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This Autumn, New York based menswear label Adsum have worked with Reebok for the second time to create a Winter appropriate take on the ever-popular Club C silhouette. We caught up with Pete Macnee (Founder/Designer) and Christian Rice (Partner/Creative Director) of Adsum alongside Reebok’s Global Collaborations Manager Leo Gamboa to learn more about the chocolate […]

This Autumn, New York based menswear label Adsum have worked with Reebok for the second time to create a Winter appropriate take on the ever-popular Club C silhouette. We caught up with Pete Macnee (Founder/Designer) and Christian Rice (Partner/Creative Director) of Adsum alongside Reebok’s Global Collaborations Manager Leo Gamboa to learn more about the chocolate inspired design.

Firstly, how are things going during these turbulent 6 months? 

PETE: I think it’s been tough for everyone individually. I had my first child April 1 when things really kicked off with COVID in NYC, Tommy Wan was isolated in his apartment solo and Matt’s GF got COVID. All that being said, Adsum continues to feel the support from our customers which we really appreciate. The Archive Sale was really successful and it’s something we’ll build on.

CHRISTIAN: Turbulent is the right word. This business is a lot, to borrow a phrase from Pete, like “trying to take a sip from a firehose” normally; so all this this has just taken that feeling to the next level. So much changes day to day but we’re rolling with the punches and remain optimistic about what’s ahead.

What lessons have you taken from isolation and the current state of the world recently?

PETE: Don’t take things for granted. We’re all in this together.

CHRISTIAN: From a business side, I look back and am just thankful for the team we have and the work we’ve done before all this happened. It proves that it’s the work that’s done in the background, that nobody sees, that matters the most. From a personal side it just crystallized what is truly important and what is trivial. As one of my college friend used to say incessantly, “Health is wealth”.

You both collaborated on the Pyro model not too long ago, how did you guys first connect?

PETE: I met Leo through a mutual friend and he was working at Packer at the time. He came by a sample sale event that we had at a rental unit in Soho and we stayed in touch. I’d say we lucked out by having Leo in the position he’s in and him having faith in the vision/product we produce.

CHRISTIAN: Leo is a jacket guy as much as he is a shoe guy so I remember the first time I met him at that event, he really liked one of our jackets and wanted to buy a sample that we didn’t even have for sale. I remember thinking how nice and unexpected that was of someone who we barely knew to want to support a young brand that no one had heard of yet. It didn’t matter to him, he liked the jacket so he wanted to support. It’s a testament to the type of person Leo is and why we feel lucky to have met him.

LEO: A good friend of mine Marcel Pena put me on to Adsum.  He invited me to one of their sample sales and we have been connected since then.

Now Adsum is working with Reebok on the Club C which is a favourite for many, how did you land on this style?

PETE: The Club C is one of Reebok’s most iconic styles. It’s a perfect thing that has stood the test of time so we wanted to reimagine the great shoe. It’s a shoe that is in our weekly rotation before doing the collaboration on it.

Tell us more about the concept for the design of the shoe and how it came about?

CHRISTIAN: I think it all started from the desire to make a highly wearable shoe. The Pyro was a specific idea of being true to what a 90s running shoe was to us with the fluorescent hits and a bright optimistic color palette. With this one, we took a moment and looked around the office and, although we like mixing it up, the shoes we reach for day in and day out tend to be casual tonal shoes. I think Pete mentioned how versatile a brown sneaker is through the ages. Whether you’re a kid and trying to be clever by getting away with wearing sneakers instead of a dress shoe with your uniform, or you’re an older chiller who wants a good pair of shoes to go with a pair of jeans, you can reach for it. It’s versatile but you also have to be a certain type of person to want pull off a brown shoe. It’s a design that felt very true to the ethos of the brand.

LEO: It was pretty simple. We both wanted to work on a classic court shoe so the Club C was choice.  We did sample a few different colors but the brown really stood on its own – the color and material execution is really amazing. 

The chocolate marketing imagery is genius and flips the idea of the shoe well – where did this originate?

CHRISTIAN: Like most things, it just came from all of us shooting the shit in the office, talking about things we like and that have caught our eye recently. I had been getting into old skate advertising at the time. Ads from around the 90s when the actual skateboarders, not companies riding what they thought was a trend, were really starting to take ownership of their image, brands and voices. Brands like Droors and World Industries, and anyone taking ads out in Big Brother. I think the stuff they did back then is still some of the best ads I’ve seen. There was one image in particular from that time that I couldn’t stop thinking about. It was a close up of Rob Dyrdek face with a cigarette in his mouth covered in blue paint. I thought we could recreate something similar and maybe even more desirable if it involved food instead of paint. Chocolate worked perfectly in so many ways.

Were there any particular challenges in the design process that Adsum fan’s may not be aware of?

PETE: Timelines. We’ve been working on this shoe for a while and it’s taken a few kicks at the can to make sure all materials and colors are exactly what we’re after.

 
How and where do you plan to wear your Adsum Club C’s?

CHRISTIAN: I think the beauty of the shoe is you can wear it anywhere and anytime and I plan on doing that. I’m not super picky when it comes to matching my shoe to my activity. Age has forced me to wear dedicated running shoes when I go running, but my personality is more akin to people who wear their timberlands to the gym because they’re coming from their construction job and they don’t want to worry about carrying around an extra pair of shoes. I’m probably just as likely to wear these on a hike as I am to wear them to the supermarket.

PETE : You can put them in the microwave, heat them up and eat them if you need to

LEO: It is a great everyday shoe so I don’t see where I wouldn’t wear them!

What’s next for Adsum and Reebok in 2020 and beyond?

CHRISTIAN: Hopefully more shoes and continuing telling our story and serving the people that support us. 

LEO: Adsum and Reebok have been a great partnership for the past few seasons and we really appreciate the stylist approach that Adsum has towards our collaborations. This project is a great mix of amazing design, materials and storytelling. We will continue the relationship and work towards another time to reconnect.

The Reebok x Adsum Club C will be launching at HIP on 25/09/20 in online at 08:00am and in Leeds.

In conjunction with the release of the adidas Spezial AW20 Chapter 2 _nwrdrSPZL collection, we caught up with vintage dealer Ladi Kazeem of TheVaultMCR to delve into the deep history of vintage New Order merch. Hi Ladi, please introduce yourself and The Vault? My name is Ladi Kazeem i’m currently living in East London but I’m originally from Saltburn […]

In conjunction with the release of the adidas Spezial AW20 Chapter 2 _nwrdrSPZL collection, we caught up with vintage dealer Ladi Kazeem of TheVaultMCR to delve into the deep history of vintage New Order merch.

Hi Ladi, please introduce yourself and The Vault?

My name is Ladi Kazeem i’m currently living in East London but I’m originally from Saltburn a beach town in the North East of England a stones throw away from Middlesbrough. I started TheVaultMCR in 2014 – to be short my landlord at the time came to pick up my rent from my then bedroom and got a shock of her life as it was literally wall to wall vintage clothing. She then spoke to a friend who owned a shop in the Manchester NQ incognito which is now FLOK and he offered me his basement free to store all my vintage and sell from for free as long as I cleaned out the basement. The name the vault came from the fact that there was 10×10 cast iron bank vault in the basement and that became the centerpiece of the space.

You previously worked in a traditional vintage, how did this progress to selling tees full time?

The progression was really easy from 2007 to around 2014 I sold everything and anything I believed was valuable to keep my head above water there was no curation to it or interesting methodology especially at the beginning. It was all about survival, buying and selling was my only source of income and essentially became like a safety net. Around 2014 I fell upon a deadstock spot whilst partying with friends in Amsterdam and literally it was like how i’d imagine winning the lottery would feel – a small shop in plain sight with some of the best t-shirts in the world tucked away at the back behind miscellaneous oddities. I went back and forth to that spot for the next 4-5 years just buying t-shirts I believed were valuable and then over time I found myself learning on the job and educating myself on different genres of music. I grew up listening to shoegaze, brit pop and of course hip-hop so with the other genres available to me it was almost trial and error. I very quickly found myself in situation where there was so much demand for what I was selling it didn’t take long for me to have a network of serious buyers globally who’d buy anything I wasn’t personally interested in and in bulk so it meant I could almost give anything a go. The progression to working for myself full time happened organically without me really having much time to think about it. 

You also recently started a rare poster brand also, how did this come about?

The t-shirt market has been overly saturated for a while now and it’s becoming increasingly harder to find t-shirts at a reasonable price let alone affordable so I’d been looking to diversify for a while into something that my client base could relate to. Posters seemed like the most natural choice I lived through the era so many people reference now 90s-00s and when I was growing up t-shirts, posters and magazines all came hand in hand. At the moment there’s not many people within the vintage t-shirt community actively selling original posters and I’ve actually noticed since I took the step and gave it ago a lot more dealers have followed suit as it’s a no brainer really. There’s a lot of t-shirts out there that I’ll never be able to find but at the moment that’s not the same with original posters.

What gives you the biggest buzz – the sourcing or the selling?

Sourcing of course I think anyone who works within t-shirts or more broadly vintage and does their own sourcing will agree with me that’s kind of why I’m in no rush to expand my team and turn this into a operation where I have no creative input and hand it all over to people to make money for me, where’s the fun in that? Some of my best finds have been from vintage shops in the UK where the stock comes in bails and the staff members just stick the t-shirts out like you would in any retail operation. They’re not being paid to know above and beyond what they’re selling so people like myself clean up weekly just checking every vintage store routinely. I’ve literally found some of the rarest t-shirts on the current market worth in thousands sat collecting dust in a vintage store bargain basement.   

Buying and selling tees online seems to be constantly changing with virtual auctions on IG live a normal occurrence since lockdown, where do you see selling vintage tees going next in terms of innovation and community?

Well with the vintage t-shirt market specifically it doesn’t really matter who you are if someone comes across you and you have rare items at an affordable price you’re always going to be quids in. The issue is with all these algorithm base platforms and a more saturated marketplace it’s becoming harder and harder to just find dealers online. It’s like when I first started selling t-shirts online socially I didn’t have a presence but having said that there was literally no competition especially in the UK, in fact my only competitor sold t shirts 3 times the price of mine so I’d sell out daily. But now again with a more saturated market presentation, curation, quality and knowledge of what you’re selling is key to stay relevant and different ways of selling like online auctions or popups or yard sales where your connecting with your buyers and then it becomes more personal. I wouldn’t be surprised if vintage auction houses began to spring up all over the UK with the same principle of any auction house, people bidding up items and an auctioneer with a hammer having the final say.

You were based in Manchester for a time, how was that for finding New Order tees and other Manchester related band tees?

The North of England and Manchester specifically is like nowhere else in the world everyone has got a story to tell anyone from Salford will tell you they know Peter Hook New Orders bassist and every grafter especially at the united and city games will have sold at some point in there illustrious  bootlegging careers a New Order t-shirt – so if they don’t have one themselves to sell they’ll know somebody who will and that’s how Manchester worked for me.

Do you have a person favourite New Order moment?

The US tour in 1989 was iconic for me mainly because of who they were touring with which was Public Image Limited and Sugarcubes which included a young Björk who in t-shirts terms are both pretty iconic. Cubes t-shirts are quite valuable but Björk t-shirts are on another planet and extremely sought after. I think any football fan worth his salt will have heard or know about the 1990 track “World In Motion” where John Barnes spat some lyrics again which was iconic.

What’s next for the vault?

I’m heading back to the North next year and then who knows hopefully COVID’s a thing of past come next year and I can get back to travelling the world unearthing lost relics in dusty deadstock spots. There is no timeframe none of this needs to be rushed in my opinion I’m just doing what I enjoy and thankfully being able to live reasonably in the process. 

Follow Ladi Kazeem here and TheVaultMCR here.

The adidas Spezial AW20 Chapter 2 _nwrdrSPZL collection is online now.

Gary Aspden’s adidas Originals SPEZIAL line presents chapter 2 of AW20 with _nwrdrSPZL – an official collaboration with iconic Manchester based electronic rock band New Order. The collection is heavily based around the repeated three block New Order ‘Tour’ graphic that the band have used for recent live performances in anticipation of new music being released by the […]

Gary Aspden’s adidas Originals SPEZIAL line presents chapter 2 of AW20 with _nwrdrSPZL – an official collaboration with iconic Manchester based electronic rock band New Order. The collection is heavily based around the repeated three block New Order ‘Tour’ graphic that the band have used for recent live performances in anticipation of new music being released by the band for the first time in 5 years. Founder and curator of adidas Spezial Gary Aspden, is a long time friend and fan of New Order with the collaboration being born out of their long-standing organic relationship. The adidas Spezial team and New Order worked closely on the project, with New Order traveling over to Herzogenaurach (adidas HQ) for each design meeting and sample review.

The collection is led by the the Wilsy SPZL, which was an obvious choice as a style Bernard Sumner has worn on stage consistently during New Order’s recent live shows. This one-off New Order version arrives in a premium clean white leather with a white translucent sole along with updated vamp details, co-branding and the subtle addition of white eyelets. The footbed carries the coloured ‘Tour’ graphic and the shoes with interchangeable branded lace jewels and reflective laces that offer a colour stab to a limited release of this iconic silhouette.

Moving focus to outerwear in the collection, the collection’s standout jacket is inspired by Bernard Sumner’s love of sailing with a parka in a coated woven fabric with a mesh lining and features ‘hidden in plain sight’ tonal reflective branding and stripes. Finer details include a distinctive see through hood window panels and a New Order sleeve patch – which are both synonymous with yachting jackets. The Manchester appropriate tonal grey of the jacket is lifted by a detachable and interchangeable colour-pop pullers to allow the wearer to customise the look of the piece.

Hailing from Manchester, New Order’s authentic connection to football culture is referenced through a football jersey that uses their repeated ‘Tour’ graphic in a tonal engineered jacquard base fabric with elasticated ribbing on the neck and sleeve. The shirt is finished off with Latin script used in the ‘Mod Trefoil’ badging along with a twist on modern football kit sponsorship with the use of song title ‘586’ across the chest. Continuing the sporting theme, The New Order track jacket lands in a clean navy made using recycled PES blend pique material. The jacket takes inspiration from classic adidas track jackets (particularly the signature argyle print of Ivan Lendl) and re-appropriates that look and feel with a repeated print of their ‘Tour’ graphic sitting above the hem.  Rounding off the collection is a graphic logo tee in heather grey cotton and uses the ‘_nwrdSPZL’ graphic underpinned by ‘True Faith’ in Latin.

The adidas Originals Spezial AW20 Chapter 2 _nwrdrSPZL collection is online now and in both our Leeds and Nottingham stores.

Following on from the release of the adidas SPEZIAL ‘Made for HIP’ Elland, Gary Aspden’s adidas Originals SPEZIAL imprint returns with a new collection of footwear and apparel for AW20 inspired by terrace culture and adidas’ rich archive. Spanning across a wide variety of silhouettes, each piece takes reference from the deep adidas Originals archives, procuring lesser […]

Following on from the release of the adidas SPEZIAL ‘Made for HIP’ Elland, Gary Aspden’s adidas Originals SPEZIAL imprint returns with a new collection of footwear and apparel for AW20 inspired by terrace culture and adidas’ rich archive.

Spanning across a wide variety of silhouettes, each piece takes reference from the deep adidas Originals archives, procuring lesser known styles from the past with new life through unique hybrids that people have come to expect from adidas Spezial.

Footwear is spearheaded by the reworked HRMNY SPZL – an archival style from the original Torsion range which was originally a woman’s shoe and revered by German football fans. Following in the paths of previous leisure shoes, the Newrad SPZL is an all new silhouette arriving in light brown nubuck built on the Bermuda tooling and branded with an embossed ‘Mod Trefoil’ patch to the lateral side. The Alderley SPZL is a new Spezial court inspired hybrid that takes the foundations of its design from the mesh and foxing of the Rod Laver Vintage with a distinctive perforated leather toe. Footwear in the collection is rounded off with a pair of adilette slides with the debossed Mod Trefoil relief and Spezial branding.

The apparel side of the collection sees the return of an adidas Spezial favourite with the SL Haslingden jacket – widely regarded as one of Spezial’s most popular jackets ever, this time constructed in a super lightweight fabric with tonal 3 stripe branding. The ST11 is a newly developed jacket that comes in a bold gold colourway and draws inspiration from the silhouettes of the Standard Training of the late 70s with an updated colour, materials and fit. Additional staples apparel styles include the Mod Trefoil sweat in a chalk white Terry, white logo carrier tee, tapered navy track pant and trace green cargo short in the classic ‘Aldwych’ fit. A multi panel, peaked, logo cap in a warm beige with adjustable fit and three vent holes rounds of the collection.

The adidas Originals Spezial AW20 Chapter 1 collection is online now and in both our Leeds and Nottingham stores.

If you spend a couple of hours a day of Instagram like many, you might have noticed an influx in a new way individuals are curating their feed with certain dedicated pages. Online, the “mood board” style movement has quickly taken over as a new way to express a certain interest or style in a […]

If you spend a couple of hours a day of Instagram like many, you might have noticed an influx in a new way individuals are curating their feed with certain dedicated pages. Online, the “mood board” style movement has quickly taken over as a new way to express a certain interest or style in a post-Tumblr era with popular pages by Hidden NY, organiclab.zip and Lawrence Schlossman leading the way. WAY OUT Cache is an upcoming UK based page and vintage seller specializing in more obscure outdoors-wear and the marketing around it, we caught up with Dan from WAY OUT to learn more.

Please introduce WAY OUT Cache and how would you describe the page? 

WAY OUT Cache is an Instagram feed and online store dedicated to vintage outdoor gear. I like to think of it as a little community. Rather than me just sharing images for a “like” I try and offer stuff that people can engage with whether it be something to purchase, discover or share. Last month I did a little giveaway and the followers shared a few hundred images of their reusable water bottles. It’s nerdy if you’re not into it but I think actually engaging is the best thing I can do. 

When did Way Out Cache begin and how did it come about? 

I started the page last year at the same time I was selling vintage pieces for some extra cash. I was getting some really crazy pieces through and the only memory I’d have of them was the completed eBay listing which seemed a bit of a shame. I just wanted something to look back on and be like “I had one of those” but I knew people would connect with the old imagery just as much as the pieces themselves. 

The Instagram mood board movement is currently popular with other pages such as Hidden and organiclab.zip for example, what’s your thoughts on this and is it here to stay? 

I think it’s great and I hope it’s here to stay. Through university I used to run a streetwear blog called 5th Street which was reasonably popular but it got to a point where I felt it couldn’t compete with the bigger news sites. With Instagram I feel like anybody has a fair crack of the whip if they’ve got a cool eye for something that’s a bit different. I think it’s important to have a niche but not to box yourself in too much that you’re going to run out of content. 

Outdoors and technical focused clothing are having a big moment right now, why do you think this is and where do you see it going?

 I think a lot of people have got into outdoor gear because it fits with where the world is going. It’s imperative that we all start making better choices, buying stuff that lasts longer and using things multi purpose. I want a jacket I can wear for work, walk the dog in but also climb a mountain at the weekend too. I think it’ll continue like this for a while and the good bit is that the brands who have always done it will continue doing their thing.The bad part is that we are going to have to endure some poor quality gear from brands that are inevitably going to try and go outdoors. 

Would you say the last few years have been post-streetwear? 

Yes and it’s definitely refreshing. I can’t knock streetwear because I’ve made so many connections through it but now it’s died down a little, I like that people are finding their own feet. I saw a meme the other day that was like “Guys turn 20 and base their whole personality around these brands” and I just thought that was so true of streetwear. I like seeing what people actually like to wear now rather than what they thought was their uniform almost. 

Which brands do you have your eye on? New and vintage? 

You guys have got a lot of brands on my watch list actually. I’m really into Klattermusen, and wander and Snow Peak to name just a few. Their new gear is as good as anything from the past so I’m always checking for those. In terms of vintage I’ve been going back through Nike ACG a lot. For a sub-line of a sportswear brand it’s amazing just how many unique pieces there are out there. A lot of big brands who made outdoor collections gave up somewhere along the way.  

Are there any vintage pieces you regret letting go of? 

I don’t really get attached to pieces too much and in that sense I’m a really bad archivist. There’s 100s of pieces I regret letting go of too cheap though. A couple of years back me and my friends were getting some of the craziest Patagonia Retro X I’ve had to date and I was letting them go for £150-200. If I could have them back I wouldn’t be putting them on a 7 day auction that’s for sure!

What’s your current vintage grail?

 I’d really like one of the Patagonia MARS GORE-TEX Jackets if anybody reading this wants to hook me up? The military issue stuff is annoyingly hard to come by in the UK so it’s either super expensive or gets snapped up quickly when somebody doesn’t realise what they’ve got. 

What’s next for Way Out Cache? 

To be honest it’s early days with the website so I’m looking to grow that and stock camping gear and equipment alongside the vintage. I’m also working with a couple of outdoor brands in the UK and helping them relaunch archive collections. At the moment this involves sourcing and selling pieces back to them and also looking through old printed material and deciding where to go next. It’s early days again but the idea of consultancy is something I like. 

Following on from collaborating in 2019, New Balance’s forward thinking Tokyo Design Studio team up with outdoors equipment specialists Snow Peak to create a new 3 in 1 silhouette in the form of the Niobium Concept 1. The function driven shoe features a detachable upper, weather-resistant toe box and an ABZORB midsole for comfort and […]

Following on from collaborating in 2019, New Balance’s forward thinking Tokyo Design Studio team up with outdoors equipment specialists Snow Peak to create a new 3 in 1 silhouette in the form of the Niobium Concept 1. The function driven shoe features a detachable upper, weather-resistant toe box and an ABZORB midsole for comfort and durability. The 3 styles that the shoe can be worn as include a robust fishing boot, slip-on camping clog or as a sock like liner for wearing in a tent. 

The all new silhouette was inspired by the chemical element niobium, a light grey metal that is resistant to a wide range of chemicals, and can be easily molded and re-formed in low temperatures. These aspects of the chemical can be seen in the versatility and multi-use mindset of the sneaker’s design. The Niobium Concept 1’s subtle “Sage Green” colourway also references the mossy rocks of mountain streams which is an ideal landscape for the shoe’s intended use.

The New Balance Tokyo Design Studio x Snow Peak Niobium Concept 1 is online now.