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.

VEIL released its VEIL Angry Skull Ring this week. Designed with our friend VOLT out in Taiwan, and handmade by VOLT, this .925 silver ring is only the begining of our long term program with VOLT. Only 25 pieces produced this season, the plan is to only produced that many per season to come. While we hate to use the term “limited edition”, these are still quite limited. Only 50 people can get their hands on the Angry Skull per 12 months.

This item is sold exclusively through VEIL Taipei Store and online store in PRC.
Expect to see more items from this collaboration line soon.

adFunture will be back in Taipei for another exhibition next weekend. It has been some time since “adFunture Taipei 2006″, and a solo exhibit feels very different than those toy conventions like the beloved Taipei Toy Fest. After 5 years since the last solo, this time around we rounded up our friends from the Taiwan streetwear scene, and put together the “YOKA Taiwan Series”. A series that involved 12 clothing labels, and each designed their own variant of our YOKA panda. This series will be available at the opening event of our exhibition. Besides this new series, visitors to the exhibit, titled “We are One Human Race”, will also see something big and related to the title. Go see for yourself!

adFunture Taipei Exhibition 2011
“We are One Human Race”

Exhibition Opening:
May 20th, 2011 – June 30th, 2011

Venue:
VEIL Taipei Store
2F., No.4, Ln. 96, Kunming St., Wanhua Dist., Taipei City 108, Taiwan

Thanks to our friends:
Revelator
Overkill
Remix Taipei
PHANTACi
BRAiNCHiLD
Provider
Machi
Mania
Hometown
B-Side
Saint of Rock
VEIL

http://www.adfunture.com
http://www.veil.hk

Continuing on our work with VEIL, we have started releasing items from our S/S 2011 line. We started the season off with a short series of sweatshirts and pull-over hoodies, these are great day-to-day items to have during these overlapping weathers. Titled “Cheerful Tribe”, the graphic pattern will reappear throughout this season.

I personally love the grey fabric we used. The crew wore this colorway the most ever since we got our samples, the material is quite nice. This series will drop in our VEIL Taipei Store tomorrow. Enjoy.

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

While I went quiet on the designer figure front, our team was actually busy with the VEIL project.

After its first retail store in Hong Kong opened back in Feb of 2010, VEIL now has its second location in Taipei City of Taiwan. I’ll show you the store over the next few days, tonight I want to post up the specially made t-shirt we got ready for the Taipei Store’s opening event. We believe alot of people use clothing to represent themselves as who they’d want to be, a veil over their true personalities. Alot of people dress as they are, as how they truly feel, truly fit, but they still have something burried deep in their heart that they don’t want others to see. Everybody wears a Veil.

VEIL Official Website: http://www.veil.hk

…

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”.

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.