Recently paid the long-overdue visit to Macau with some of my highschool friends, call it a reunion, call it a field-trip with their kids, whatever. It was fun, that’s for sure. Nothing beats meeting up with old buddies that you haven’t seen for 8 years, and at the same time, meet their kids who are between the ages of 3 to 6. The comparison you had in front of your very eyes, how you (and their dads) were and how the kids are today, is crazy. Once you were the class clown, and today you are someone’s “uncle”. It was pleasant, the kids were not as badly behave as we were when we were 6 yrs old, why? Because we didn’t have an iPad with us wherever we went back in our days!!!! Today, “i” this “i” that, is much easier to make a kid shut up for 20mins! Just turn on their iPad for them to play their Angry Bird~! And you have a 20 minutes window to chat up with your dear friends. Anyways, enough about the kids, let’s get back to the actual trip (see, kids do that to your life, a parent can make any conversions into a conversion about their kids…. haha)

SO, Macau.
That’s it, guyz, that’s all I got for ya! All I have are a few photos to show for in this wonderful gamblers’ city.

Amazing structures, mostly inside the casinos. You have your tourists locations, not that big, but historic, and very cleanly kept. You have some streetwear stores, over priced, aiming at consumers who are less aware of retail prices in other cities (or, should I say: don’t mind about the prices, since they can win/lose that amount in seconds at the nearby casinos.) And yes, I assume (this is strictly a personal guess) why Mastermind Japan has a store in Macau, 2 blocks away from a casino (fact). I visited the store, my first visit to a MMJ retail store. Very cleverly decored. The entrance was fun, definitely still aiming at people who are in the know. Anyways. Rambling on. The city is definitely a place I will revisit, and yes, bring cash.

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.

Came to Taipei because VEIL participated in an exhibit currated by COOL Magazine. It wasn’t a tradeshow, as it was opened for the public. There were fellow clothing brands, celebrity performaces, Freestyle Sessions with the b-boys, the works. Lots of fanfare. It was fun for me since I got the chance to meet some old friends over the 3 days span. We just all met up at the venue, and then went out for coffee meetings all weekend long. Yup, I had alot of coffee and pizzas between those 3 days.

For VEIL, we put on display the latest items we have developed for Autumn/Winter 2011. Usually, we don’t like previewing products too early before the actual drop, but for this event, it seemed the right thing to do. The folks were happy to see our luggage collection, as well as our accessories section of the catalog. As blogged here before, our collaborative efforts with jewerly-maker VOLT continued, and we showcased some of those new items here.

It was a good environment for media and brands to mingle. A few tv stations came over to investigate how different brands will tackle this ever-changing youth market. VEIL’s Queenie was shot here for a MTV spot. Once stuff like this hits television, … you know what will happen.

Thanks to Taiwan for embracing VEIL, embracing what we are trying to do. And of course, thanks to our fellow brand-builders for supporting an outsider like VEIL in entering their market, lots of mutual respect here.

Arrived Taipei City last night, and just in time for today’s “East vs West” Basketball Game hosted by Phantaci & Nike. East and West represent the 2 main districts in Taipei City. Each of the 2 teams were comprised by memebers of streetwear brands in its respective district. So, members of Phantaci, KenLu.Net, UnderPeace would be in the East Team. While on the West Team, has guys from VEIL, Remix, Overkill, Subcrew, Mania, SMG, etc. It was just for fun, most of the audience were from the different brands, this wasn’t opened to the public.

Sam and Frankie were there as well. Sam represented his Subcrew, played on our West Team.

Jukai represented VEIL. He played real hard~~ He tried, put it that way~

Group photo!!

I just now realized I never did put up photos of the VEIL Taipei Store we opened last month! I was swamped with work from different projects and I forgot what I didn’t blogged about and what I didn’t…. 2010 was my first year running the apparel brand full-time, and we had alot to learn. After having the Hong Kong location opened back in March of 2010, the Taipei Store was a bit easier in terms of “planning ahead”. The Taipei Store is location on Kun-Ming Street in Ximen District of Taipei. We are neighbors to great brands such as Overkill, B-Side, Mania and Remix Taipei. They are very kind to us along the way, it is a good community to be in. I’ll just put up a few images, and I speak less.

If you ever visit Taipei, please swing by our VEIL Store.

http://www.veil.hk

Astro Boy super collector. This was a shot from the studio of Hong Kong designer “Ultraman”. He is more known for his metal figures, but in reality, his studio is filled with Astro Boy toys.

Central, Hong Kong. Right across from SOPH., APC, FIL, Nowhere Store. So, the dollar has grown?

A piece from Jeremy Scott’s current Adidas collection. Love the license plate concept here.

Am in Hong Kong this week, and just went around taking some shots. No words, just images for you.

Went silent on you again for a while, but I was working hard all the way through….

In between official YOKA Series production, I did a small capsule for SIZE Magazine in China, an edition of 30pcs all sprayed by yours truly. I was never a real artist myself, but I think these came out okay.

New Balance sent over something that they knew I was waiting for ever since the tradeshow! The MA-1 inspired MT580, due out this A/W. Love the color combo and the Gore-Tex outter doesn’t hurt neither. Much much thanks to da boyz. I love it!

Shanghai. After all these years, how do you think it looks like? Still a farm land of sort? Nah.

Check out how Shanghai looks like at night.

Rosa, a great help from our studio. She gave me the bad news about her having to leave the company, BUT, the great side to that was that she’ll be going to Italy to continue on with her education. That, I absolutely support!

I went to Cheng Du City last month, this is one of the shots that I took, one that I like more. These were made with cow-skins, these were used as light-puppets from decades ago. Pretty nice.

You’d want to see more designer figures in this blog, huh? Sorry. You wait, my friends. Just wait.

I totally missed updating my blog in June. Wow! This was a first!
I was actually on the road for most of the month. One of the cities I visited was Taipei.

I was in time to see one of the more recent collaborations of Japanese outfit, Devilock.

Devilock worked with a new-comer in the Taiwanese market, Saint of Rock, on a nice t-shirt.
I’m not so sure if there was a pair of denim involved, but I definitely like the graphic used for this project.

Caught up with Wade from Revelator while I was in town.
Always good to see this guy. Expect to see a full new collection from Wade and Revelator this Summer.

Ordered a pair of Air Force 1 iD a month ago, and this came to our door.

First time being able to actually add text onto an AF1, so I did it.
Chose “Black Magic” leather for this one. Turned out okay.
The magenta accent was not the best choice, but like I said: “okay”.

Took a train ride out to Ning Bo City with the team. Had to meet a client there, and also using that as an excuse to get away from Shanghai for a few days.

First stopped at Hang Zhou, and then ride another 1.5hrs out to Ning Bo. VEIL’s Su was working on the train all the way through.

If you ever visit the city, you must try their seafood. Due to geographic location, they serve much better seafood than Shanghai. We, of course, took the opportunity to pig-out~