The blue used on the latest New Balance CM1600T is simply beautiful, but that’s not the only reason why this product was all sold out in Asia. Yup, all sold out, and this wasn’t even a “limited edition”…. Is nice to see New Balance finally getting some boost though, the brand has put out numerous great shoes as of late. The recent 997, 998, the 1300s, all very nice and well recieved by the consumers, but this 1600 took it to another level. Kudos!

So, you ready for the CAVS AJ4? I heard mixed feelings on the color combo, but really, to each his own. Call it “Air Lin 4″ for all I care, it is actually a nice looking shoe.

These kids’ rides, although old, are still everywhere in Shanghai. Weathered and rusted, I quite like the texture of them. This character is Captain Black-Cat, a Chinese cartoon series from the late ’70s. I had the pleasure of meeting its original creator a few years back when we were both on a judge panel for a design tournament. A very sincere gentleman, I’ve love to talk to him again if I’ve the chance.

Sunset-shot at the Shanghai Bund. Took this today actually, fresh~

Our Taiwan-connection, Bruce, came visit us in Shanghai this week. Really great to catch up with, as always, and of course, we went kicks shopping together.

He got the new Air Wovens on his feets walking into Shanghai though, so that was one less item to hunt for here. I decided to get myself a pair of Stan Smith, actually, my first SS ever. I opted the original colorways. Always stick to OG colors if available, that’s what I say.

Some nice G-Shocks arrived as well. I kept the all-white 6900 and the blacked-out 5600, one of each for myself. The white, I must say, doesn’t keep well, it has something to do with white resin material. Oh well, the one-tone looks nice though.

Lastly, one of my favorite shoes in the rotation lately; the JV Chuck Taylor. Like the weathered effect and the side zippers. Perfect for those too lazy to tie shoe-laces, someone like me~

It has been a good busy month with VEIL products rolled out on schedule, and moving into the hands of consumers at a reasonable pace. I now have time to turn my attention back to working closely with some media partners, hoping to launch a series of online features that will spotlight some personalities I respect in the Mainland China circuit.

New Balance’s care package arrived with this pair of USA-made 1300 inside. Really love the low-key colors, and I put them the very next day. I know there’s a grey colorway out there right now, you might want to check that one out as well.

Continued digging into my own kickz storage, I found these Fragment Design’d Nike Tennis Classics. With the Tennis Classics model seeing so much actions in the past 24 months, I forgot I have these put away. I decided to start wearing the blue colorway, and sent off the red pair to a fellow sneakerhead. All good.

You’ll see me keep digging up old releases if you follow my Instagram (id: eddiaft).

Somewhere in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

I was at a wedding dinner, these were the legs of the best men, bride’s maids. Yup, over 20 of them, all winged-out~

This week we came to Taipei. First visit this year for me to this city; Always enjoyed coming over here where we have great friends. Spent a few days with our crew at the Veil Taipei Store, ironed out how we will drop the collaborations this season. If you visit the store, remember to say hi to Jil and Queenie, the ladies who manage our Taipei retail.

Met up with Jukai, of course. Caught up with what went down while I was away for the past few months. I definitely missed alot of great actions! Need to come back more often. Jukai’s Plug-In design house is also doing very well, which we are very happy to hear. Work hard, bro!

Footwear for the trip, I put on a pair of B/W Converse Jack Purcell. Dead on classic. Is time to go back to some of the older stuff.

As I continue to use the Instagram app to shoot photos as I spend my days, I now rarely bring a digital camera when I go out. So pls don’t mind I just use the instagram-photos on this blog. Well, these images reflect what I saw, so they actually serve perfectly as blog materials.

It was fun for me last week when we had time to sort stuff out at our storage, I actually stored my own sneaker collection there with the rest of our other products. So when Mandy was keeping track of the toys and apparel, I went off searching through my own “toys”. I digged up my AJ4s.

Got this Air Jordan 4 Retro (2008) out from the boxes.

Had some fun with different iphone apps to make this image. That was my feet….

Found my “Black Cat” as well.  Are you ready for your new white cement?

I still need to go back there and look for my older Dunks. The older stuff seem to be more interesting than the recent new releases….

The adFunture brand has been quiet for a minute, but we’ll be coming back this year hard. Currently working on a few new figures, most of which I’m sure you’ll dig. This is the perks of running a small scale toy company instead of a corporate, I suppose. We never had to meet any annual target nor quantity, and that allowed us to not releasing products for the sake of releasing new products for our agents, or dealers. Sure, we made quite a few misses in the past 10 years, but who hasn’t. With the economy much fragile now, we will be even more careful on deciding on what to produce. If we don’t truly truly love it, then there’s really no point of making it. I hope this simple model will sustain adFunture’s lifespan. 10 years already, let see it till the end.

Here are a few random shots I took in the past week.

City of Shanghai, Pudong district.

Went to our friend’s, Eric Chan, new space opening. Eric offers furnitures and sound systems here in Shanghai, and I found this one quite interesting.

I never get tired from looking at Parra’s works. Noticed the 2 decks Parra designed for Enjoi when I visited BoFung’s studio last week. Just saw the news about Parra collaborating with Stussy this season, looking forward to those as well.

Care package from KENLU.NET !!! Hot looking collab they did with Li Ning recently. Kenlu.net x Li Ning CONQUER. Thanks for hooking it up, guys! Having worked with Li Ning sports brand in the past, I must say that they are definitely upping their game in terms of colorways and out reach.

To start things off for 2012, we got together with sports brand Li-Ning once again to collaborate on a new series. Our last sneakers project with LN released exactly 12 months ago, so this seems like the right time to drop some new ones. Taking the Chinese sports brand to a different direction, we proposed two new outdoor boots as our collaborative platform, dubbed “7-Holes Booats” and “MotoTie Boots”. For our special series, we opted to use “Mountain Soul” as the name, reflecting on VEIL’s past outdoor series products. With easy wearability in mind, we used black and beige across 4 items with a mix of nubuck leather and suede. Our graphic print was lasered in, the effect is very nice. Nothing flashy, just visible details and quality.

“Mountain Soul” Moto-Tie Boats

“Mountain Soul” Moto-Tie Boots

“Mountain Soul” 7-Holes Booats

“Mountain Soul” 7-Holes Booats

These 4 items will drop at VEIL Taipei Store and selected Li-Ning Stores in Mainland China. Yup, these, while are limited in quantities, are not exclusive to VEIL Stores. You wanna see the exclusive editions? Will show you them a bit later.

Everyone struggles with staying motivated through the winter. The new adidas Oscillate Warm running shoes make it a little easier to get out there thanks to breathable CLIMAWARM™ to keep your feet warm and dry, as well as a flexible upper and heel-to-toe cushioning. With the launch of this new model, we were invited by adidas’ Germany headquarter to design a special colorway. We titled VEIL’s edition the “Purple Swamphen”.

The color palettes chosen resemble the large bird with a very loud explosive call. Evidence shows that the Romans kept Purple Swamphens as decorative birds at large villas and expensive houses. They were regarded as noble birds and were among the few birds that Romans did not eat. We chose this subject as a reminder of what’s out there in the environment, as there are so many wonderful species facing extinction, we should enjoy their existence while they last.

As part of this Purple Swamphen Pack, we are offering 3 t-shirt colorways and a VEIL backpack with matching colors. Designed for short trips, the backpack sharing the same title has multiple divisions to store your laptop, clothes, and of course, a dividable lower section for your camera, sneakers, or whatever you take with you for your route.

Expect these items to hit our Asian accounts soon. Please stay tuned to the VEIL website at http://veil.hk

Visited GuangZhou City quite a few times, mostly for work. This time I went for a buddy’s wedding, and was brought to some places I never went before, which was refreshing.

What looks to me like a space center (really, in outta space) was actually GZ’s opera house. I was amazed. I was amazed to see this as a government-owned structure.

This would make a neat office/studio.. ahem….

IFC building. So, Hong Kong, Shanghai and GuangZhou now each have their own IFC… Trying to out-do each other I see.

Amazing night view.
I’d like to go back to GZ again soon. I’m sure I missed a few beautifull venues. The food there is great as well, if you have a chance to visit China, GZ would make a neat lil’stop.

Shoes. Yeah, you guys like shoes. Let’s see what we have here.

Should I call these “dress shoes”? I don’t know what this type of shoes are called. Just leather shoes, I guess. I do like what APWS did with the blend of materials on this one though. APWS is an up and coming shoes label in Asia.

Woven Footscapes, us Asians love the Woven Footscapes. The latest collection have some nice colors, and this I like the best out of the 3. Love the leather texture on these.

I got these sent to our studio, which I found really interesting. New work by Visvim. Visvim is still pushing the boundaries, which I respect very much. I still wear my FBTs and 7-Holes Boot.