noirmornings-blog

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Nike Celebrates Famed Vogue Dancer Leiomy Maldonado’s Athleticism in Striking, Poetic Ad

Moving work for new equality campaign

There’s a moment toward the end of Nike’s beautiful new 60-second spot for its equality campaign when the camera closes in on the shoulder blades of vogue legend Leiomy Maldonado. For just a second we can see her bones move and that her back is drenched in sweat. It’s the kind of shot that’s typical for any Nike spot celebrating athleticism—showing the work it takes to be an athlete is Nike’s bread and butter—but here, because Nike is opening up its definition of athleticism and showcasing “The Wonder Woman of Vogue” the shot has a much larger impact.

The new spot was written and directed by Daisy Zhou who wrote on Instagram that a year ago she had made a spot on spec for Nike about dancer Omari Mizrahi and “instead of being #sued, @nikenyc reached out to me to direct and shoot this piece for their Equality campaign.”

Zhou’s use of slow-motion shots highlights the precision of Maldonado’s incredible vogue dancing and her use of Precious Angel Ramirez’s poetic voice over makes for a stunning spot.

The ad, produced by production company Public Record, is the second one released this week starring Maldanado who danced in a spot for Klimpton Hotels‘ #LetsNeverStopDancing campaign.

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Here’s How Adidas Collaborates With Partners Like Alexander Wang and Stan Smith

Inside the brand's process at Cannes

By  Kristina Monllos via Adweek

CANNES, France—There aren’t too many brands that would allow a designer to flip its logo upside down, but Adidas believes in giving its creative partners room to show the shoemaker in a different context. After the brand’s session on the Lumiere stage at the Palais, creative leaders and brand partners—including designer Alexander Wang and tennis star Stan Smith—spoke with Adweek about how in giving partners creative freedom they’ve been able to keep the brand relevant.

“We don’t want to be perfect and polished,” explained Paul Gaudio, Adidas’ global creative director. “We don’t want to be staged and properly lit and makeup. We like the accidental capture. We like the sweat. We like the dirt. We like the reality. That really plays into the idea of a work in progress. We’re never finished. We’re never perfect.”

Gaudio continued: “In fact, when I see things that are too polished I react negatively. It looks like you’ve got it all figured out and you haven’t left any room in this for anyone else, and that to me is not where we’re going. We love to leave that space for others, whether they’re our consumers or partners or people inside the brand to add to it.”

For Wang, who has a second season of his collaboration with Adidas slated to be released sometime later this year, Adidas has been, “the most accepting of ideas and that has been truly exceptional especially for how big of a brand they are,” said Wang. “You rarely get that.”

Wang’s collaboration with Adidas came about from a casual conversation with the brand’s Originals team. “I’ve kind of constantly been referencing [Adidas], so they were like, ‘I think he’s been sending us subliminal messages,’” said Wang. “And so we started talking, and it wasn’t like, ‘Okay, let’s do a collaboration.’ It was more like, ‘What are you interested in? What are your values?’”

Initially, Wang wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the brand, and he’d already done a sportswear collection with H&M. “They invited me to go see their operation in Nuremberg,” said Wang. “These things tend to happen to me when I get invited to go and see an archive, I’m immediately inspired.”

The collaborative partnership between Adidas and Alexander Wang, which had ads and creative made by Adidas Originals’ creative shop Johannes Leonardo, won a bronze Lion this week at the Cannes Lions festival. (Johannes Leonardo also won the Grand Prix in the Music category of the Entertainment Lions earlier this week for its “My Way” campaign for Adidas.)

In his quest to find something new to say within sportswear for his Adidas partnership, Wang decided to turn its logo upside down. “[The design] needed to be immediate,” said Wang. “It was a very simple gesture of stripping it down, turning everything inside out, misplacing the stripes. It was really taking the codes of what is iconography and kind of trying to just not treat it so preciously.”

That’s also something Johannes Leonardo’s Ferdinando Verderi, founding partner and creative director, wanted to do with the launch of the collection. “Alex and Nic Galway have collaborated on an amazing collection that has a very clear story, which is the idea of disrupting Adidas,” said Verderi. “As much as Alex subverted the idea of collaboration by really flipping on its head the expected relationship with Adidas—and he did it in a very clear visual way—so I wanted to do the same for the launch.”

Instead of teasing the collaboration before the launch, as many brands do to get people excited, Verderi explained that the team thought it would be better to surprise consumers. “We thought how do we subvert the expectations of a traditional launch,” said Verderi. “Alex was a fan and supporter of this idea of just dropping the collection, as people do nowadays in the music industry.”

For Stan Smith, who has had a shoe with the Adidas for 45 years and noted during the panel that, “I do have to tell people I’m more than just a shoe,” collaborating isn’t as hands on.

“From the very beginning I always wanted to be connected with Adidas because it was a great, strong brand reputation,” said Smith. New projects between Smith and the brand are slated to come out later this year and next year. “There have been some collaborations with some other folks that are helping with it, so it’s some fun things coming up.”

Smith also noted that the collaboration isn’t always perfect, but he’s still happy to be working with Adidas.

“They design these different shoes and there’s been a few shoes I haven’t liked and after the fact I’ve given comments on them—but there’s hundreds and hundreds of different types of shoes,” said Smith. “There was one that had some reference to marijuana, and that wasn’t something I wanted to be connected with. This shoe didn’t have my face on it. [But it still said Stan Smith.] It didn’t last long.”

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DJ KHALED - WILD THOUGHTS FT. RIHANNA + BRYSON TILLER

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Contemporary Luxury At The Esplanade House in Melbourne

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Peaceful Vibes.

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Bang & Olufsen Combines Art and Sound With the BeoSound Shape Speaker System

Speakers have always been more than conspicuous additions to any living room despite the efforts of designers to make them visually pleasing. However, Bang & Olufsen‘s latest product does the most to blend the need for beautiful sound with the need for a beautiful space, with the BeoSound Shape modular speaker system. Users can choose from a minimum of six to a “practically unlimited” number of modules, according to Bang & Olufsen — with the option to combine different colors to your liking.

One BeoSound Core module combines AirPlay, Bluetooth and Chromecast functionality, while a mixing algorithm ensures the best sound quality for your room. Available from August, the BeoSound Shape will cost a pretty penny: £3,400 GBP ($4,245 USD) at the very least.

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The Skateroom Teams up With the Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate on Another Collection

Following up on their collection from 2015.

Skate culture meets art once again as The Skateroom has teamed up with the Jean-Michel Basquiat estate. The two parties first linked up back in 2015, offering a range of skate decks and art pieces featuring Basquiat’s art. Now, there are five new editions of skateboards incorporating the artist’s iconic paintings. Priced between $200 USD and $800 USD, you can pick up your own Basquiat-printed skate deck (or decks). A part of the proceeds benefit Skateistan, an international, award-winning non-profit organization that uses skateboarding and education for youth empowerment. Check out the full range for sale on its site.

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Ralph Lauren's Flagship Fifth Avenue Store Is Shutting Down

Expect more cuts and “new store formats.”

The negative financial reports continue for Ralph Lauren. As WWD notes, the esteemed fashion house will be closing the doors of its Polo Ralph Lauren flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York. The closure is taking place as part of the brand’s new “Way Forward Plan,” which also includes a digital operations switch-up and corporate staff cuts. All the efforts happening as part of Ralph Lauren’s “Way Forward Plan” are set to conclude by the end of March 2018, with expectations of about $140 million USD in “annual cost savings.” “These are important actions we are taking to continue our evolution and deliver on the Way Forward commitments we made in June,” explained Ralph Lauren CFO Jane Nielsen. “We are looking carefully at the way consumers are shopping online and believe that shifting to the [new digital] platform will allow us to create a best-in-class solution more efficiently in all of our markets around the world.”

A product of former CEO Stefan Larsson, Ralph Lauren’s “Way Forward Plan” has been pushed as a way to plot a new course since the middle of last year. While the strategy is intended to cut costs and make Ralph Lauren a lucrative, competitive business, initial costs to implement the plan are calculated at about $370 million. More than just cuts, the company’s “Way Forward” promotes the Ralph’s Coffee venture and the development of “new store formats.”

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#1 Professional Goal. 

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Kanye West reviewing merch ideas for the Watch The Throne, European Tour. Photo cred: Joe Perez (c/o DONDA) Circa 2011

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HOME ALREADY.

Casa Del Agua by Almazán y Arquitectos

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Bentley's New 57.7 Gigapixel Ad Is the Highest-Res Landscape Photo on Earth

If you thought Bentley‘s San Francisco-set, 53 billion pixel shot of the Mulsanne Extended Wheelbase was something to behold, wait until you see the British luxury imprint’s latest interactive ad. Highlighting the Flying Spur W12 S, the image is befitting of the fastest sedan of all-time: at 57.7 gigapixels, the image — which was captured from a camera perched atop one of the tallest buildings in Dubai — is the highest-res landscape photo in the world. And whereas that shot of the Mulsanne — which was 4,425 times larger than the typical smartphone photo and roughly the size of an entire football field — stitched together 700 individual images, this one boasts a whopping 1,825 individual frames that took 48 hours to capture and 18 hours to download in final form.

Head on over to Bentley’s website to explore those 57.7 gigapixels in full.

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AER DUFFLE PACK

Launched in 2014, Aer is an accessories company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our goal is to create durable, high-quality bags and accessories that meet the unpredictable demands of the city. Our collection of modern and functional bags are designed for the everyday professional, commuter and traveler navigating an ever-changing urban environment.

A New Kind of Bag for the Gym and Office

The Duffel Pack is a new kind of gym/work backpack that stores your gym and office essentials. The vertical zipper gives you full access to the interior while the backpack straps make it comfortable to carry.

Color: Black

Price: $150 USD

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OVO’s New York Flagship Store Is Now Open

Drake and OVO fans in New York can now stock up on the Toronto squad’s branded merch, as the doors to OVO’s NY flagship are currently open.

Courtesy of October’s Very Own, we get a look inside the establishment, which is highlighted by marble floors, white walls, and gold trim. All in all, the shop is noticeably spacious, portraying a minimalist, ultra clean aesthetic.

You can visit the New York OVO flagship today from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Let us know if you see those OVO x Clarks joints.

OVO New York Flagship 54 Bond St. New York, NY 10012

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Christian Louboutin and CJ Hendry Unveil New Exhibition at Art Basel Hong Kong

Unlikely collaborations have become a common thread in the fashion industry. So, when Christian Loboutin, the famed shoe designer associated with riotous color, announced a collaboration with an artist who works solely in black and white, it was hardly a surprise.

Well, that’s exactly what’s going down. Coinciding with the annual Art Basel Hong Kong, Louboutin joined forces with Australian artist CJ Hendry and Christian Louboutin and the result is a new exhibition entitled “Complimentary Colors”.

The show is comprised of a series of hyper-realistic drawings with blobs of thick oil paint as the subject. There’s a photo-realist quality to Hendry’s aesthetic, and she creates her work using 15 shades of pencil wax. Naturally, the result is stunning and it marks the fifth time that Christian Louboutin has collaborated with an artist.

It’s safe to say that CJ Hendry and Christian Louboutin are a harmonious union, and the resulting rainbow-like spectrum of artworks makes it the most breathtaking artist collaboration for the shoe designer to date.

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Mercedes-Benz Prague Fashion Week Street Style

Street Style is an ongoing series shot by Highsnobiety. This week, Copenhagen-based photographer Adam Katz Sinding (the sole force behind Le 21ème) heads to Mercedes-Benz Prague Fashion Week to capture the city’s style set as they take in the Fall/Winter 2017 shows. Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Season: Fall/Winter 2017

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Rolex Cosmograph Daytona A blend of high technology and sleek aesthetics that pays tribute to its heritage. Now featuring an Oysterflex bracelet and a black Cerachrom bezel.