Behold the latest shoe from one of my favorite brands Y-3 in collaboration with Legendary Manchester UK nightclub, The Hacienda. The shoe’s awesome (read: dead sexy) design was a collaboration between Peter Saville (original Factory Records designer), Ben Kelly (architect who did The Hacienda’s interior) and Joy Division/New Order Bass player, Peter Cook (not sure why he had this honor). Regardless, never before have I seen so many cooks in the kitchen deliver such a fantastic sneaker-specimen.

The sneakers come in a custom six-sided, maple-bottomed box (naturally it’s the same shape as the dance-floor as at The Hacienda). Then, the shoes inside are wrapped in four sheets of tissue paper, two feature Kevin Cummin’s photography in the 80’s, one will show designer Ben Kelly’s original sketches for the clubs interior, and the final will show the current state of the club space. I kid you not– this is packaging detail at its best, absolutely gorgeous! Along with the incredible package and shoes, lucky buyers will also get a DVD documenting the whole club history and experience.

The shoe is a short run at 250 pairs and will sell exclusively in the Y-3 Manchester store for two weeks before it goes into Selfridges in London and Y-3’s flagship in Tokyo. The FAC51-Y3 will be 345 GBP, or just under $700 US. My birthday just passed, is it too late to ask for these? I think I’m in love. Check out another shot of them after the jump.

Via Creative Review
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Last week, thanks to the nice people at RecCenter, I was able to catch a Bloc Party set at the Ogden Theater in Denver (FYI– RecCenter is a musically inclined social network definitely worth checking out– add a measure of music, a pinch of people, and a cup of community; mix together with custom profiles and share). The Ogden has come a long way since the mid 90’s, when I regularly attended punk shows there. The new, spruced up version is most certainly one of my favorite venues in Colorado. To the crowd’s delight, the band played a diverse mix of songs from both their sophomore release ‘A Weekend in the City‘ and their rookie sensation album ‘Silent Alarm.’ U.K. based Bloc Party is one of those bands that gets – and deservingly so – a lot of attention from DJ’s and Mash-Up Artists (good resource here), but I’ve also been consistently impressed with their live performances. The band is a lot more versatile than most people give them credit for… the very same day of the show at the Ogden, lead singer Kele Okereke also played an impressive (and slower) acoustic set on radio station KBCO in Boulder. A few more photos from the show follow after the jump, courtesy of my not-as-gimp-as-I-am friend Bart Lorang.
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Just this morning, perennial JoshSpear.com fixture Hecklewood launched their Summer ‘07 collection, Teenage Wasteland. T.W. is heavily influenced by cultural events in the 1990’s, and draws from our time as wasted youths (seriously, sometimes I wonder how we were able to emerge from that decade with our sanity and normalcy somewhat intact). It’s basically one part punk-in-gutter, and one part toxic wasteland. But that’s not all! To accompany their T.W. line, Sammy and crew have also launched a smaller collection that focuses on 3D pattern graphics that I’m really digging (’New Wave‘ t-shirt shown above). And remember everyone, Hecklewood has M’s and W’s gear– get some!

While everyone (read: Josh, Heather) seems to be on the edge of their seats for the upcoming iPhone release, some of us (read: me) are not necessarily interested in actually buying one. While I am in the market for a new cell, I would have a hard time waiting in line on June 29 as I already own an iPod. To me, despite all the bells & whistles, the iPhone seems a bit redundant. In fact, a recent survey seems to suggest that others share my reasoning as many potential iPhone buyers do not currently own an iPod. But if not the iPhone… is there a shiny new gadget for you this summer? A batch of announcements from Sony Ericsson offer some yummy options, including six new handsets, three new Bluetooth watches, and a slew of accessories. You can find the full list of new releases announced last week here, but a few of the products stand out above the rest; the K850 Cyber-shot phone sports a 5 megapixel camera that may free you of your digicam but if you need a blazing web connection, the K530 3G phone may be your speed. The MBW-150 Bluetooth watch (I like the ‘Music’ version the best) allows you to leave your phone in your pocket by controlling the music and displaying caller ID and track info right there on your wrist. This will come in handy if you want to screen calls while you are rocking out to some tunes on your new HGE-100 headset. And just in case you get really distracted and find yourself in unfamiliar territory, the HGE-100 also offers GPS when paired with the K530. Sweet action, indeed.

Our refrigerator door is littered with so much roommate correspondence, that even with the addition of some colorful fridge magnets for the local pizza delivery and favorite manicure/pedicure place, it’s not exactly an appetizing scene that confronts one on their search for sustenance. But if we had the Aquarela Refrigerator, a trip to the kitchen would be an event I could actually look forward to (I associate the kitchen with cooking — one of my strongest phobias). The fridge’s door and sides are made to emulate a dry erase board, which allows you to draw, erase and draw again to your creative side’s content with the included purple and red markers. This turns the fridge door into an ever-changing canvas, making it especially practical when bills and messages for absentee roommates come around. Currently this fridge is only available in Brazil, but since it has such a worldwide appeal, the idea should catch on soon elsewhere. Happy drawing!

Spear Collective superstars I-Manifest just released another mid-season collection, and if you’re up for wowing the ladies with some badass superpowers, these freshies will make a good addition to your summer wardrobe. A couple of this seasons standouts are “Urban Decay,” a light-sensitive collab with Mother Nature that tells a developing post-apocalyptic tale, and the “Cupid,” a reversible collaboration with Nessim Higson of IAMALWAYSHUNGRY that’s even more fun when the lights turn off (glow-in-the-dark never gets old, does it?). All of the new shirts feature some great design work and are selling at a reasonable 32 bucks a pop, so head on over.

They’ve been around for 25 years, but I still will remember They Might Be Giants best for their cover of the Four Lads song, Istanbul (Not Constantinople). What’s not to like about a song that was both catch and educational? The eclectic and often wacky alternative rock duo saw their last studio album three years ago. That may surprise some folks, like myself, who thought that TMBG had disappeared into obscurity long before that. I mean, when was the last time you even heard of them? Not ones to rest on their laurels, John Linnell and John Flansburgh have been keeping active with small, but kickass project such as providing the theme music for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and, recently, with several original songs for Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. For fans of Strong Bad, you might be surprised to find that they wrote and recorded musical cues for the HomestarRunner site!

Their latest album, slated for release on July 10th, is called The Else and it took me three days of continuous listening before I could even attempt to get a grasp on it. It’s fun, with lyrics and song titles that make you do a double-take. It’s also truly varied, with each track sounding unlike the last; a real rarity with the hemogeniety of today’s music. It has a real living room sound but with the polish of a studio produced album. Pick up your copy of The Else and tell us what you think!

JB Classics is at it again, this time with Mdot’s Malta model entitled Ashes to Ashes. This is the start to their newly developed “cross gender range”, all designed by Miss Mdot (great interview with her here). Details include tumble full-grain nubuck, genuine leather quarteres, quilted leather lining, speckle sidewall and of course, the tantalizing 10 color swirls on the outsole. Also, JB Classics will be at Bread and Butter in Barcelona July 4th to 7th — the first trade show they’ve been in in over 6 years.

Whatever good or bad can be said about Angelina Jolie surely has already been written, but her sincere effort to portray Mariane Pearl, wife of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in the narrative film A Mighty Heart should be respected above all petty grievances over celebrity, privilege and private lives. Hardly a soul on earth missed the story of Pearl’s capture and gruesome death while few really know about his wife’s ability to see beyond her personal grief and urge Daniel’s friends and colleagues to maintain compassion — even to those who took her husband’s life. I met and spoke with Jolie briefly at the New York premiere, a benefit for Amnesty International, who graciously provided me with tickets for the best seats in the house and passes to the afterparty that followed.

Her back turned to the paparazzi as they snapped pics of her infamous tattoos, Angelina smiled as I expressed my gratitude for making the film -– something I truly felt. Earlier that day, her handlers were carelessly overprotective by making unreasonable censorship demands around any interview, a rather strange contradiction to the message of “freedom of press” of the movie. She more than cleared the air on the Daily Show with an apologetic retraction. READ MORE…