New Adidas Campaign: March Is A Brotherhood

For those that follow basketball religiously, y’all know what March is all about. Forget the NBA for a minute. It’s March Madness baby!

March Madness aka THE BIG DANCE, the term to describe the NCAA basketball championship tournament. 65 teams, one game each, you lose, you’re out.

Last year’s tournament was awesome, with the Kansas Jayhawks taking the big W over the Memphis Tigers. Mario Chalmers, now playing for the Miami Heat, hitting the clutch 3 to send the game into OT, winning over eventual NBA first pick Derrick Rose. This year shouldn’t disappoint.

In support of this event, Adidas came out with a new campaign. Again, in line with their Basketball Is A Brotherhood campaign, they put out videos of KG, Josh Smith, T-Mac and Dwight Howard, all of whom skipped college (love the irony), to represent their selected college teams. The videos were “candidly” shot, with the each player, save for KG, mocking the choice for the previous player/s. Funny stuff!

Oh, and T-Mac, should really stop doing these promos and get himself correct on his health.

Here’s the official press release, along with the videos: Coming off a year that featured three adidas teams in the Final Four, including eventual champion Kansas Jayhawks, adidas looks to take Brotherhood one-step further for the 2009 NCAA Tournament by bringing current NBA stars to the locker rooms of top-ranked college programs. Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Tracy McGrady and Josh Smith are featured in four videos entitled “March is a Brotherhood”, sharing their admiration and respect for the college game. Although these players leaped the college ranks, they are now reflecting on the purity of the game and celebrating the NCAA basketball brotherhood. For the Tournament, adidas Basketball is also introducing the Mad Clima – a new court shoe designed to keep adidas’ elite schools lighter and cooler during crucial tournament play. The new design offers ClimaCool technology to keep players lighter and cooler during NCAA tournament play. The “March is a Brotherhood” program and product collection launches today.

The Adidas Consortium aZX Project: Group 2 I-P

The 2nd wave of sneakers from the aZX Project will be coming out this September 20,2008. For this batch, we have letters I to P with the following stores representing each letter: Icon Stores, J-B, Kendo, LiveStock, Major DC, Neighborhood, Adidas Originals, Patta.

Without further ado, here are the pics and details for the 2nd batch:

ZX 700 FOR ADIDAS ICON STORES (LONDON & BERLIN)

Designed for Adidas Icon stores in London and Berlin or simply called No. 6(London) and No. 74(Berlin). These numbers are represented on the tongue of the shoe, which also means that this pair will exclusively be available ONLY in Icon stores.

ZX 500 BY J-B (PORTLAND, USA)

J-B stands for Just Be or JustBeComplex.com which is the website for Compound Gallery. Compound Gallery is located in Portland, Oregon which is the hometown of corporate rival, Nike. The store sells an eclectic mix of sneakers, clothing as well as toys and art. It actually seems that they are a store that sells more art and design stuff and this is clearly reflected on the intricate design found in the heel of the shoe.

AZX 800 BY KENDO (LOS ANGELES, USA)

Kendo is the 1st sneaker store that is dedicated to women. As such, the colorway they have chosen represents their background. From the suede heel area and a selection of different purple shades coupled with gray and just a hint of gold on the 3 stripes, this is a sneaker that both men and women could rock.

ZX 450 BY LIVESTOCK (VANCOUVER, CANADA)

Another one of the pioneer sneaker stores in Canada, Livestock started off with Vancouver and has since open 2 other stores, another one also in Vancouver and the other in Toronto. Taking similar color cues from fellow Canadian store Goodfoot, they also use a green and gray combo albeit with a darker and more militaristic look to it. If the similarities of the colorway was done on purpose, we are not sure as well. Maybe Canadians just love the color green.

ZX 600 BY MAJOR DC (WASHINGTON, USA)

In reworking this shoe, Major DC wanted to put an all-terrain feel to it and chose to use the olive and khaki with hints of orange to make it blend. The digi camo pattern on the heel is also a nice touch to it. It does seem that for military themes, sneaker companies love to put that tinge of orange similar to the Nike SB Dunk Hi for Brian Anderson that came out last year.

ZX 700 BOAT BY NEIGHBORHOOD / NBHD (TOKYO, JAPAN)

I’m actually most excited in writing about this shoe, mostly because it’s Neighborhood or more commonly known as NBHD. I am a big fan of the Japanese street wear industry and NBHD is one of the most respected brands out there. Headed by Shinsuke Takizawa, the brand is heavily influenced by the biker culture. In fact, according to some insider info, there was some difficulty for Adidas to make this collaboration happen due to the fact that NBHD doesn’t really do runner sneakers which is what the ZX models are, however they were able to compromise by offering the ZX 700 which is Adidas’ take on the boat shoe.

This probably will be the most hyped shoe for this batch, if not for the whole project. The tones selected by NBHD is black and white, which is the common color combinations which they use for most of the stuff in their line. It works effectively and gives that simple but striking look. Many people have said that there are similarities to Visvim FBT, I can say that maybe there is an influence to it as NBHD has collaborated with Visvim for quite a number of times now.

ZX 700 FOR ADIDAS ORIGINALS

The shoe that will only be available at Adidas Originals stores. This version has an interesting mix of materials used along with a velcro strap for the heel. Nice and simple, done with my favorite combo of chocolate and pink.

ZX 7000 BY PATTA (AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS)

Patta is Surinamese slang for shoes and is mostly famous due to one of it’s founders, Parra. Parra is an illustrator who have worked on various magazine, CD covers as well as concert posters. He has also done quite a number of collaborations with Nike. Parra and Patta have always worked with vibrant colors and for their sneaker, what they have done is no exception. A good combination of teal against purple, it’s almost pushing the limits for color harmony and yet it is something that you can see people wearing on their feet.

That’s it for the 2nd batch! Wait for the upcoming 3rd and final series of this project. It should be quite promising as we have big name brands such as Alife and Undefeated among the list of collaborators.

Thanks to the following for the pics: HighSnobiety, Hypebeast and Freshnessmag.

The Adidas Consortium aZX Project: Videos

For this project, Adidas flew in the representatives from 22 stores to hang out at the Adidas HQ in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Basically, in what looked like a big brainstorming session for the top players in street retail and design, Adidas put them in a room and worked with designers in developing their shoe. How cool is that?

This is the official description from the aZX channel:

Gathering 22 of the world’s key retailers, from streetwear stores to
high-end boutiques, all with their own individual vision when it comes
to design and style, the aZX project offered classic adidas ZX running
shoe designs alongside an open brief for their own limited edition
release. Covering a complete A to Z of the very best in retail, branding
and innovation it represents one of the largest scale, most intelligent
sneaker collaborations to date.

Using these timeless silhouettes that ranged from the simplicity of the
earlier low profile shapes to highly technical Torsion creations and
contemporary designs as a blank canvas, some kept it simple in line with
the individual shoe’s heritage, others took inspiration from outside the
blue box, but all partners projected a personal vision on their choice
of shoe perfectly.

Launched with a gathering of participating store and brand
representatives at adidas’ Herzo headquarters, over two days they
brainstormed, applied and tweaked their chosen makeups alongside the
design team, resulting in the first fruits of a collaborative collection
that offers something for traditionalists, collectors and fashionistas
alike.
With the cream of the industry working, eating and socializing
side-by-side, this was a unique event that yielded unique results.

Here are the videos from the Adidas aZX channel on Youtube. The 1st video is basically a general introduction to their gathering, while the next 2 videos takes a few of the people from each of the 1st 2 groups, A-H and I-P, to talk about their personal creations:

aZX Intro

Group A-H

Group I-P

The Adidas Consortium aZX Project: Group 1 A-H

The 1st 8 sneakers of the much awaited Consortium aZX Project by Adidas was released last August 08,2008. The Consortium line-up for the aZX Project, includes the following stores from A to Y:

ACU, Bodega, Colette, D-Mop, LimitEDitions, FootPatrol, GoodFoot, Huf, Icon Stores, J-B, Kendo, LiveStock, Major DC, Neighborhood, Adidas Originals, Patta, Daves Quality Meat, Alife Rivington Club, SNS, Crooked Tongues, Undefeated, VA, Wood Wood and You.

Here are the pictures for Group 1:

Here below detailed images of the first part of the project. More to come soon.

ZX 800 BY ACU (SHANGHAI, CHINA)

ACU’s take on the ZX800, clearly reflects the direction and background of ACU. Similar with their past collaboration with Nike and Clot, with designs heavily influenced by their Chinese heritage and surrounding, the Shanghai-based crew is all about combining traditional Chinese culture with modern street culture.

ZX 8000 BY BODEGA (BOSTON, USA)

Aptly named Bodega, the store represents your friendly neighborhood convenient store. The front area is really a convenient store, while the secret trapdoor reveals a backroom designed like a museum for sneakers and other street wear goodies. They also carry Japanese street wear labels such as Visvim and Head Porter Plus.

In my opinion, the design on the shoe reflects their connection to the classic era, with basic colors that is fitting for a shoe that was originally designed for sports.

ZX300 BY COLETTE (PARIS, FRANCE)

Everybody knows Colette as an eclectic store, selling everything from art books to sought-after sneakers and clothing. Another thing about Colette is their quirkiness in everything they do, which helps put them forward in everything the do. The shoe reflects that characteristic, the ZX300 is plastered with words which all start with the letter C. On a boring day, maybe you can count the number of words actually printed.

ZX 500 BY D-MOP (HONG KONG, CHINA)

As one of the premier retail oulets in fashion-hungry Hong Kong, D-Mop puts their twist on the shoe with a hint of the future. The bright future is the new black, as they use silver, scale-like material to bring the shine back into the shoe.

ZX 450 BY LIMITEDITIONS (BARCELONA, SPAIN)

One of Barcelona’s top sneaker and clothing stores, LimitedEditions uses a clean black background to make the colors pop-out, making it simple looking but very striking. A nice touch on the stitching of the LimitedEditions logo on the tongue as well.

ZX 800 BY FOOTPATROL (SOHO, LONDON)

FootPatrol has temporarily closed it’s physical store, but that hasn’t stopped them in collaborating with Adidas. Their take on the shoe is simply spells FootPatrol, which is known for their use of colors similar to their previous collaborations with Nike.  FootPatrol is also part of the Gimme5 crew, which is involved deeply in UK street wear culture, representing Stussy UK and responsible for bring A Bathing Ape or Bape, GoodEnough and other Japanese labels to the UK market.

ZX 8000 BY GOODFOOT (TORONTO, CANADA)

GoodFoot is responsible for bringing sneaker culture to Canada. What started out as a store, is now 5 store strong with branches in other parts of Canada as well as a sister store in Nomad. For their shoe, they stuck to being environmental friendly by using recycled materials. Another shoe which has a clean colorway that works well on the runner.

ZX 500 BY HUF (San Francisco, USA)

Huf is the store of Keith Hufnagel, professional skateboarder. As with his previous sneaker collaboration, his design is heavily influenced by San Francisco, particularly it’s rich history. And this time it’s the patterns on the San Francisco rail-worker’s uniform. It’s a nice touch with a good balance of blue and white, and as my favorite color, I can’t say no to blue!

Some info via NiceKicks, Pics from HighSnobiety

The Adidas Consortium aZX Project Primer: Superstar 35th & Adicolor

In one of the most exciting Adidas promotions since the Adicolor series in 2006. Last August 08, 2008, during the opening day of the Olympics, Adidas released the 1st batch of sneakers for the aZX Project.

What is the aZX Project? The aZX Project is a series of 24 adidas ZX shoes worked by 24 of the top Adidas Consortium stores. Adidas assigned each letter of the alphabet to a corresponding Consortium store, all are represent except for, ZX.

The ZX stands for the ZX series which the stores will use as their canvas for their collaboration with Adidas. There hasn’t been an event with so much hype since 2-3 years ago, first with the Adidas Superstar 35th Anniversary and the year after, the Adicolor series.

For the 35th anniversary of an Adidas classic, they collaborated with different sources of inspiration to form 5 groups of sneakers: the Consortium series, Anniversary series, Music series, Expressions series and Cities series. The Consortium series is similar the aZX project in terms of working with top Consortium stores such as Union, FootPatrol, Undefeated and Neighborhood, which become one of the most sought after shoe of this series.

The Cities series represented the top cities where Adidas has had deep cultural impact, while for the Expressions series, they collaborated artists from different background. The Expressions series also gave us the first glimpse of the Adicolor series and the new campaign branched out from the Adicolor version of the Superstar, where-in included in the package are 5 different colored laces which allows the user to customize the shoe to his favorite colored lace.

The Adicolor series which primarily draws from the shoe customizing culture during the 80’s. Kids wanted their kicks to look fresh and would paint or draw on their sneakers to have that sense of individuality. Since that time, sneaker customizers have taken customizing to another level, using different materials, paints and methods, even selling them at high prices, almost like art pieces.

For the Adicolor series, Adidas used 6 primary colors: white, red, blue, yellow, green, pink and black. And from that selection, took 6 different models and worked with different designed to put their own touch into it, with the limitation being they had to work along their color group. Another series not shown in the chart is the white series, which consisted of jackets, caps and shoes along with painting materials which allows the buyer to customize the item with their own preferred colorway. Other things that are customizable in this series aren’t visible much to the eye, some shoes allow the changing the color of the 3 Adidas stripes, sticking additional buttons/logos to the shoe, or being able to change the color of the tongue and laces.

So for this year, the buzz is around the aZX Consortium Project. The first batch, which consists of letters A-G, has already been released. The chart below shows the preview and I will talk more about this series in the next post.

Your Lifestyle – A Top 10 List

Hi! I figured this would be a good way to introduce myself. Basically it’s a list of things that are ‘must haves’ in my life today. Idea and title jacked from Superfuture.

1. Family

Not much explaination needed. Family is the basic foundation of society, yes? We are not the perfect family, but we do okay.

2. Basketball

Flashback, the 1993 NBA finals, Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson and the Phoenix versus Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Chicago Bulls. Jordan with his swagger moves, Barkley with his power plays, it was a Wednesday night I think, it wasn’t even a live telecast. But ever since that time, I was hooked to, no, LOVED basketball. If there was any one constant thing in my life, this was it. My interests have come and go and some come back again, but this was one thing that never changed while I was growing up.

Not just limited to watching basketball, I grew up playing the game, I was never and ever will be good at this game, but I’m a decent player. I could probably do better explaining the technical aspects of playing basketball like shooting, defense, running plays,etc. than actually playing in the game.

I’m 25 now and it’s been 15 years, and this will be forever.

3. Sneakers

Playing basketball meant you needed the proper kicks to play. Most people just wore whatever back then, as long as it was ‘rubber shoes’, it was okay. But I saw more than just shoes, I saw great design and a certain connection to the player wearing or endorsing the sneakers. Early years I was enamored by the designs on Reebok shoes, the Shaqnosis worn by Shaq or the Kamikazes that were designed for Shawn Kemp, as a kid unknowingly learning to love how good design affect our lives. Eventually I caught up with Nike and Adidas, with Penny Hardaway rockin’ Zoom Flight 96s and of course, Jordan with his Air Jordans. Later on was the love for the 3 stripes, with great Feet You Wear campaign banned by then-rising stars Kobe Bryant and Antoine Walker.

I always wore mid-level priced kicks back then though, because my parents would never buy me expensive shoes. I would always buy at sales and shoes that were from the previous season, and I would wear ‘em till the soles fell off. It was only recently when I got into the working world that I had the capacity to purchase whatever shoes that I liked and still there was still a certain frugality that was instilled to me that prevented me from going wild with shoe purchases.

From basketball shoes I grew to love casual sneakers as well, and it just grew and grew to what it is now. Whatever pair I have now doesn’t just look good but appeals to whatever personal ideals I have, it’s many different stories in each pair. It’s not just something that conforms to the body but to the person wearing it, to me.

4. Comics

One of the other things I got growing up. This was one of the ways my father used to get me to read. I loved comic books, those Superhero types most of all. It kinda waned off when I grew older, probably due to the fact that I couldn’t afford to follow every issue, but later on I got back to it. Just like when people say it’s meant to be. The internet did help a lot with downloadable scans allowed me to follow the current storyline, and after a while I got back to buying the trade paperbacks and hardbound books as well. As of late, I’ve been buying hardbound books because I figured I would start my own collection and perhaps it could be something I could show my kids later on and hopefully they’ll love it too.

5. Internet

The Internet has been revolutionary, it’s been said a million times and they should keep on saying it. I’ve just learned some much online which I wouldn’t have access to without it. Growing up in a 3rd world country meant being limited to whatever resources available locally, and with people starving and jobless, those resources would be scarce as most funding would be needed for more important matters. I admit that I grew up on the Internet, most of my interests now are influenced someway by what I’ve learned online. From the type of music I listen to, to my personal ideals, even to the shoes I wear. I’m just sick and tired of being satisfied of the things that are just available here, I want something more, I want something different, something that not every Jack walking in the street is wearing, or every Manang is listening to. I want to say something is cool because it is, and not because everybody says it’s cool. The Internet helps me do that.

6. Design

I got into design by way of comic books. Naturally I dreamt of growing up and becoming a comic book artist one day, perhaps in the mold of a Jim Lee. I used to copy a lot of comic book covers and tried to make some of my own characters. Used to think I really had talent, but that kinda fell apart especially when I stopped developing. I can still draw decently but it’s nothing compared to the skills Pros have. But that led the way to me learning to appreciate design on another level, on how a certain line can change a whole scene or how proper placement of shadows can set the mood of the panel, just how color affects a certain piece. Graphic design was a natural next step for me, I did try to self teach myself and was able to decently handle Photoshop, but without the proper education behind me, all plans of doing design just fell off too.

Design will always be an interest, whether it’s a book layout or a great CD cover, I’m always looking out for that something, that spark of inspiration. It’s a great feeling.

7. Glasses/Contact Lenses

I’ve had glasses since grade 3, and been wearing contact lenses since I was in 3rd year high school. I wish I could live without them but for now this is something I must have, unless I want to walk around ‘blind’. I hope that someday I can avail of Lasik and live a life without worrying about my glasses getting broken or losing my contact lens.

8. Music

I’m a pretty late bloomer. While all my life, I was surrounded by The Beatles and The Carpenters playing in my parents’ radio, I never really got into music until I was around 13-14. And even then I only got into mainstream stuff, I was downloading songs since I was around 16-17, so it just grew from downloading songs that was on the Billboards Top 50 singles and discovering songs that were not available locally, and then hearing 2Pac doing ‘California Love’ or Jay-Z’s ‘Can I Get A’ was when I learned about rap and from then I kept listening and researching. I joined an mIRC channel back then where I got to know about the Wu-Tang Clan, and more underground stuff and I was lovin’ it. It was around 2000 and I was probably 7 years late. I moved on to more rock oriented songs while still maintaining interest for hip-hop and r&b ballads, and it just kept expanding, from mainstream alternative rock songs to more emo songs and to indiepop and the list just kept growing and growing. I just like good music, irregardless of genre and no, Akon doesn’t count.

9. Friends

Now these are the people that keep me sane. There will always be a side of me that most people won’t see unless I’m with friends, it’s the Jason who is totally unguarded and relaxed. A place where I can say pretty much whatever I want without any discrimination or fear of acceptance. Like most people I have a few sets or groups of friends but one in particular, the Monztarz, is like family to me, I’ve known most of these people for more than a decade now.

10. Water

I’m a water freak and I probably go to the john more often than most guys. I just have this need to be constantly hydrated and just feeling dryness for just a few moments will make me uneasy. So for me, it’s gotta be H2O for life!

So what’s on your list?