Ron English’s Jump Popaganda Event Recap

Friday marked the launch of Ron English’s JUMP Popaganda at Greenhouse.  The event gave our VIP guests the chance to see the shoes for the first time as well as meet the artist himself.  We had an unexpectedly amazing turnout which became a huge line at the door, so apologies if you had difficulties getting in!

Here are the shoes.

Joy Chen, Ron English and Victor Hsu.

View from the VIP.

Victor Hsu, Ran Enda, Nobu Hirota and Mani.

Han Lam, Charmaine Reroma, Victor Hsu and Anny Lee.

Leonardo calling Ron English.

Victor Hsu and Ron English.

Ron English.

Victor Hsu, Ron English and Nobu Hirota, Jump Japan.

And here’s a peek at the new color.

Ron English x Jump x [ ] x NY Fashion Week

Man it was about a year ago when I first met the artist, Ron English, at Jump SoHo after seeing his work at the Opera Gallery.  I was familiar with him and his work but after actually seeing it and meeting him, became even more thoroughly impressed.  His subject matter is so subversive yet the fine art aspect of his work is done so skillfully and beautifully rendered that there really are not many artists out there like him.  So when we met, I knew we had to figure out how to do a sick collaboration.

He’d been doing a lot of work around skeletons and how to utilize them for some not so skeletal subjects.  For instance this Charlie Brown which was one of the favorites of the pieces of his I had seen at the time.

As well as this rendition of Guernica.

 

So we tossed around the idea of skeletons and he said, “yea what would the skeleton of a shoe look like?”  A few days later, while in China, I received this sketch.

This had to be one of the craziest shoe designs I’d ever seen and we had to make it.  I knew it wouldn’t be easy but my team would make it happen.  Fast forward and now I’d been approached by Barry Mullineaux, the owner of Greenhouse and Juliet about something new.  There weren’t a whole lot of details only that after having done our event at Juliet, he thought we could do something cool for a new space he was working on that would incorporate art and fashion into a nightlife setting.

I told him I had just the thing and got in touch with Ron.  He thought it’d be cool and we decided we’d launch this thing for New York Fashion Week.  We had another meeting yesterday, where for the first time, Ron got to see the samples.  He loved them.

So prepare yourselves for something in the works for NY Fashion Week (just next month!).  It’s going to be dope.

Clavel magazine features Jump

Revolve x Jump x Taboo

Last Wednesday we threw a sexy event at Revolve Clothing on Melrose in LA.  I was scheduled to leave the day before but of course, I missed my flight.  The only flight I could get was the exact same flight the next day.  So I did it and had my homie Tito pick me up from LAX and go straight to Revolve.  Good times.

Here’s Chris from American Rebel and Steeve and Donna from Connected.

Here’s Chris Rose from American Rebel.

Here’s Jason from American Rebel and Brent on the right, buyer for Revolve.

There’s Deb snapping away for her Hypebeast blog!

And then I finally got there.

And then Taboo got there!

And I presented him with the prototypes of the new TABOOXJUMPs for Fall 10.

Deb with Peas’ stylist Lor-E Phillips, who was actually the one who spawned this whole thing 2 years ago!

Tab with his fam.

Interviews.

It was a really dope crowd.

Me with Tito, Sam and his girlfriend.

There’s Victor from Connected.

Interview with SoJones.com

Footwear Spotlight: JUMP

SoJones.com

Article written by: Asmara Wreksono
Posted on: July 20, 2010

Taiwan is invading the world with its dopeness. SoJones.com is honored to bring its readers closer to the brand that has been influencing footwear trends in over 30 countries. From Europe to USA, Jump is rocked by the most important names in fashion and entertainment industry. To know more about Jump, SoJones talked to Victor Hsu, Chief Propagandist for Jump USA, Inc.

Introduce yourself and describe how your brand was started?
I’m Victor Hsu, the Chief Propagandist for Jump USA, Inc. Originally in the early 70s, we were one of the first Taiwanese trading companies for big American brands. In 1975, after having successfully developed an unprecedented measure of production for several American brands, Jump and subsequently Travel Fox were formed as one of the first Taiwanese brands to make the move from manufacturer to brand. Jump quickly became one of the most well known sneaker brands in Asia and in the 80s and 90s began it’s expansion move to the rest of Asia, Europe and Latin America. Travel Fox actually had become quite popular in the US and England for its colorful kicks. In the early 2000s, Harry Chen, the owner of Jump was hired by Steve Madden to build a men’s division. In it’s second year, it had become a 50 million dollar business. By 2007, Harry decided it was time to bring Jump to the US which was when I was hired. Utilizing my background as a merchant at Lord and Taylor and product development at Express, we completely repositioned Jump to become relevant for the American consumer, opening a store in SoHo and growing our distribution to high end retailers like Saks and Bloomingdale’s. Jump has since entered into a variety of interesting collaborations, most notably with Black Eyed Peas’ singer, Taboo.

Describe this season’s theme for your line. Include any sources of inspiration (examples: 80’s punk, muses like Amber Rose, 70’s disco bands, Run DMC, etc)
For Fall ‘10, we’ve made a return to the great outdoors. When we relaunched Jump to become Jump Deluxe, we had been one of the first brands to go aggressive with patents. We now make a return to nature, with very clean and sober materials in neutrals and gum soles with gold accents on the eyelets and lacetaps. New for the brand are our Goodyear welted boot constructions taking a bold step to diversify our product offering.

Any product placements on celebs to keep an eye out for (examples: publicity photos, magazines, movies, music videos etc)
With our store in SoHo, we are in constant contact with celebs and sometimes develop intimate relationships on collaborations as was done so with Taboo. Keep an eye out for Jay Sean, Jason Derulo and Kevin Rudolf. Tom Cruise has recently become the owner of a pair of Jump Deluxe boots.

Taboo shows off Taboo X Jump collaboration box

Greg Gunberg of “Heroes”

Jay Sean rockin’ Jump Shoes

Peter Facinelli of Twilight rockin Jump shoes

What has been a surprise fashion hit for you over the last year?
While the Vanquish high top, an adaptation of one of our 80s Travel Fox hits, had been traditionally our key silhouette, its low top , the Ventus have become increasingly strong for us.

What apparel trends are you really feeling this year?
I’m an accessories guy so I keep an eye out for interesting necklaces, bracelets and rings. I like wood and ethnic/spiritual things.

What fashion trend would you like to see thrown overboard?
I think I’d be a bit pretentious to answer this one – it’s all subjective and someone might want to throw me overboard for some of the things I wear!

What is/was one of your own most prized fashion pieces, past or present?
I have a navy linen shirt from Sisley with double breasted pockets and sleeves that roll up and button that I’ve worn since college and it’s become so worn that the collar curls up and the linen is so thin. I absolutely love it.

TuPac or Biggie?
Biggie.

Jump shoes are available at Revolveclothing.com and here are some of our recommendations from its newest collection, with a price range from $188 up to $288.  For the full collection and sneak previews on what’s to come, check their blog at jumpshoes.wordpress.com.

Jump X Taboo Zeto, $288

Jump Poseidon, $198

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NY Times features JUMBO.

JUMBO OPENING.

The grand opening of JUMBO was a complete blast and now JUMP has been officially unleashed upon DUMBO.

JUMP x NOS!

Local artist CAM.

The staff!

With Malik Yoba, actor from NY Undercover and Racquel, owner of Nos.

Meeting of the minds!

DJ Adriana

PR Genius Nicole!

Jump SoHo staff!

The LOP shows off his Jump Heritage Sports.

Superfine.  The bar, not Frank.

Saks folk.

BEP NYC JUMPIN INTO AKSHUN.

It’s always a pleasure to have the Peas in NY because I know it means a lot of JUMPIN INTO AKSHUN.  Hahaha – a phrase we coined out in Asia.  Taboo invited me to his concert and I thought I’d bring along my favorite buyers Liz and Cara from Bloomingdales, Chris and Lillian from Barneys and Louis DMM from Saks.  The concert was ridiculously sick and pounded your senses with visuals on top of heavy hitting songs.  It opened up with LMFAO who were all wearing TABOOXJUMPs and Luda.  Then led into the Peas with an interlude by David Guetta who dropped some of his sick tracks turning the place into a club.  When I Gotta Feeling came on, you could feel the stadium shaking beneath your feet.  It was a total experience but what was the most dope thing about it all for me was all the nods to JUMP during the concert!!  Taboo welcomed everyone to the concert saying how cool NYC is because of this place and that place and JUMP!!  Later on he comes out brushes off his TABOOXJUMPs and tells everyone he’s about to JUMP INTO AKSHUN with TABOOXJUMPs in stores now.  Later on during Will.I.Am’s DJ set, he plays JUMP by House of Pain.  And as if that weren’t enough, there was the after party at M2 which made the following day a rough one but we had to power through it as we had interviews lined up at Bloomingdale’s as they officially launch the TABOOXJUMP collection in their stores.

Meet and greet with buying teams and BEP.

LMFAO all rockin TABOOXJUMP.

The performance begins.

Fergie’s outfits were crazy.

After party was dope.

The interview with Mun2 was tough…because we was all hungover.  Hahaha.  But Paula Garces (Maria from Harold and Kumar) did a great job probing Tab about the collabo.  And I must say, Bloomingdale’s did one hell of a job with their visual!

Afterwards we hit up the store of course and Taboo hooked Paula up with an autographed pair!  Lucky girl.  Now she can obsess over it.  Haha.

TABOOXJUMP ASIA TOUR 2010 Part 1: Hou Jie, Dong Guan, China

This was every bit a whirlwind tour.  We knew this would be a tremendous undertaking but what it finally turned into has been nothing short of amazing.  It has taken a global effort into putting together each of the events in Houjie, Hong Kong and Tokyo and we couldn’t have been happier with how it all turned out.

I got into town New Year’s Eve and the entire city was anticipating Taboo’s arrival.  We invited him to China to get involved first hand with the concept, design and production of his new shoe.  It’s rare that an international superstar would make an appearance in a factory town so you can imagine the excitement brewing there.  It also says quite a bit about Taboo as he really wanted to get hands on with the project and not simply be a face for it.  He and his manager Ben finally arrived on the morning of the 4th and our hotel, the Hou Jie Haiyatt, was well prepared for his reception.  We had all the staff from our China office as well as all the hotel’s staff ready for his arrival.  When he got out of the car, the place exploded.

Taboo told me it was the grandest reception he’d ever received.  Bigger than anything he’d ever had even with The Black Eyed Peas.  We booked him at the Presidential Suite which was a sick duplex.

Johan Ku who has recently garnered huge glory for winning the GenArt Avant Garde designer of the year award was in tow to help with the design process.

Here he is with Mr. Long, one of the most powerful factory owners in Dong Guan.  He told us he went out and spent $40,000 RMB (nearly $6000 USD) to get an outfit based on a picture of Taboo so that he could wear it with the shoes.

Doesn’t it look dope!?  Just kidding.  In the end, he was too shy to wear it with Taboo around.  He did, however, invite us back to attend the grand opening of a hotel he’s opening.  It wasn’t long before the fans made it up to the loft.

We figured he’d be hungry and we knew he liked his Teppanyaki, so we took him to it.

Straight after we went to the office.  Tab wanted to work!  We had to show him Uncle James’ shrine to Johnnie Walker.  KEEP WORKING.

We took him to the showroom.

The material room.

Reviewed the development boards.

Even showed him Owen’s gym which is in the office.

From there we took him to one of the most eye opening moments of his trip: the factory.  As a sneaker pimp and owner of over 600 pairs of shoes, this was a real trip for him.

He got to see his own shoes on the line.

Checking out the patterns.

Harry explaining to him all the 100 hands that touch a shoe before it reaches completion.

Now that he got an idea of what goes into make a shoe, he was ready to start concepting design and materials.

Material swatches.

After some brainstorming we came up with some dope initial concepts and sketches.  After that we had a press conference to go to.  Keep in mind this is still the same day he landed.  There were people from about 40 different media outlets, local and national.

It was quite a proud moment, not only for Taboo and JUMP but also for the city of Hou Jie.  The truth is that our manufacturing city, Hou Jie, is one of the few cities in China where you are able to achieve a luxury caliber of quality in terms of material and design.  Needless to say, it is an honor for JUMP to be the first Chinese maker of luxury sneakers.

All the press were highly interested in this point and Harry did a good job expounding upon it.

Taboo gave a few rather moving words about how much this collaboration means to him and how important it was for him to not only be the face of the brand but truly involved in all aspects from design to marketing to sales.  For me, it’s a pure blessing to have a general like him fighting the battle with me.  I kept reiterating that we couldn’t have found a better individual to partner with.

He told the story of how we met at Bloomingdale’s and how the whole thing happened very organically.

He must’ve signed 1000 autographs that day.

Photo time.

There’s Owen, Johan, Taboo, Larry and Herman.

Here’s Uncle James, Mr. Teng, Tab, Harry and Uncle Andy.

After a little time to rest, we were off to dinner at Susan’s Kitchen, renown in the city for the best Taiwanese cuisine.  We invited all the press and our staff to join in the festivities.

The funniest thing was that all these girls were asking for autographs and they’d gone out and bought Black Eyed Peas CDs.  Albums like The Best of the Black Eyed Peas, that don’t even exist anywhere outside of China.

And food from the gods.  Lobster sashimi.

Of course you gotta kampai EVERYONE.

And everyone has to kampai you.

It was quite a night as you could imagine.  The next day we went back to the office and finished up some designs.  It’s going to be sicker than the last one.  That afternoon, we got in a car and headed to HK.  That night would be the HK event.

To be continued.

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.

Ant Boogie

Ant Boogie is one of Madonna’s dance crew.  He stopped into the store to cop a few pair of JUMP sneakers and to blog about it.  If you get to see Madonna on tour, I’m sure you’ll see him dancing in our shoes.  I really need a haircut in this video.  That and some sleep.

more about “Ant Boogie“, posted with vodpod

Vegas

The first night we hit up the Zappos party at XS.  Open bar that includes Johnnie Walker, official beverage of JUMP, means 2 liters each.

It was a good time, as usual.  The next night, we got to see Pharrell perform with NERD which was dope!

Cool picture eh?  He’s glowing.

We had a chance to squeeze in a really nice dinner at Mix at the Mandalay Bay with Shawn, our Saks buyer.  You can’t really see the food in the vid but it was awesome.  There was a dish that was filet mig-non with foie gras on top of it covered in truffles.  Can you imagine?

After an amazing dinner and discussing the poignancy of the BEP song, “I Gotta Feeling”, we hit up Body English at Hard Rock.

Good trip.  Oh yea we sold some shoes.

Footwear News Spring 10 Trend

Here’s Footwear News’ coverage of our Spring 10 trend.

However, Larry had a different take on Spring 10.

“Following the release of Brüno there will be an emerging trend in exotic, eclectic fashion.  Brüno donned the perfect outfit with matching footwear for all 4 limbs.  We’re likely to see emergence of hooves into the world of fashion with plenty of ungulate aesthetics to choose from – horses, zebras, donkeys, bison, rhinoceros, camels, hippopotamus, goats, pigs, sheep, giraffes, moose, deer, antelopes, and gazelles!”

Lawrence Chen
Captain, Jump USA Inc., New York, N.Y.

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!!

It’s been the most exciting FFANY show ever.

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!

Here’s the video of Glenn Tillbrook performing at Culture Catch

more about “Glenn Tilbrook plays “Product” on Cul…“, posted with vodpod

Catch my cameo at the 2:00 mark.

Richie Rich

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 quoted in Footwear News Zappos Issue

Zappos has been an excellent retailer to work with and their progressive business model only continues to evolve and shape the industry.

“When Jump first began working with Zappos, it struck me that their innovative business model and method of buying was revolutionary. Essentially, they allow vendors to be fully partnered with their organization by training us to learn their systems to manage and increase our business. All the new-age tools and applications online companies typically employ to increase interactivity with their consumers, Zappos does with its vendors. It’s fun and interesting to watch your business grow as Zappos grows. Having worked as a merchant for a number of years, I could tell that Zappos’ systems, inventory management and style of buying was something that would not only change the world of online retailing but perhaps the whole of merchandising itself.”

— Victor Hsu,
Marketing director, Jump

Culture Catch X Henry Butler X The Sopranos

After having met Dusty Wright (the man behind Culture Catch) and Ed Bennett (founder of VH1) at my friend’s mom’s birthday party (random, but cool), they kindly invited me to their Culture Catch events.  Each of which have been very intimate invitation-only performances held at some amazing townhouse or some other crazy loft.  Last week’s was at the residence of Joe Scarpinito in Tribeca.  The event featured Henry Butler, a blind pianist from New Orleans.  I introduced him to the Monderer for Jump Gatsby in Black Dentelle and when he started feeling it, he was immediately impressed.  He could tell through his hands that it was a special shoe.

Also in attendance were a host of characters from The Sopranos, notably Michael Imperioli who made the introduction for Henry and who also flipped for the Vanquish Grey Nappa.

His performance was amazing.  The things he was doing with that piano without the ability to see was breathtaking.  Must’ve been the shoes.  Check out Complex’s writeup on him.

My hair’s shorter now.

My homies, Ed and Dusty.

That’s Norena, Henry’s manager, Michael, his wife Victoria and Dusty.

The caterer was wearing one of our shoes from last season, completely unsolicited.

Dope view from the roof.

Joe had quite a collection of artwork.  I recognized this piece from a Chinese artist, Yue Minjun.  As usual, it was quite a unique event.  I’m certainly looking forward to the next one!