We were talking to Taboo about how he collects his sneakers and he told us that everywhere he travels in the world, he picks up a pair of limited sneakers from whichever locale he’s in. We thought it’d be cool to hook him up with a special pair of one-offs for every country he goes to perform. Check out Mexico.
With our capabilities in production, we’re able to come up with stuff lightning speed. We are the roadrunners of the shoe business. They’re kind of sick huh? It’s mean to look like the Mexican flag with Taboo’s logo replacing the crest in the middle. These are the Zemas, a new style coming out next season, studded in rhinestones particularly for stage performance.
What a sick performance toasting to the 2 awards the Black Eyed Peas won at this year’s American Music Awards. What better way for them to do it than with Taboo wearing the Black/Gold TABOOXJUMP Zetos. What a phenomenal time for The Peas and for us to be collaborating with Tab. We’re truly quite fortunate.
So I’m finally recovered enough to blog about the festivities from Thursday night. It was an absolutely tremendous event, one that exceeded each and every one of my expectations. After months of planning, to see it finally come to fruition is utterly rewarding. It really was more of a ceremony, and as much as it was a launch for the TABOOXJUMP collaboration, it was also very much a rite of passage for our brand. I cannot thank Taboo enough for helping us make this a reality. We are so completely fortunate to have aligned at this moment in time and we’re truly blessed for it.
The evening began at our SoHo store. We had all the traditional JUMP festival accoutrement, Serrano ham from Despana professionally sliced by Senor Alex and cases upon cases of champagne.
Then the place got crazy.
Taboo makes his grand entrance.
The interesting thing about Taboo is how engaging he can be with people. He is extremely down to earth and has become a brother amongst the JUMP team. The personalities simply meshed and it’s only because of this that the whole thing coalesced into such an amazing collaboration. He turned our counter into a stage that night.
After all the autographs were signed, the interviews taken, we were off to Juliet for the VIP after party. The place looked heavenly.
Then people started rolling in. DJ Atrak and Kim Stolz from America’s Next Top Model.
Lance Bass
And the guests of honor, The Black Eyed Peas.
Just prior to coming to Juliet, they had made it to another red carpet for the opening of Shingo Katori’s “Talk Like Singing”. Shingo is huge in Japan and is a member of SMAP. Taboo had presented him with a pair of the TXJ shoes and of course, he put them on right away!
It’s cool how the red works with the red carpet.
Fergie came to support and we had a chance to chat about her shoe line!
Will.I.Am
Apl.De.Ap
We had our chance to get in front of the cameras as well.
And this was later on Entertainment Tonight! Nobu, owner of Cactus Blues who just starting repping the line in Japan, me, Taboo, Shawn our Saks Buyer and Harry CEO of JUMP.
In the VIP room.
My buddy Richie Rich came too! He’s a good friend of Fergie’s.
Fergie wants us to make them in womens so she can get hers. Done!
Will kept himself busy DJing some wicked tracks.
This is a great picture, unfortunately they only managed to capture the Chinese portion of Herman.
A huge thanks to Taboo and all his people for supporting this event. Really big thanks to BMF Media and Fingerprint Communications. Also to our staff for all their hard work in preparing and to all our friends from Saks, Bloomingdale’s, our retail partners and the media for making this big! This was a historical life/brand changing moment and I’m so happy could share it with everyone!!
There’s a tremendous amount of press out there but that’s for another post. Need some rest!
That’s the Japanese pronunciation of Black Eyed Peas. Chinese is Hei Yin Dou Dou. Anyway, check out this promo they did for MTV Japan. They are jumping in JUMPs!
The new Zeto makes an appearance at the Louis Vuitton show during Paris Fashion Week on the heels of Taboo and in the company of the Peas. I spoke to him yesterday and he assured me that fortunately, everything was cool regarding the debacle with Perez Hilton in Toronto. These guys and gal, always look so damn fresh!
The Peas are literally everywhere. When I get in a cab, turn on the radio, watch TV and even when I’m just walking around. They are truly ubiquitously omnipresent and they are doing it in style wearing JUMP! I have to thank them and Taboo in particular for all the support. But it’s just the beginning. Look at how dope that Zeto looks on Taboo!!!!! It’s an exclusive one-off. I need those for myself.
And then he whips out the signature JSD satin shoe bags!
They did another few killer performances. Listen at the very end for the GO GO JUMP JUMP!! I’m totally McLovin the LOVE!!
FFANY stands for Fashion Footwear Association of New York. It’s like the mini fashion week for shoes. Honestly, it’s not usually very exciting though I hear in the old days it was something else. However, this season’s has been something special. It started when I received some shoes I’d been waiting for night and day for weeks. We’ve had and continue to have amazing success with the Vanquish in all the beautiful materials. A while back when I’d met Taboo and The Black Eyed Peas, he mentioned we should do a collabo. Light bulbs flickering and Boom Boom Pow, I kindly asked Larry to put some of our best materials on our newest and soon to be hottest style, the Zeto for Tab. And boy did he deliver. Here are the results.
And Captain Lawrence outdoes himself again. So after what turned out to be a really productive afternoon (read wine and cheese consumption) at the showroom with Zappos, I had to meet Taboo at the store to present him with these shoes for our project and on the way I saw Shawn Pean, my buyer from Saks waiting for a cab with two of his colleagues so Marco, Chris and I scooped him and his crew up in the Jumpmobile (an old school Benz ML). Mind you, I had only seen these the day before and so they were truly making their debut but of course I had to show Shawn and of course, he loved them! More light bulbs and we we decided we’d have to do an event with BEP at Saks and introduce these looks there. Brilliance.
When we got the store, Taboo showed up and we showed him the new illness. He literally said, “OH FUHSCHNIZZLES.” Just kidding. He said something else and was totally floored. I told him about introducing our collab at Saks and he was all over it.
There he is in the throne wearing the Zeto in Grey Ivis Patent and Nappa.
Here he is with the Green Purple Reflex Patent and something dope combo I don’t even know what to call yet.
And of course, here’s the whole team.
This is going to be a long post. Afterwards we had our company dinner at Antique Garage down the road and as you can see here, had a great time as usual.
Harry, our CEO is crazy. Gotta love him.
And then the shots happened.
After that we hit up Richie Rich’s party for Chris Coffee at Garden in the Sky at the Cooper Square Hotel. Great party, open bar and the weather was perfect for it. I’d been wondering what the building was. It’s got a really interesting design.
So last night we hit up the Black Eyed Peas album release party at Griffin (old PM) in Meatpacking which was another dope party. Taboo was kind of enough to put me on the list to an otherwise completely exclusive event. Top shelf open bar and we saw just about every celebrity in the world there and I got to introduce Shawn and the Saks crew to the Peas. Great karma.
Kanye rolled thru.
Rihanna came too and later performed with them onstage.
Tab introduced me to Fergie who was a sweetheart.
Wilmer Valderrama had come to the store earlier that day and wore our boots!
It was an interesting couple of days. Now I need some rest!
Taboo, Fergie, Apl and Will on the red carpet in Saitama, Japan for the MTV Video Music Awards. Taboo’s got on the Vanquish once again! Check out their new video for “I Gotta Feeling”.
Ever since JUMP started making cameos on the show, I had become an avid viewer of the show and, wow, what an amazing upset on the finale. Congratulations to Kris! It certainly was quite a season and I was so certain that Adam was going to take it but I guess it’s a testament to the preferences of America at large. Nonetheless, the Peas were definitely rocking JUMP during their performance of Boom Boom Pow last night!
It’s such a strange coincidence. They start wearing JUMP on Idol all the time. Then the Peas start wearing the shoes everywhere. Now Black Eyed Peas wear them on American Idol. I guess it all makes sense – the #1 show on TV, the #1 band on the charts and the #1 shoe brand! Hahahaha.
That is one hell of an outfit on Fergie.
The Vanquish in Black Silver Kid Crystal is available at eModa and Bloomingdale’s.
