Had a great conversation with one of our distributors this morning.
One has to be in serious denial to say the industry has not been affected by the current state of economy. Some may argue that street wear, collectible sneakers and designer figures are simply stuff that people can live without, so, people will stop purchasing, over and done with.

Well, true, the forementioned items are not really needed in terms of survival. True, sales have gone down for quite a few brands out there. But, are sales down-turn really just due to bad economy, or, consumers are getting smarter about their purchases, therefore shitty products simply got washed out? If a consumer has only so much to spend, he or she will spend it on something good. Less silly purchases, and more quality product sell thrus. Is that a bad thing?

Some products on the shelves should never have been produced in the first place.
But at one time, consumers were buying whatever that came out, and in a sense, sent a false message to producers: “Keep coming out with new stuff, we’ll buy anything!”

Apparently, that wasn’t true. Consumers won’t just keep on buying crap.
Apparently, a few companies have finally realized that, and left the industry.

While this is a bad time for everyone, this is also time for a “re-shuffle”.
Can designer figures survive this crisis? I sure hope so.
Figures, if the price is right, are little things in life that put a smile on your face.
The hey-days of buying with an investment-mindset is gone, let’s just go back to what it was supposed to be: For fun.

Is always refreshing to get new samples when I walk into the studio.
This was sitting there today.
Started this project a while back, and is good to see that things are coming along nicely.
Slowly, but nicely.

Designed by ARKIV.

For those who haven’t visited Taipei City or understood the streetwear scene, Taipei scene is basically divided into 2 districts; East Side and West Side. In the East Side, you have BAPE, CSL (carries Visvim, Neighborhood, Sophnet, etc), Phantaci (Nike Tier-0 account) and INVINCIBLE Store (New Balance, OF, Resonate, Undefeated, Revelator, HUF, realmadHectic, etc). West Side being Shi-Men District (Shi-Men Ding), you have your Taiwanese street labels such as B-Side, Provider, C&S, TAKI, and these 2 Taiwanese giants; REMIX and OVERKILL.

Both REMIX and OVERKILL are dominant forces in the TW scene in terms of local brands, and it is so great to see these two working together on a collabo piece. The use of the New Era empire cap 505 cut is a sign that they are trying to think outside of the box, when everyone who is anyone was making their 5950, they went with this lesser use model. The short tongue is making a come-back? Some would say the “WEST” on the side panel might mean West Coast Style, since REMIX seems to go down that route, but to my understanding, OVERKILL is not doing West Coast Style, so, I think (and this is no proven) the WEST meant West Side of the TW scene. Both flagship stores of REMIX and OVERKILL are on the same street (America Street) in Shi-Men. If I’m correct, is quite meaningful.

I love both of these crews, so, big up to both of them. Eric, Kenju, Jess, Tian-Wei, very cool stuff, boyz!

So I was in Taipei again last week, rained most of the time, which wasn’t too nice.
But I was lucky enough to have good company throughout.
We are working on something in Taipei, and time will tell whatever it is we are working on.

BRAiNCHiLD’s DJ Mykal hooked up with Dex Pistols from Japan to perform at Club Mint on the weekend. It was a great nite out. They packed the place, and partied hard. I was there with the NMR crew, which is always fun.

During my stay, I joined Jukai as he was teaching at Zhi-Li Polytechnic to teach folks about design. Jukai knew I was in town, and asked me to do a class on figure making and etc. Can’t remember the last time I walked into a classroom. It was fun talking about what we do, but I’m sure we ruined a few youngsters’ future in that class!! You are not learning from the right people! haha

Big up to Jukai though. Thanks for having me there.

What do you do when you run of room? Get a new room!
And that’s what we are doing in Shanghai.
What if you are getting bored of what you are doing? Do something else!
And that’s what we are doing in Shanghai.

Don’t want to keep score of what other people are doing, we just want to focus on our own plate.

The studio was busy dealing with the online release of this HF Vinyl Figure Vol.2 today. I have to say, the most exciting part of a project is to see it launches and observe reactions. Thanks for all the emails, those were good. Next week, we’ll do the shop launch, and I’ll get to see physical reactions. Fun times.

While this was happening, we are also preparing the official drop of PUMA Monsters Pack in Mainland China. The 5-sneakers pack will be exclusively available at ICONIC-1 Store in the Mainland market. Quite excited about this. I’ve picked out the Mecha King for myself, I love the metal bolts on this pair. PUMA did an amazing job with this special pack.

“This guy again??”
Yes.
And yes, I already have other blogs where I update what I do everyday, what I ate, etc, so let’s not let this HS Column be the same all over.

A big thank you to David and the HS crew for having me here.

I’ll go write up a more meaningful entry now, but while I do that, you can go to my adFunture Blog to read about what I won’t be posting here. Or, if you really have time to kill, look me up on Twitter, and I promise to kill more of your time.

Cheers all.