Clavel magazine features Jump

TABOOXJUMP ASIA TOUR 2010 Part 2: Hong Kong

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write about this portion of my trip but maybe it’s because there were some demons I had to overcome about Hong Kong.  Namely the fact that we destroyed that city that night we were there and it in turn destroyed us back.  Well I suppose I’ve also been rather busy stateside.  As if China wasn’t already crazy enough, we now had Hong Kong at the toes of our TABOOXJUMPs.  We arrived there in the afternoon and it wasn’t long after we checked into Hotel LKF that we were off to Roxie for the big event.

It was a sexy venue and May Wong had done quite a nice job getting things organized for us!

And then the interviews began.  Before the actual event, we did about 2 hours of interviews with HK press, everyone from The South China Morning Post to ATV.

More autographs.

Here’s Larry and some local HK celebs that attended the party.

Tab and me with Rin Kurana and Adrienne Lau.

And the three amigos zapatos.

Here’s us with Keith, buyer for D-Mop and also frontman for the band Goodfellas.

It’s not all Chinese people in HK.

Randomly these two showed up.  They went to high school with Larry and I.  I hadn’t seen Brian nor Denise in a few years.  The last time I woke up in a cab thinking my friend Hoan was her.  It was weird.

More of the gang from D-Mop including Rocky Fuk.  Very cool people and we’re really looking forward to shipping them very soon!!

Almost.

Here’s May, PR organizer of the event.  She did a great job!

Tab and I with Eugene Kan, one of the founders of Hypebeast.

Bonnie and Samantha.

There were a lot of bottles.  Johnnie Walker of course.

Time for some words.

My eyes get weird when I talk.

We did a drawing of business cards for a free pair of TABOOXJUMPs.

And wouldn’t you know it.  The Hypebeast himself, Eugene Kan had dropped the lucky biz card.

People thought it was rigged, so we did another drawing.

And here’s the lucky gentleman.

And at the end of the night it always comes to this.

We would find ourselves at a famous Hong Kong restaurant at 5 am eating beef tendons.  It was wonderful.  The next day we had to bounce outta HK.  It was time for the final and what would be the biggest leg of our trip.  JAPAN.  Fortunately, we cruised the airport in style.

Taboo in NYC

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.

Ron English

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.

WeAr Magazine

This is a fantastically curated magazine.  If you guys ever have the chance to pick up one (for $75 a piece) check it out.

Here’s the Zeto in their sneaker feature.

And the Captain, Lawrence Chen, looking extra Captain-ish with his facial hair.

It was one hell of a good week.

So the Project NY show was an amazing success.  The line looked fantastic and we did more business the first day in NY than we did all three days in the last Vegas show so I can only imagine what will happen at the next Vegas show.  I’m already getting ready for Compass this week!  Besides all our favorite buyers and many new buyers, we had some high profile people roll thru the booth as well.  The celebrity love continues.

First we had Kenny Loggins swing by and he was totally into the Vanquish in Purple Croco.

You might remember Kenny as the creator of some 80s megahits like Dangerzone!!!!

This video makes me want to jump up and exclaim “YES!!”  Totally my next karaoke conquest.

Shortly after, we had Ryan Grant of the Greenbay Packers, who was already a JUMP fan, check out the new line.

Again, at this show, the heavy hitters are the Vanquish and of course the new Zeto that will be in stores for August.  What we did was take these two items and really blow them up to offer our customers a lot of options.  Here’s a sneak peek at some of the new Vanquish that Courtney from American Rag picked out for her stores in the West Coast.

So after such a successful first day of show, we didn’t feel guilty partying hard after the second day of the show at our store in SoHo.  We had the usual fare, Serrano Ham (which always leaves me hungry for more the day after I have it), cocktails sponsored by Red Bull and of course, Johnnie Walker.

We had a fantastic turnout.

There’s me, Harry Chen and Lawrence Chen.

Click on people’s faces in the photo to tag them.

Here’s Michelle Suh, Bloomingdale’s Art Director and Cara Diorio, Bloomingdale’s Asst. Buyer.

Here we are with Don Calder, owner of Local Celebrity and his friend.

Some random Austrian people who were lucky enough to be walking down Spring St.

Starr Ferguson, Saks Buyer and my old Lord & Taylor colleague, getting herself the Vanquish in Green Purple Reflex Patent.

Herman and our homeboy Eric Yang, handbag manufacturing magnate.

Lerny and friend.

Xiao-li, Saks Assistant Buyer and Shawn, our Saks Buyer.

Diana Tse, Steven Alan buyer and Lana Wong.

Larry with a random cougar from the street.

Don’t know who those two dudes were but they got MINGED.

There’s Darius, YRB editor on the right with some friends.

Here’s Tahirah, owner of Krisol in LA, and I.

Ed Bennett, brought his friends, Faye Ly, actress and model and Tora Brava, musician to join the festitivies.

Some of our lovely staff manning the liquor.

Here’s Alex, certified ham slicer and Joy.  We conquered that ham.

And it looks like it was a big week for parties in SoHo as the next night Guess had a big opening party around the corner from us.

Lydia Hearst and Michelle Trachtenberg were there.

And the darling Amber Rose was looking fly.

We took this picture together after the interview but my boy, Henry, was all nervous and it came out like this.  She told Henry and I we were cute.  That’s why I’m blushing.

The following night was another event!  THE CENTER hosted the Midsummer Night’s Salon with my buddy’s Ed Bennett and Dusty Wright.  Following all the real performances we had a jam session where we did our rendition of Hound Dog.

It was quite a week!!