NEWSLETTER

DUNKS They kind of got overdone around 1999, but what a masterpiece. The Dunk first appeared in 1985, and it came with all this lofty PR talk about how it would make you fly and improve your…dunk. Nike print ads for it read, "Be true to your school." because it was one of the first sneakers to make special colorways just for college ball teams. Real sneaker nerds will always know in their hearts that Dunks are way better than Jordans, and will quietly wait until the hype dies down enough to get them out again.
HUKU iPOD COVER I don't know what it is about this thing that makes people dry heave when they look at it, but check it out. It's hideous. Pull this out of your pocket on the train and, for some weird reason, you will have a dozen angry eyes staring at you like you just fucked a baby in the nude. Go to huku.info for more.
FRED PERRY "I got my first Fred Perry in about 1978 when I was living in High Wycombe. I was 14 years old. Because I lived on a council estate I was into the whole Madness skinhead thing and so were my friends. My favorite was always the black one with the gold trimming. I wanted to be tough and I was into weightlifting and the way the Fred Perrys were trimmed made you look muscular and hard. It was always my favorite bit of clothing because it was easy to throw on and it always looked good. When I moved to London, my mate Tottenham Chris worked in the Fred Perry factory and he used to nick loads of them. So that was a good arrangement." GAVIN WATSON Gavin Watson's collected photographs of the late 70s, early 80s, pre-racist skinhead scene are available in an amazing book called Skins. Check it on amazon.com
POLLYS Wave 1: These shoes were originally made in the late 50s for rich women to wear while they hung by the pool and drank tumblers full of pure gin with Burt Lancaster swimming by in the background. Wave 2: At the end of the 70s, new wave happened and Debbie Harry wore them on the cover of Parallel Lines. Wave 3: Lame-o's like Patricia Field make tacky versions of them for cheap Sex and the City whores, but the best Pollys being made now are the ones Judi Rosen does for her Miss Dater line. We don't know a lot about ladies' shoes, but we do know that seeing these things on a slightly drunk girl with a baby ass will turn your dick into a grenade, which will then explode and mess up your pants. Get Miss Dater Pollys at The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 437 East 9th St., New York City
SNEAKER SAVERS These were invented by a Dutchman who was just kidding, but if he had ever seen a Nuyorican on Avenue C, he'd realize this isn't even close to an exaggeration. Go to sneakersavers.com for more.
ADVAIR DISKUS Apparently this is supposed to cure you of wheezing allergies and help you get on with your day, etc, etc. Didn't do shit for me but what an incredible piece of industrial design. Every time you use it you have to rotate the disk and click this thing back. It's like using King Neptune's pager but in the future. Can you imagine the billions of dollars that went into making these fuckers?
GUM 2 Gum recently put out their second annual. It's about $20 and comes with: a pile of artist trading cards, gum balls, an activity book featuring Interpol, Cornelius, and Nancy Sinatra, a bag of gummi pumas, and a huge magazine book with tons of interviews and shit including a powwow with Ray Bradbury. What the fuck more do you want, you spoiled pieces of shit?
CLARKS DESERT BOOTS Nathan Clark first saw a shoe a lot like today's Desert Boot in South Africa. He was down there during World War II. They were selling it in the open markets, and a lot of British officers there started wearing it as a casual shoe. There seemed to be just one guy down there handmaking these—one or two pair at a time. Nathan sketched the shoe on a napkin and took it back to the UK, and the rest is magical mod history. These suckers are special editions designed by Duffer for their 20th anniversary.
CHUCK TAYLORS One of the worst movies ever made is I, Robot, but there's this great thread in it that starts with Will Smith putting on vintage Chuck Taylors (from back in 2005) and saying, "Classic." People in the future keep making fun of his shoes, but he just shrugs his shoulders because he knows they are the greatest thing ever made. The only thing in the world to ever make the Tidbits twice.
GRAY KANGAROO This phenomenally unattractive little invention turns Night Train into Courvoisier using an incredibly dense series of filters that take out all the impurities. Just pour whatever you want in the top and wait five minutes for incredibly clean booze to come out the bottom. Kind of a waste of time if you have a job, but when getting wasted seems prohibitively expensive this thing is a godsend. Oh yeah, and your hangovers are about 90% less harsh the next day. Go to graykangaroo.com for more.

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