Highsnobiety recently visited our friend Henry Davies, owner and #1 vintage Vans curator of The Other Side of The Pillow. We get a cool, first-hand look into his shop, and get schooled on our Vans history. Henry has a wealth of knowledge for Vans, and without him, I don’t think Vans would have as much of a connection to their past, particularly with the designs and array of models. The community is still small, but it’s been steadily growing, and one day I hope to make it across the pond to visit his awesome shop, but until then, we’ll just live vicariously through Highsnobiety and their Highsnobiety Visits features.
The Happiest Place On Earth. There isn’t a better way to describe the thoughts and feelings I walked away with after the fun-filled all-day event put on by Disney and Vans this past Thursday. They pulled out all the stops for this event, and I am deeply honored and greatly humbled that I was able to partake in all of the festivities, and hang out with some great people that also do great things in the sneaker world, at a much much more higher level than I do.
continue reading more after the jump
(This is the same artist that did those cool Vans paintings that I posted up on Instagram. Support our friends to the North, and stop in to check out this awesome exhibition!)
For one night only, artist Thibaut « MEKA » Désiront will settle at Espace OTH, the art gallery of the owners of doewntown boutique Off The Hook. His solo art exhibition, named « Push », contains two dozen paintings on hard wood, as well as a dozen other pieces of art, all of them exploring the common themes of inspiration, positivity, and surpassing oneself – an organic follow-up to his famous Keep Pushing series.
« Every piece from this show related to striving to be better, to push your own limits – either via designs influenced by inspiring quotes, or by the icons who’ve pushed me to create, discover, exchange or make experiences, since I was a kid. »
Thibaut “MEKA” DésirontWhen: Thursday, March 5th 2015, from 5pm to 9pm
Where: Espace OTH, 1181 Ste Catherine West, Montreal. No cover.
There’s a certain kind of awesomeness that comes with owning and operating Under The Palms. Who’d have ever thought that I’d be able to rub elbows with sneaker advocates like Mr. Sabotage himself, Mark Ong. In the short amount of time that we’ve gotten to know each other, he’s been a tremendous inspiration for me. He’s been in my shoes before. Arriving at a few crossroads, deciding if he should move on to other things, or rekindle the fire which was slowly starting to fade out for various reasons. As he got back into sneaker customizing, he started dabbling more into Vans, and while doing so, through Instagram and the Strictly Vans Facebook Group, he came across an old friend, Faisal, who is one of our more familiar Singapore sneaker friends, who is part of the group of cousins that go by the name “Kadir Warriors”. You may have seen a few of their members share their photos with us, and it’s no surprise that they are the unofficial Vans ambassadors of Singapore. SBTG and Faisal have known each other since the late 90s, back when they were very into vintage clothing and sneakers, and used to hang out at a mutual friend’s store named Vintage Closet in Far East Plaza. After Mark and Faisal got to talking, they both realized that their interest in this emerging Vans scene in Singapore, sort of stemmed from their love for “Vintage Japanese Americana style”. Soon after that, Mark learned about Faisal’s family, and their Kadir Warrior brotherhood, and their strong family bond. They plan out mini family reunions every so often, and their #KadirWarriors campaign keeps them all in the loop with one another. This interaction struck a chord with Mark, and reminded him of the phrase on old vintage Vans boxes, “Canvas Shoes for the Entire Family”. That is what inspired him to create a project with the Kadir Warriors. He felt that the project really encapsulates the spirit of Vans back in the day where they would customize shoes for their customers, and also capture the spirit of family.
Those factors made him pitch this idea to Faisal, and after many conversations they finalized on re-appropriating an old Vans print (spiderweb) in the spirit of the love for Vintage, adding a short for Kadir Warriors logo, as KWAR, and their signature hand sign in Bone form. They chose this print as the spiderweb was a reminder of their bond as a family.
They initially agreed on 2-3 pairs, but ended up doing 10 pairs, and even 2 T-shirt designs. Almost every pair is different in terms of pattern placement and silhouette, so each pair is essentially one-of-a-kind. Sad to say, this is a private collection, and I doubt any one of them will be selling their pairs. Sabotage is awesome for doing this for the Kadir Warriors, and I hope to see more projects like this in the future. Mark also was able to set up an interview for us, which I have prepared for you all, so that you can all get to know our friends from Singapore a little bit better. I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to kiss my ass if you don’t! Haha!
Read the interview and see tons more pics after the jump Read More
Our homie Jesus, aka mayimbe181 posing with the Brazzers girls, in NYC this past weekend, while they gave out ice cream. Hellooo Madison Ivy!
a few more pics after the jump Read More
Vans Syndicate has recently featured our great friend Brant, and his shop Silo, on their official website, and some of you newer folks and customer’s of Brant can finally put a face to the friendly person you may or may not have met yet. Read the article here. He just opened Silo’s second location in Omaha, NE, which will be offering all things that he likes, and in his words: “Our new space will be more tightly curated, featuring a very select hardgoods brand offering, our favorite shoes, and apparel built to last. We are emphasizing quality and value above all. As we get older, certain aspects of our daily life become more important, and this location hopes to capture that. Long winded way of saying I am carrying exactly what I want.” This is a big year for our brotha’ Brant. A new shop, a new house, and his first baby on the way with his awesome wife! Congrats, and we wish you the best of luck. UTP owes you for the majority of what we are, and for that we thank you!
One of our main supporters, In4mation, has just released their Winter 2014 collection, featuring a few dope floral pieces, as well as a few graphic tees, which In4m always comes correct with. The Bones “hi” tee should be popular amongst our circles, as well as the Spy vs. Spy design with the checkerboard border. The DeLaSoul inspired graphic is dope as well! The hats is where it’s at though! The floral “hi” and 3m “hi” hats are straight killing it. Enough said. Go cop yours on the In4mation webstore, or at your local In4m dealer.
info via Highsnobiety
tons more pics after the jump Read More
Just a friendly reminder that our art exhibition is still up at Bait in Diamond Bar, so if you didn’t get to see the awesome installation we put together, along with all of our awesome friends who created some awesome art for the show. We’ve been given the okay to leave it up for a few more weeks, so stop on by and say hello, and head up stairs to check it out. Thanks everyone!
I’m going to start doing this more often for friends of ours on here. It’s not always about sneakers, and for me, it’s always about making sure I can give back to those who have gone out of their way to support OTWS, in any way I can.
That being said, check out In4mation’s lookbook, shot by skateboard and lifestyle photographer Matt McGinley, that was just released, featuring their Fall/Winter lineup for 2013. Our longtime friend Keith over at In4mation, is responsible for the sick “In4m” handstyles script logo that you see above, and I hope it stays around in their logo lineups for awhile, perhaps to be used on a New Era fitted as well, hint hint! Quote from Highsnobiety: “The upcoming line was inspired by the late-night benders and fifth-gear debauchery that tend to follow a hard day’s work, and includes T-shirts with graphic motifs, printed sweatshirts – some with front-pockets – and a range of snapbacks featuring a variety of embroidered motifs”. If you follow Keith and friends on Instagram, you’ll see exactly where this inspiration came from. You can purchase the entire collection on their webstore, as well by phone order. Hit them up, and tell them Guamstyles from Offthewallsite sent you!
more pics after the jump Read More
First off, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you that came out to support us last Thursday evening. Our successful opening night couldn’t have been done without a crowd! The California Native show is off and running, currently on display at Bait’s flagship store in Diamond Bar, and if you’re anywhere near DB in the next 3 weeks or so, stop in, and head up stairs to check out the awesome art installation, including some of my own personal Vans collection. To be honest, I only host these art shows so I can display my shoes, haha! I’d also like to thank our network of artists for coming through on this event with some awesome pieces for us all to see. It always amazes me, to see different people’s perspectives on our set themes, and to see their unique and talented styles. We’re not worthy to get the level of quality in the art we have been so lucky to receive, but we will proudly accept it and display it out of pure gratitude, if not for anything else.
Please do yourselves a favor and make it a point to come out and visit Bait on a free day, and see what I am trying to poorly put into words for you all. The show was scheduled to run for 2 weeks, but it may run longer now, as their art gallery calendar has opened up recently. Also, if you’ve never been in to Bait before, prepared to be blown away by the awesome vinyl toy collection that is on display. I think it’s safe to say that it’s the largest display of a personal collection (most for sale by the way) in the country, and possibly the world! It’s awe-inspiring, and from what I heard, we drew a bunch of first timers to the shop that night, and plenty of jaws were dropping once they set foot into the store. Don’t forget, Bait carries all of your favorite brand name apparel, and their sneaker selection has been growing as well, with some pretty exclusive stuff to top it off.
Lastly, thank you to Marc, Matt, and Eric at Bait, for working with us, and allowing us to do this. Ryan, Dennis, and I look forward to hosting more events like this in the future, and we have a gang of ideas that we can run with! Please take the time to look through all of the photos after the jump, and spread the word! Thank you.
-Bill “Guamstyles” Cruz
tons of photos after the jump! Read More
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