Red Wing Shoes

Sir Sway: Red Wing Shoes have been around for over 100 years. Though Red Wings were originally designed for demanding jobs, because of the great materials and amazing shape Red Wings are becoming a huge boot company in the fashion industry. This is a short clip that shows the care and time the workers take with each boot. Enjoy!

Break Your Neck (BYN) Urban Customs

Mr. Mobile: So today, while shopping around Melrose Avenue my friend and I found this little shop called BYN. It turns out to be a super cool place offering clothes designed by the designed/owner of the store, Michaell Norice, and custom clothes as well. The place is at 7552 Melrose Avenue in LA.

Here's the outside of the store on the south side of Melrose.

This is the interior of the store. The wall is painted by Norice himself, and features the brand's mascot.

Some of the T's and sweaters sold in BYN.

Some of Norice's custom sneakers. These are Kanye sneakers and features Dropout Bear.

On the left Marvel Comics sneakers, and on the right, X-Men sneakers. Norice hopes that one day his custom sneakers will be seen as collectible art instead of just clothing.

Lastly, and this might just be my favorite part of the brand, this tag can be found on most of the clothes you can buy in the store. Very prestigious.

Surfin the Web

Sir Sway: I've been collecting pictures over the past month and I think I'm going to start posting pictures I find.

Mos Def Post-up

Gibbs the graffiti artist

Thelonious Monk... Check out the reflection in his glasses

Karmaloop

The Prestige: Click the banner to get there

Moncler Grenoble Fall/Winter 2011 Collection

Sir Sway:  This is something Moncler put together at Grand Central Station, and to be honest.. I'd rather watch something like this over starving runway models walk down an aisle any day.


Moncler Grenoble from Hintmag.com on Vimeo.

Vans Spring 2011 Sk8-Hi Reissue LX ‘Perf’

Sir Sway: I am not normally this into vans, so I'm pretty shocked I've posted 3 different pairs of there kicks in the past week.

Prozzak

Mr. Mobile: Prozzak is a group founded in the late 90's by two member of the band The Philosopher Kings. The band Prozzak is made up of two fictional characters Simon (Jay Levine) and Milo (James Bryan McCollum) and the name comes from the fact that their music is supposed to make you happy, like the drug Prozac. Anyway, most of their songs talk about their search for true love and their travels as friends. The music duo are based out of Toronto, Canada, although they sing in faux English accents. Personally, I love their music and their style. Below are some of my favorite tunes.

PS. They also fall into the category of musicians who hide their faces. Mentioned earlier in "Hide Your Face!"

To start here's the classic, Strange Disease.

Next up, www.nevergetoveryou.

Here's Omobolasire.

And this one, Wild Thing/Poor Boy.

Finally, it's not really a song, its The Legend of Simon and Milo. I highly recommend you watch this last one. It really shows their style I talked about earlier (style not fashion).

Louis Vuitton

Sir Sway: Now, most people don't actually know a whole lot about Louis Vuitton.  Most people I talk to see it as a luxury brand that you dream of one day getting. Well, it all began in 1835 when Louis Vuitton (the person) travelled from Jura to Paris, on foot.  Because planes and buses were hard to book without the internet being around, this 14 year old was forced to go on foot while doing odd jobs for people on the way.  He began getting good with his hands and probably realized the lack of a good suitcase made his trip incredibly more difficult.. seeing how it was a 400 km trek.  This suitcase gig must of clicked because he started making suitcases for families on the way, eventually making a big enough name for himself that Napoleon III of France made him the Layetier (I think its a fancy name for luggage maker) for the queen.  Gradually Vuitton made enough money to start the foundations of LV and eventually set up his first shop in London, England.

Louis Vuitton Spring 2011 women's collection

Comme des Garcons x Louis Vuitton collaborations from 2008

Louis Vuitton Spring 2011 men's collection 

Song that has been on repeat for me

The Grammys + Banksy

Mr. Mobile: So unfortunately this post is more of a complaint than anything else. I know it's become a trend to go all out and dress extra funky for these award shows, but the Grammys this year, from a fashion point of view, were quite disappointing. See for yourself.

So the first pic up is Katy Perry, and I'll even admit, she doesn't look all that bad. However, a bra and a high waisted skirt is not an outfit to be worn on the red carpet.

Next we have Jennifer Lopez. Quite frankly, too short and too shiny. No one would look good in this...

So next we have Miley Cyrus. I've always been down on this chick for her fashion choices, but this one takes the cake. It honestly looks like someone covered a white tiger in glitter killed it and turned it into a poorly cut dress.

Anyway, I won't bore you with many more of these, so if you want to check out more of them follow this link to where I'm getting them. But, before I leave you to do that, I have to bring out the worst one. Justin Bieber. He's wearing a white tux, strike one. It's too big, strike two. And he's got sneakers on, strike three. I could go on but we're all familiar with baseball. Anyway... 

Anyway on a different note. The famous street artist Banksy, who Sir Sway mentions from time to time (Vandalism or Art and Banksy at it Again) was recently the subject of a short documentary. It's really interesting and I highly recommend you check it out.

*Update: The link I watched it on has been disabled unfortunately. The movie is called "B Movie - A Film About the Art of Banksy", maybe you'll have more luck finding it than I have. If I find an active link I'll be sure to post it ASAP.

Vans OTW 2011 Spring Alomar

Sir Sway: Classic Chukka boots + slim hightops = Alomar

Vans OTW Pritchard Spring 2011

Sir Sway: As you can see, I am pretty into the Off The Wall series especially their great releases this spring.

Jack Purcell x Comme des Garcons 2011 Spring

Sir Sway: This is their second collab of the year and being a huge fan of the Jack Purcell Converse these had to be posted.  Shotty the black on black.

Karmaloop

The Prestige: Click the banner to get there

New Balance 574 ‘Sonic’

Sir Sway: This is from the summer/spring collection

Hide Your Face!

Mr. Mobile: You may have noticed lately that a lot of musical artists these days hid their faces. This can be for one of many reasons, but usually is an attempt to avoid the public eye. It's become so popular recently that we can now take a look at the various choices artists have made about the image they want to project. 

First I thought we'd look at the classic example, Daft Punk.

So here's the Daft Punk we all know and love. Personally, I'm a big fan of their robotic masks. They look sick and I like the way they juxtapose the idea of robots and techno music. But over the years Daft Punk has changed their look. Here are just a few of the different Daft Punk masks over the year.

Daft Punk in Tron

Daft Punk in their film Interstella 5555

Next I thought we could look at a Canadian icon, Deadmau5.

So here is the standard Deadmau5 look. And you can't deny, it's pretty awesome. Especially when you consider he's got fans and stuff in there to cool him off and make sure he can see. Here are a few more of his looks.

The group below, Ratatat, is one of my favorite all time music duos. They produce amazing music, usually lyric-less, but always dope. Anyway they're not much for public appearances but here they are in a promotional shoot and as they appear in Kid Cudi's video Pursuit of Happiness. 

Our next group is another one of my all time favorites, The Gorillaz. They're a little different than the artists we've looked at so far because they don't cover their faces, they are just a collection of fully animated characters.

The Gorillaz are actually a group of fictional characters. From left to right their names are Noodle, Stuart "2D" Pot, Russel Hobs, and the group leader Murdoc Niccals. The Gorillaz were created by and consist of musicians Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Check out a few more of their animated group mates.

Our last group is one that I brought up in my "The Music Video" post. They're called the Teddybears and are an electro group from Sweden. They literally wear bear masks in their videos and performances. I encourage you to check out the video I posted and some of their music. Here are some picks of the Teddybears.