The Black Eyed Peas was in town last week to induct U2 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Kind of a big deal when they’re rubbing shoulders with Mick Jagger and the like. He had a chance to pop into the SoHo store with Apl.
Later on we stopped into Saks to check out the shoes.
Shawn and Louis, Buyer and DMM at Saks met us on the floor.
It got kind of crazy. Kids were offering free dental work from their father’s practice in Brooklyn. Tourists from Italy were asking for autographs. One woman inadvertently asked for mine thinking I was famous. That was exciting.
They’ll be back next week to perform on SNL and at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show and also for one mega event with us on November 12th. Keep you posted.
Last night my buddy Dusty invited me to stop by Opera Gallery (down the street from the store) where I had the pleasure of meeting Ron English along with Larry and Brandon from Greedy Genius. Ron’s work is among the most, if not THE most, relevant and fascinating of any artist out there. We got to talking and there might be some opportunities for us to collaborate. It would be absolutely amazing to align with one of our generation’s seminal artists. Check out his work.
The TABOOXJUMP shoes just reached American shores. Here’s a sneak peak.
Jump and Taboo of The Black Eyed Peas Launch Luxury Sneaker Collection Exclusively for Saks
NEW YORK, NY – Sep. 22 – In an innovative partnership bridging fashion and music, NY based, lifestyle footwear brand, Jump, has teamed up with Taboo of three time Grammy Award winning, multi-platinum recording group, The Black Eyed Peas, to design a limited collection of luxury sneakers. While the performer had already worn several of Jump’s characteristic sneakers on tour, it was a meeting at the Jump SoHo boutique that spawned a full on creative collaboration between the artist and the brand. Soon after, the idea was presented to Saks Fifth Avenue, whereupon the product was embraced and an exclusive launch for the TABOOXJUMP collection was born.
The collection consists of four models adapted from one of Jump’s key styles, the Zeto high top. The sneakers will feature unique branding highlighting the collaboration and will be packaged in limited edition satin bags and drawer boxes. They will retail for $298 a pair.
“It is such an amazing opportunity to align with Taboo, whose design sensibility so perfectly coincides with ours, particularly during what I believe to be the height of his and The Black Eyed Peas’ success”, said Jump Chief Propagandist, Victor Hsu. Through this collaboration, we hope Taboo’s dreams as a shoe fanatic can come to fruition and he can use the experience as a foundation to build his own line of footwear in the future”, said Jump Captain, Lawrence Chen.
“The moment I wore my first pair of Jump shoes I knew there was something extra fresh and unique about them”, said Taboo. “It went perfectly with my style and it had such a great fit while I performed on stage. I’m so honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with such a great company and an amazing group of people to create the perfect union between Jump and myself.”
Saks buyer, Shawn Pean describes the collaboration as “the perfect synergy of Brand and Lifestyle. Taboo has a great sense of style that has become iconic for many, and Jump is a footwear brand that encompasses this lifestyle dressing through a footwear perspective. The brand collaboration has tremendous upside and we are pleased to get in on a ground level and help take this to new heights.”
The collection will be sold exclusively at select Saks locations nationwide for Fall 09 and will launch officially on October 14th.
About Jump
Jump is a lifestyle footwear brand dedicated to providing the discerning individual with inspiring design and directional fashion. Since its beginnings as an athletic sneaker brand in 1975 Taiwan, Jump has globalized, stocking top retailers in Asia, Europe, Latin America, the US and Canada. Today, Jump pays homage to its sneaker heritage with Jump Deluxe, the definitive convergence of high-end street and daring luxury.
About Taboo
The multi-talented and exceptionally stylish Jaime Gomez, also known to his band mates and fans as Taboo is not just a member of the global chart topping sensations, The Black Eyed Peas, but also a philanthropist and actor, quickly becoming a Latin action movie star. Drawing from cultures and styles from his travels all over the world, Taboo has been a driving force within The Black Eyed Peas and is internationally known for his creative and unique approach to fashion and music.
About Saks
Saks Fifth Avenue, one of the world’s preeminent specialty retailers, is renowned for its superlative American and international designer collections, its expertly edited assortment of handbags, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics and gifts, and the first-rate fashion expertise and exemplary client service of its Associates. Today, Saks operates 53 full-line stores in 25 states, 5 licensed stores in the Middle East and 1 licensed store in Mexico City, 52 Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5TH stores and saks.com, the company’s online store.
Tab also shot me this pic of Apl.de.ap wearing JUMP.
I had the chance to hang out with Andrea Chung and Richie Rich last night at Safran. We got to talking and decided we have to do a dope ass collaboration together! If it’s anything like the things he’s done before I think it’s going to be one hell of a project. I’d always thought he brought a different sort of fun and crazy inventiveness to the scene back in the Heatherette days and now with his own line it’s at another level throwing in the likes of Jenna Jameson and Aubrey O’Day. Check out this clip from his last show in Miami with Pam Anderson.
Andrea is currently putting together a reality series about Richie and you’ll get to have a glimpse of some of our collaboration. Watch out for it!
Jump Studios is a collaboration with Arowana Films featuring Sung Kang to showcase our various product categories. It is the first of six short films set to release once a week. Enjoy.
We’ve partnered up with Zappos to utilize their impeccable customer service and fulfillment capabilities to build our Online Shop. Check it out!
It was some time last fall when I’d decided to reach out to Sung Kang, a rising actor in Hollywood, most famous for his role as Han in Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift and in Better Luck Tomorrow. It was his iconoclastic approach to portraying Asian Americans as creative, funny and desirable that led me to take a big interest in him. So when he replied to me saying that he’d seen the shoes and loved to get involved with Jump at any level, I knew we were onto something great.
We flew out to LA and had wanted to treat him to lunch at some swanky Japanese restaurant but it ended up him inviting us to his own restaurant, Saketini, in Brentwood. It was pretty immediate that we knew we were speaking with the right person to represent the brand. We shared with him our history: our beginnings in Asia, how the brand has since traveled to over 30 countries and our vision for the US market. We discussed our brand philosophy driven by family values and how we wanted to transcend the realm of mere shoes but to extend the brand to other aspects of culture and global consciousness. We left lunch feeling not only extremely satisfied and full (his food, by the way, is exquisite) but also feeling great about the partnership. It felt like he had already become one of the Jump family. We had some great ideas on the table and from there we knew it would only burgeon into something bigger.
Man, did he feed us. We must’ve gone through like 10 courses.
After our return to New York, we began brainstorming. I soon discovered that contrary to what you might think of most actors, Sung could do a lot more than just act. I suppose the fact that he owned a restaurant and built his own original menu was already a testament to that. He’d become our Hollywood ambassador, wearing our shoes in all his films including Fast and Furious 4 directed by Justin Lin, the prequel to Tokyo Drift that tells the story of Han and Dom, played by Vin Diesel also starring Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster. In Berlin, he introduced the Wachowski Brothers (Matrix) and Rain to Jump while shooting Ninja Assassin.
But one of the things that impressed me the most was that he owned a high degree of innate creativity and self-awareness of his talents and was able to tap into it to help us formulate some really great ideas; things we would’ve never come up with!
Internally, we had developed a dossier to help us categorize our wide breadth of product. We decided that in order to make this palatable and understandable both internally and for our customers, we should categorize it. We decided that the best way to do it was to create a character or a persona for each category, then write a story about each one. Here’s what one very creative weekend yielded us.
We had a great time writing these. We wanted to make each of these characters cool but hilarious at the same time. Who would you identify with?
With these characters and Sung’s talents as an actor, we now had the tools to create some really cool stuff. But what? We began throwing ideas back and forth and came up with two really good ones. The first would be a series of short films produced by Arowana Films starring Sung playing each of the characters we’d come up with. The next would involve traveling half way around the world to Taiwan to work with my old friend Jeff Wang, owner of the creative agency, Blanq to create a collection pieces that would serve as our premier brand campaign. The stage was set for a host of exciting developments. Stay tuned.
