on white and white on black. Check out their next party on April 17th with Karizma @ APT.
Everything is available at Reed Space…ummm…NOW! See ya soon and thanks for your support as always.
