Project New York

We will be unveiling our Fall 09 Collection at Project New York!!!!

If you’re attending the show, please do stop by our booth to see the new line.  It’s really taken our inaugural collection to the next level.

Jump Studios and Jump Online Shop Launch with Sung Kang in “Sneaker Deluxe”.

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!

Jump Sneaker Deluxe

Here’s a preview of the Sneaker Deluxe line that will be available at Kitson and Bloomingdale’s.  It will hit SoHo next month!  We’re very excited to introduce the collection.

First Glimpse of Sneaker Deluxe in Footwear News

It’s the Volume in pearlized graphite patent.  Available at stores in November.

Vegas.

So we’re going back.  As if once a month weren’t enough already – my liver is already trying to hide.

We’ll be at POOL booth #1118 and Project at 12131 12th Ave.

Come say high if you’ll be around.

Which reminds me that I never blogged about the last trip.  Here goes.

We introduced the ads in the trade pubs Footwear News and Footwear Plus.

The good ol’ booth at the convention center where we showed the regular Jump line.

Our suite at the Venetian where we showed Monderer for Jump (to hit our SoHo store soon) and our higher end Jump collection to debut later in the year.

That silver shoe is cut from one piece of Italian leather.

Some kickass mocs.

Sneaker deluxe.

Teaser!

Uncle Harry and shoes for humanity.

It’s become tradition to hit up the same Chinese restaurant every show.  Notice the chicken head.

And the abundance of Tsingtao Beer.

And the chicken head has landed onto Bree’s lips.  She’s our rep in the west.

A Joy, Bree and chicken head triple kiss.

“Now that, I say, that I say was what I call heaven.”

Remember this guy?

I always liked him.  Now this is, I say, is just wrong.

And of course, Larry goes for the coxcomb.

The women of Jump.

The men of Jump.

Our distributor and brother, Daniel and his wife Melanie from Montreal.

Uncle James and Uncle Harry.

Harry loves to perform his psychoanalysis tests during dinner.

Our last night in Vegas.

This is like the megatouch game.

With Jorge of SWEAR shoes.

Lawrence with Stephanie and our German distributor Thuy.

And that was that.  We went to LA after.  We’ll be there again after this trip.

The shoes you want are here.

Guys, they’re finally here.  The hi-tops Sung’s wearing in the ad below will be available at our 89 Spring St. store tomorrow.  They come in Olympic metallics – Gold, Silver and Bronze.  I’ve actually been sporting these for quite some time now before anyone else had them.  Such are the perks of being a shoe guy.  Ha.  I actually had someone willing to buy them off my feet at the store once.  Even then I couldn’t part with them!

The dawn of the next era of sneaker has arrived.

They’ve been published!

The campaign has officially launched.

To start, we are running “Sung Kang in Sneaker Deluxe” in YRB and Vice, both very dope mags.

And I introduce “Sung Kang in Tuxedo Man”.

We are running this one in Marie Claire’s Fall Fashion issue.

The female model is actually Julie LaPlaca, who was once my marketing associate and manager at the store (yes, we hire models).  She has now transported herself to LA to try her hand at fame and fortune.  Having modeled for Jump, she’ll be famous in no time.

!Stay tuned for the rest of the ads and short films!

To Scroll or Not to Scroll?

Indeed, that was the question.  We’d just put all the finishing touches on the ad campaign and I was overwhelmed.  For me, it was everything I had ever wanted it to be.  As I’d said before, it was like wanting a toy for weeks and then finally getting that new Lazer Tag gun and realizing it wasn’t all that special – only this was the exact opposite.  It exceeded all my expectations and I was ecstatic.  Amongst the finishing touches were scrolls each bearing the name of our brand in Chinese and a description of the shot.  This element would prove to be quite a point of controversy.

While the objective of the ads were to create images that would provide Jump with the proper positioning as a premium brand, there was in fact an underlying agenda.  Long bearing a stigma of cheapness and defectiveness, Chinese products had suffered plenty of negative publicity, some deserved, some not.  Although we produce quality goods and use only the best factories in China, it was always a point of contention whether we ought to associate ourselves with China or not.

So we decided to “BE DARING.”  We set out to incite a sort of cultural movement (not to be confused with a cultural revolution!) that would offer the world a different perspective of the Far East – that it had not only become a forum for the international but that it was beginning to carve its own cultural niche in the global arena.  It was a campaign that would, in essence, tell the epic story of a brand who sprang from selling $20 jogging shoes in Taiwan, then to develop a fashion persona and cross over to China, Japan and Korea.  From Asia it would reach the shores of South America and Europe where its fashion would take an interesting new direction with the help of an innovative Spanish design team.  Now, having arrived in the US the brand has been elevated into the arena of luxury fashion but at a reasonable pricepoint.  It is through our unique business model and relationships overseas that we are able to offer such quality and directionality at an entry level luxury pricepoint.

Through Jump’s logos, is the story of the evolution.

And now we introduce the latest iteration.

So when I presented the completed campaign to the rest of the global team the reactions were mixed.  No one denied the art direction was compelling and the execution was spot on.  The mixed feelings were over the usage of the scrolls.  There were concerns that it would limit us and pigeonhole us as a brand for only Asians.  Others cited that it might hurt us to be connected to China whose reputation as a manufacturing giant could be in some respects a dubious one.

What I offered was that this campaign wasn’t meant to do that at all.  It was meant to appeal to those progressive enough to see it for what it is and not some kind of Chinese propaganda.  It’s purpose is meant to bring the consumer into this other world and include them in it.  After a flurry of discussion on the matter, Harry made the decision that the scrolls would remain.  It was decided that we would be genuine to our roots as a Chinese brand and “BE DARING” enough to pronounce this to the world.  We decided that in all of the 5000 years of Chinese history, being the first high fashion brand to become truly global, was an honor we ought to be proud of and share with everyone.  Moreover, we wanted to dispel the stigma of China and show just the kind of creativity that can come from a brand such as ours.

So without any more teasers and an overly verbose foreword, here is Sung Kang in Sneaker Deluxe.

Share with us your take on the scroll!?

The X-6!!!!!

I’ve personally been waiting for these to hit because I want them for myself (black patent)!!!  Finally they are here in SoHo!!

Follow us on Twitter to get tweets on our new goods, parties and whatever else Jump is up to!

Taiwan Part 3: When Harry Met Sung.

Let me start by telling you a little bit about our beloved CEO, Harry Chen.  In the shoe business, he’s a living legend, a demigod of shoes.  Any trade show I walk into with him, at least 5 people of any age or background will know who he is then make sure to tell me I’m working for the right guy.  He’s got a real acute talent for finding other talent and maximizing it.  When you meet him, within the first few moments, you realize you’re not really talking to any typical guy but more of a ‘spirit’ as Sung described him.  It was he who told his brothers that for their family business to really blossom, they should evolve from an already very successful trading company to a brand.

And he made it happen.  In 5000 years of Chinese history, no brand has ever managed to become a global fashion footwear brand.  That’s right, we did it.  Do we get an award?  He’s a natural born PR/Marketing genius so in a very short time I’ve managed to learn quite a bit from him.

Anyway, while Sung and I were in Taiwan, Harry was in China.  While the ads were being shot, I sent over a few pictures I snapped of the goings ons.

Sung getting styled up.

Here’s some from the fittings:

Sneaker Deluxe

Indie Exec

Officer Couture

Footballer Chic

Tuxedo Man

Easy Rider

Shooting Footballer Chic

Julie was lovely enough to document it all.  The documentary will be coming out soon!

That evening, after I had sent these out, I got a call from Harry.  He told me he’d be in Taiwan the next day.  He could sense the energy and knew that if he were there, he’d could bring something to the table.  Sure enough the next day, Harry was there.  When Harry’s around, everything goes tenfold.  It was also the first time he’d meet Sung so he decided he’d take us out for some insane teppanyaki.

As it turned out, Harry and Sung got along really well.  It wasn’t any surprise to me really because Sung perfectly embodies the philosophy and spirit of Jump that Harry has worked so hard for the past 30 years to instill into the brand.

The next day was equally as crazy as the last.  We started the day by scouting out some spots for opening a Jump store in Taipei.  That’s right, you heard it here first, we’ll be bringing it back to where it all started!  We then had lunch with some of Harry’s old buddies who happen to be the heads of all the major media networks in Taiwan.  He introduced them to Sung and caught up with them to talk about what we’d accomplished in the rest of the world and our plans for Asia.  They all agreed that when the store opened, we would have to do a big press conference.  Our next stop was to the ICRT radio station’s studio where DJ Louisa Lee would interview Sung.  ICRT is Taiwan’s international radio station.

It turned out to be a really good interview.  Check it out here.

After that we had dinner plans where Sung would meet the Taiwanese press.  Things were tight as Sung’s flight left that night but we managed to meet everyone.

It so happens that some of the journalists happened to be his big fans, some of which had even traveled to Korea the last time he was there.  I tried acting as interpreter but as it turned out, the journalists spoke korean and thus they were able to communicate better that way!  In attendance were members of the press from The Liberty Times, The Apple Daily, Trend Media, The Taiwan Times and The United Daily News.  The next day, at the China Airlines Lounge, I found these.

By the way, Jeff has begun to send me the completed ads.  Remember those times when you were a kid and you parents got you that new toy and you were all excited but then went home and it sucked?  This is the exact opposite of that.  They are everything I could’ve ever wanted them to be and more.  Don’t worry.  I’ll post them soon enough.

The Collaboration with Sung Kang.

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.

Jump has a new voice.

Hello the internet,

I am Jump, a brand of shoes “for the people”. We urge people to be daring, to try something they might not normally try in our shoes. Our fashion is world-class (global design team), but our pricepoints are affordable ($100-$250). Take a look at our latest collection for men and women. As you will see, we have something for everyone. These styles will hit stores in about a month. The full collection will be on display and sold at our living showroom, the SoHo boutique at 89 Spring St. (between Broadway and Mercer) in NYC.

This blog will be a channel to relate all the various aspects of our brand and for people to interact with us. It’s an exciting young brand that exists beyond the realm of shoes. We travel, we laugh, we sing and now, we will write about it all. I hope you will join us on this adventure as we build our brand.