For a long time we’ve been looking out to find the right people and stores to introduce our brand to the Japanese market and this year we’ve put some effort in making things happen over there. Last tradeshow season our friends from Sixpack introduced us to their Japanese connection; Haka from Blues Inc. distribution and Raddlounge and Rendez Vous stores in Tokyo…we’re happy and proud to announce they are our Japanese distributors since a few months! “Raddlounge is a boutique in Tokyo launched in 2003 handling selected clothing from the various countries in the world such as France, Italy, U.K., Australia, U.S.A and The Netherlands. The brands which RADD LOUNGE carries are closely attached to music,street culture and the art.”

They focus on distributing European and American brands to the Japanese market and are the distributors for ie. Trainerspotter, Super Sunglasses, Sixpack, Schwipe, Homeroom, Complete Technique and others. Last month they showed Ontour and all these brands at the Union tradeshow in Tokyo…so things are setting off there! Check out their blog to see what’s happening on that side of the world and how they push Ontour…

Here our products in their Raddlounge store:

Almost at the same time we started working with Blues Inc. / Raddlounge, our German friends from DRMTM hooked us up with the buying team from Nano Universe, who happened to be in Dusseldorf for a shoes tradeshow and were looking for some new European brands…Wouter and I set up a meeting to show our new collections and now they are also one of the first Japanese stores to carry Ontour.

Nano Universe is a company that runs several stores across Japan mixing high-end fashion with streetwear brands, besides having their own inhouse label…sometimes things just work out the way you want them to be;)

But hey, still a long way to go…as one of our former production partners once said: ‘You’ve got to dream high…but step by step.”

That’s enough wisdom just before the weekend. Enjoy!

Some Ontour tradeshow history: when we hardly existed for a year, we decided to rent a booth the size of a stamp at Bread and Butter Barcelona. This was in january 2006, we showed our ‘Big Mouth’ collection over there and it was an amazing experience and time for us and it kind of all started from there…one season later we decided to show our ‘Sliced’ collection again at Bread and Butter, but this time in Berlin. There were still 2 editions then, but after that season they decided to skip Berlin and only do Barcelona. We also decided to step out for a while and focus a bit more on our designs and work with the contacts we already had.

But I’ve always been going to Bread and Butter every season, to meet up with our friends, other brands, shops, distributors that I normally just ’see’ via internet. It’s always an event I look forward to and now we’re back!! Coming edition we’ll be part again of the Sports and Street area with a nice booth, with our biggest (and best;) collection so far! We’re all excited and really looking forward to stand there again ourselves with our products. Check out all brands in our area and make sure to drop by in our booth…all plans are being made now and info is getting in, like the floorplan. Here we are, in between lots of ‘old’ friends. We’re happy to be part of the family again!

More info soon…

Finally, part 3 is on its way! After 2 editions Too Much Funclub will land again at the place where it all started…Area 51!

This one will be a special ‘Sinterklaas’ 5th of December edition with the man himself walking around. It’s going to be a big one with Obi Blanche from New Judas, Pete Concrete and the Longmen:

Initiated by HeyHeyHey and supported by Dings, Magda and us, Les Ontours, you know the ingredients are here for a great night! Pre-sale will start soon at these places. Hope to see you on the dancefloor!

A new Dutch blog added to your daily favourites from a store with some history…our friends at Toms Amsterdam report what’s happening in and around there shop. For your skateboarding and naked girls habits, have a look…

This week I got this package and joined The Movement…

“By staying at home, you’ll be doing the best possible thing you can for the environment. Nothing.”

“Every day we’re confronted with people who seem to be employed as professional wankers rather than whatever position they claim to be filling. We’ve had enough of this bullshit.
We’re starting a campaign to name and shame the most offensive people in the world to get public support to get them to quit their jobs and clear space for more talented and better people, like you and me.”

Indeed, vote the petition here, and maybe Amy will finally quit her job…

Here you can see who else support this brilliant campaign and here you can watch some of the instructional videos to see how you can integrate into society and print out the placards to show people how you really feel:

Read the story about Erik, our Dutch connection in Brisbane Australia; from 2000 he was one of the owners of the succesfull restaurant Blauw aan de Wal in Amsterdam. Last year he felt that he reached everything that was possible with this and  was ready for a new challenge. Something really different. He bought a track bike and became a bike messenger. Through the love for these bikes and his other interests in popular culture he also felt that he could do more with that: set up a small shop…

Then the situation occurred that he had the possibility to enjoy the great climate and lifestyle of Brisbane for a couple of years. After wandering around for a while and enjoying the relaxed Ozzie lifestyle he wanted to do something useful and exiting again and picked up his shop plans and decided to develop them there. Bring some European flavour in this city!

And look what’s happening now:

Gear is now becoming true for Erik and he’s in the middle of constructing the store! Gear will be a shop where the basic products will be bicycles, apparel and sneakers. And Ontour will be one of the brands that he will represent in this sunny place, besides brands like Rockers and Rockwell…follow the work in progress on his site till the opening planned for January 2009…looking forward to that! All the best from Holland!

CrackRock and Ontour hired some nice ladies to prepare our seasons christmas gifts…

A new store opened in the industrial area in Eindhoven: Strijp-X. After the Dutch Design Week and Glow festival they now are definately open. Fashion, photography, graphic design, music and multimedia will blend in this space and offer a stage for upcoming designers and artists. Our Crack collection is also part of their collection. Besides they’ve teamed up with MU gallery and STRP festival in the form of the ‘5-minutes-museum’; 1 space with 1 changing piece of art that needs at least 5 minutes of your time.

Open: wednesday – friday: 17-21 hrs saturday: 13-117 hrs

Glaslaan 2 (gebouw SBX)
5616 LW Eindhoven

Last sunday Hilde and I went to Rotterdam to visit some musea and galleries. It was a long time ago we were there but it’s always good to see what’s happening in this cultural city. Art-wise they have a lot to offer, always some good exhibitions in this town. We didn’t have time anymore to check the stores…so that’ll be up next time when we go back. Here some picts:

We started at Boijmans van Beuningen where they have this piece of one of my all time favourite artists Paul McCarthy. So funny to have this Santa with a buttplug out on the streets all year.

Olaf Nicolai and Studio Thonik made this new ‘playground’ floor painting on the entrance. Sculpture from Thomas Shutte in the front.

‘Copy Right’ by Superflex from Denmark, transforming reproductions from Arne Jacobsens chair into unique pieces agin.

Inside the museum different ‘interventions’ are shown in between the collection of old works, this one is from Karin van Dam.

Some details of the old collection paintings…

Now one of the best pieces in the whole museum by Maurizio Cattelan:

In between the master pieces out of the museum collection of 16th and 17th century paintings, the artist himself peeps through the floor. The hole goes all the way down to the level beneath where you see Cattalan standing on a pile of boxes and a cupboard…this guy is brilliant, go and check out some of his other works here.

He has been a big inspiration for Etienne and me and this work was one of the triggers for the theme of our very first series of tees!

Some nice graphic work.

Hilde being caught in a Bruce Nauman work:

Work from Shirana Shahbazi who makes still life photographs and for this expo asked advertising painters from Iran who paint huge billboards by hand, to do the same here in the museum with her still lifes:

After Boijmans we went to Witte de With, one street packed with dope galleries and first had a look outside and inside Manana:

They just opened this new expo from Numy y Malicia from barcelona:

Walking on Witte de With you bump into these kind of things:

Last but not least on the agenda was Showroom Mama, I think one of the best Dutch galleries of new, young contemporary art. I always enjoy the shows there. Now on was ‘YES’ and I was happy this was still on cause I wanted to see this one. Curated by Rufus Ketting showing works of 75B, Daan den Houter, Kimberly Clark, Max Maas, Parra, Rafaël Rozendaal, Helmut Smits, Matthijs Vlot amongst others…

Also some animations that cracked me up…but I can’t find them anywhere online so when you have some time left you should go there..it’s the last week!

Well, that’s enough art history for now. See you next time R’dam.

Crackrock sended me these images of our AW08 catalogue…by cutting this pyramid shape out of the pages, the result came by accident and as a pleasant surprise! No use of photoshop: