Tuna of the Day!

Lydia goes country.

Photos by Alexander Bakayannis

Tuna of the day!

Lower East Side Street Guru

For the sneakerheads and streetwear fanatics of New York City’s Lower East Side, there is one name that stands above all the rest when it comes to street culture. That name is Jeff Staple or as he prefers it jeffstaple, an entrepreneur, clothing and product designer, founder of New York design studio Staple Design and owner of retail store Reed Space in Lower East Side. The story is pretty much the same for most of the people that have made it big in the industry and Staple was no exception, starting out as a graphic designer making t-shirts of his own but even before doing that he had already switched quite a few different jobs including pizza delivery, busboy and a photo film developer. He even created, as far as art direction went, a book on the hip hop culture of Cuba in 2005, shot entirely by Estevan Oriol and Angela Boatwright. What separates Staple from the rest of the bunch today is the fact that besides still being a designer himself he also got involved in the whole process of retail by running the Reed Space, which includes the neighboring Reed Space Annex, hosting a variety of pop-up shops, the most recent one being the Mighty Healthy pop-up shop, plus a Reed Space in Japan and Hawaii. In addition the Staple Design studio has collaborated with various brands and companies of different backgrounds on quite a few projects in the last few years including designing sneakers for Nike, New Balance and Converse, as well as co-branding gadgets from Lomo cameras up to cars for Japanese manufacturers Kia. Despite the success of these collaborations, the big breakthrough for Staple and the studio was Staple’s ‘Pigeon’ design for the classic Nike Dunk sneaker in 2005 which turned into an instant hit among the inner circles of New York’s street culture enthousiasts. Evidently pigeons turned into some kind of a trademark for Staple who started putting them on pretty much everything from shoes and cameras to hats, and even a mini fridge the same way Ralph Lauren had been using the polo ponnies. If you go back here you can actually have a look at what happened outside the Reed Space the day the Pigeon Dunks where released

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Being lazy enough not to catch it while being on the list of the Athens Film Festival this past september, I decided to sit down and watch Banksy's film last night. For some reason it was labeled a "documentary" by some, although at no point during the film did I feel like watching one. The only thing I knew about it since yesterday was Banksy's own declaration of his hope that it would do for street art what The Karate Kid did for martial arts when he introduced it at the Film Festival of Berlin. Truth is I dont know whether he actually achieved that or not, but personally I found it quite enjoyable and realistic revolving around Banksy's friendship with a guy called Thierry Guetta, an LA native who doesnt go anywhere without his camera sharing the constant growth of street art in the city of Los Angeles. I dont want to give away the whole movie, but in order to give you a taste ill just say there is a lot of running, spraying and a couple of familiar faces like Shepard Fairey who replicates his Andre the Giant image on walls around the city. Here's the trailer

Tuna of the Day!

Top Champs..

I have no words for this one.. Absolute description by the YEP people that gives you a really in-depth analysis.. (of the problem)

Illustration by Daniel David Freeman

Hair: A £50 Toni & Guy number one all over, done with a pair of scissors.

Hat: A baggy woolly hat which resembles a baby’s nappy that is sagging with steaming shit, hence my preferred name for it: the “poo hat”.

Tattoos: Non-specifically spiritual, meaningless phrases such as “Living my destiny” in Shakespearean black script on the forearm or chest.

Jacket: Like 14-year-old girls on a night out in Newcastle, they rarely wear jackets because they think it “messes up their look”. They usually compromise with a thick-knit cardigan with pointlessly MASSIVE buttons.

Top: A low-cut V-neck T-shirt to show off their freshly waxed chest, which pokes out like an erect penis. The chest is usually covered in zits and little white mounds of puss formed around ingrown hairs.

Trousers: Baggy distressed designer jeans that they picked up in the fake vintage section in Diesel, held up by a studded belt with a “cool, edgy” phrase such as “PUNK ROCK” on the buckle.

Favourite phrases: “Receipt in the bag?”

Footwear: Flip-flops, plimsolls or – if they are particularly daring/have ambitions of appearing on The X Factor – stupid designer re-imagining of army boots from the 1940s which are left gaping at the top to accommodate a hefty wad of denim.

Accessories: An iPhone (which they don’t use because they can’t find the keypad) and a peroxide-blonde girlfriend who is moody as fuck, with a constant scowl on her face – the living embodiment of the phrase “Who put sand upyour vagina?”

Girlfriend: See above.

Plaid shirt? Yes, until Nuts says they are uncool.

Fixed-gear bike? No way. They use their mum’s Peugeot 206.

If this offends you then you gotta check it out.

For more Top Champs like this guy click on.. Yepwecan.co.uk

Tuna of the day!

Get Down with the Neighbors

J Melik, Vee Ber, Billa Qause and Santo also known as The Neighbors is a group of 4 guys from Athens who keep the spirit of turntablism alive. You can catch them throwing parties around the city spinning quality tunes and providing some live action as well through their own mpcs and visuals. Their sound revolves mainly around hip hop, funk and breaks so if you dig that kind of stuff you should check them out asap

Stussy on J Dilla

To pick up from where I left off about a month ago, this is a documentary Stussy created in J Dilla's memory, where people like Peanut Butter Wolf, J Rocc and Frank Nitty share their opinion and experiences on working with him, and the legacy he left behind when he passed away in 2006. Ive uploaded the first part, you can find the rest as you browse through the related videos

A day with "SF"..

Let's take it back to our roots. Santa Friday(SF) or Agia Paraskevi is luckily my hometown in Athens. One of the areas around Hellas where skateboarding was incredibly famous during the 90's. Those innocent good old days of the 90's, SF has been the meeting point for youngsters like us to share common interests in the best possible way. That's how I met the "SF crew".. Being all innocent and young, having a lot of energy both mentally and physically. Skateboarding has probably been the only passion and freedom in our everyday routine. Now "SF crew" are taking it to another level by serving the Hellenic skateboarding scene with some raw tricks and spreading the hope of freedom and passion for rollin' to more and more young people. It was great to hang out with them after so long. Go "SF" go!

 Photos by Alexander Bakayannis

Mr. Kaneda presents..

Mr Kaneda presents Just A Bad Boy by Mr.Kaneda

Tuna of the Day!

Im a Greekman in New York

So when you think about a Greek who lives and works in New York city, you might probably come up with the notion of somebody whos working in one of Astoria's tavernas serving ouzo and mousaka.Well guess again. Representing at the other side of the sea, Kostas Seremetis is a pop artist who lives and works in the Big Apple. I found out about his work through his collaboration with Stussy coming up with the design of one of their varsity jackets. He started painting professionally around the beginning of the 00's and his work mostly portrays heroes and villains from comic books, depicting the eternal battle between good and evil. He is self taught and his work is graphically consistent, described as abstract expressionist popular art, a genre that makes use of both traditional methods such as palette knife oil paintings and sculpture as well as various new media like photography and film. Seremetis got hooked on art and painting when he was living in Boston as a kid using the city's nightclubs as a canvas, and he was just 19 years old when he had his fist exhibition. Since then his work has been exhibited in art centers, galleries and museumsg all over the world successfully establishing a large international following,that led him to gradually start getting involved with other art forms such as abstract short films and band projects. His latest project is a collage of both image and sound of the Star Wars Trilogy, showing at The Cinematheque de Tanger in Morocco.

Music mix in a digital tape!

The definition of the well known Mix tape in a digital form. Most of it reminds me of the first bootleg 8 track tapes quality of the mid 70's. No doubt, the selection of some songs will take you back to the good old days. The second half of the mix tape though leads to head banging as Atari chose some louder new skool party tunes for this tape.

BBC "The Look"..

Here's an old documentary from BBC, which takes a "Look" into 3 different fashion markets..
-Luxury
-Premium
-Street
The reasons behind the popularity of such markets and a full justification of the brands' recognition and success. Brands seen on this episode: Chanel, Ralph and Stussy.

BBC The Look - Episode 4/6 - Uniform and Function from Pssst on Vimeo.

Artist of the day.

Fotini Dokou is a great friend and an amazing personality. She's got hell of a talent and puts a lot of effort to her hobbies and artwork, highlighting film and digital photography. She's been serving sports magazines and articles with great action and landscape photography. If you go to her house you'll realise straightaway that she's a genuine and artistic personality. Books of art, photography street art, sticker bombing, pop-art.. even at her bathroom. Big up Fotini.

photos by Fotini Dokou

Tuna of the Day!

The Daftron Legacy

Now here is something toy collectors might find quite interesting. With Tron Legacy being the latest release by the Walt Disney studios and as the movie is hitting theaters worldwide, in order to honor Daft Punk for coming up with the entire movie soundtrack, Medicom Toys released a pair of Daft Punk toy figures available in both Kubrick and Real Action Hero form. The figures will be in stores by April this year and are outfitted in white TRON influenced garments, alongside the trademark Daft Punk helmets. Even before that by the end of this month at select Medicom Toy stockists the Daft Punk x TRON: Legacy collection will exhibit a design coming in a set of 400% Bearbricks, an equivalent of 280 mm.

Night Riders.. Parteeey!