The first article I wrote for 944, on a DIY booking service called Zebratour, ended up never making it to print. There was ultimately some kind of miscommunication between the guy who founded the company, and the magazine about how close the Zebratour site was to launching at the time of the interview and subsequent writing of this article. (No kill fee, by the way.) I’ve finally given up on this ever seeing publication, but this is what it looked like, pre-edit:
Archive for the 'business' Category
ZEBRAtour: Cancelled
June 11, 2008Sang Yoon, Father’s Office
July 1, 2007[Originally appeared in YRB, Summer 2007]
“The question was, ‘Why don’t we have great bar culture in LA?’” Sang Yoon, chef and owner behind the Santa Monica uber-pub Father’s Office tells me as he takes instructions from a photographer in front of his bar. Father’s Office offers a variety of tapas-informed delights that take bar food to places you’d like to see it go (but rarely do) at the hands of a gourmet chef; most notable is the Father’s Office burger, widely considered to be the best in the country. “Why can’t we eat something decent in a bar? There’s this segregation,” he continues. “If you go to a bar to drink, and you want to eat, it’s going to be something crappy: wings, nachos, shit. And if you want good food, you have to go to a fine-dining restaurant and spend a lot of money. There’s nothing in between,” he tells me with a bit of the annoyed tone the chef reserves for talking about fine dining culture. “But in Europe, there is. It’s not that it’s never been done, it’s just that, culturally, it’s not what we do here. So I thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to try it.‘”
Cockpit Golfer Jacket
November 10, 2006[Originally appeared in productdose, November 2006]
A stylish take on the classic bomber jacket, this Cockpit B-17 Golfer Jacket blends classic fighter pilot themes with sophisticated materials and contemporary design elements that are both more versatile and formal than your standard bomber. The jacket’s herringbone wool exterior, with an inner velveteen and nylon lining, is the type of thing you can expect from Cockpit, a menswear line we’ve seen twice this year at Project and have been watching since (before) it launched.
Karmaloop Kazbah
November 7, 2006[Originally appeared in productdose, November 2006]
It’s not often we run features on any of the several dozen online shops we love and follow, but occasionally we see an innovative retail space that demands a little extra attention. As you’ve noticed, we’ve been directing readers toward Karmaloop since productdose launched. The store’s informed mix of streetwear and progressive sportswear labels speaks to buying that is in touch with the frontier of emerging casual fashion. As impressive as the retail space may be, Karmaloop’s positioning as an innovator in progressive apparel and online retail just got stronger: Enter the Karmaloop Kazbah.
Steve Sims, Bluefish Concierge
April 1, 2005[Originally appeared in UNleashed, April 2005]
From his office in West Palm Beach , Florida, Steve Sims, founder and CEO of Bluefish Concierge tell me a notable story. “We were contacted by a woman whose husband, a major aquatic fan, had yachts, offshore powerboats, every kind of boat you can imagine,” says Sims’. This woman wanted her husband to have an unforgettable experience planned by Bluefish. The firm’s mandate is to make possible the most unique, once-in-a-lifetime adventures imaginable for clients with big ideas. “The guy owned so many yachts, Sims continues. “How could we possibly get onboard anything that would impress him? This is the kind of riddle Sims deals with everyday; implementing outrageous ideas with seemingly effortless execution. “We got a military submarine that popped up off the end of his back garden in Miami,” he tells me. “He had breakfast on the bow and later went out on a little journey.” That is mighty impressive by anyone’s standards.
The Closet
July 1, 2004
Smack dab in the middle of Main St., Surf City, USA, lies The Closet, long one of Orange County’s most popular streetwear boutiques. For the past three years, Huntington Beach’s The Closet (with a sister location in Costa Mesa) has been refining an action sports aesthetic into a fashion resource that’s not just for the surf-skate-snow crowd. The Closet is a traditionally classic purveyor of all tings trendy in OC, where the climate calls for casualwear year-round and longstanding local giants Volcom and Stussy still hold court on all fronts (especially menswear). Local upstart Modern Amusement is also making considerable progress with the boutique’s more discriminating clientele. Like everywhere, denim is still flying off The Closet’s racks. Levi’s Premium, Seven and Diesel lead the pack, but a few conspicuously thick stacks of Evisu are hidden in the fray. It’s all there, way south of LA, a slice of classic OC.
[Originally appeared in Sportswear International, July 2004]
Kendo, Women’s Sneakers
March 1, 2004
Female sneaker freaks, thanks for waiting. There’s finally a store just for you. No more scouring the tiny sizes of shoes made for men in colorways that don’t speak to you; no more following your man around the shoe store and being made to feel like the outcast; no more beef with Lena from GreyOne about being recognized as West Coast female sneaker-head number 1. Ladies, your day has arrived.
Kendo is a sneaker store for women. That’s right: a sneaker store for women. As Arsen from Kendo puts it, “We wanted to create a sneaker boutique for women that had rare and exclusive product” — a surprisingly rare thing, you’ll note. “We wanted to create a destination that women could feel was specifically tailored for them,” he continues. “We figured that there were plenty of stores that offered hot sneakers for guys, but the selection for women was usually confined to one wall.”
Jamie Thinnes, Seasons
March 14, 2002“It’s a beautiful day at Seasons,” Randy Mello says, answering the telephone. It’s the type of thing you want to imagine someone saying every time he picks up the telephone, but you have a hard time believing it. I make a mental note to call back again to see if he says it every time.
It does sound like things are looking up at Seasons. “I cannot wait to meet Sumo,” Mello tells me, referring to the newest addition to the Seasons roster. “The music is incredible. It’s just off the hook. They’re from Sweden—we put their flag in [the album’s visual design]—the thing’s called Sumo Workout,” notes Mello with a grin. “Sumo wrestlers with the Swedish flag; I mean, are you kidding me?!” It is this kind of idiosyncratic synthesis that draws Randy Mello to his work. He free-associates for effect: “Integrated sound/cloth stations,” he offers, oblivious to my inability to get a handle on the concept. “When you roll up to a Seasons station you get a killer pair of headphones with like five CDs in it. You put on the headphones and you’re listening to the music, and at the same time you’re on the hangers peepin’ the clothes.”
