Sorry for the lack of updates...I had a crazy week before coming out to Europe. It all started off with our Friday night party in Las Vegas to celebrate the website launch. J Dubb and I rolled out along with some of my L.A. friends, it was a wild night. We started off having dinner at Tao, which has great food and really cool decor. I especially liked these massive paintings on the wall...
Then we headed to the club area where it was pandemonium. We had the center table in the vip area overlooking the whole club, it was pretty dope.
As usual, we did it pretty big, Five Four style.
By 2 am, our section was getting a little bit rowdy. We had girls dancing all over the tables...life's a good look.
This is what the night felt like by the end...
We then headed over to the casino and gambled until the sun came up...Vegas rocks. We left the next afternoon, total Vegas trip lasted about 16 hours, just enough time to have a great dinner, party, gamble, eat breakfast and head back to L.A.
Since I was leaving for Europe 4 days later, it was non-stop work at the office. We got everything done.
I was able to sneak in a last night of fun in L.A. on Tuesday night. Definitely the most fun I've had in L.A. in awhile. Had to be up early the next morning for last minute meetings at the office and with vendors.
Luckily we made our flight as I stayed at the wash house before my flight finishing the last washes for Spring 2007. Then got on a plane for a 9 hour flight to London.
Right across the street from our hotel they are building the new Dior Homme store, can’t wait to come back and see the new store. I am a big collector of their sunglasses.
The next day we went shopping all day, the shoppinig here is endless.
And endless
And ENDLESS!!!!!
We went to go check out this fondue place on the Kowloon side which is famous for it’s good food. I must say, the food was incredible.
We were supposed to go clubbing, but as we walked through Lan Kwei Fong, it was mayhem. They were televising the World Cup…there is nothing more exciting than a bunch of drunk foreigners watching soccer, drinking beer and falling off the floor…YOUNG!
Next day, we did it all over again. Launching a girl’s line is a lot of work. We shopped again for another 10 hours…Christine from Five Four joined us in the shopping as she will be the women’s brand director. After buying a couple pair of sneakers, sunglasses and other accessories, I decided to stop. It was getting a little out of hand. The 48 hour stay in HK was definitely another good time. Here are some pics of the HK.
When I was leaving the hotel, I had to go into the bag room to rearrange my bags after all of the shopping. I read this sign on the door, I thought it was pretty funny…
We then headed to the factory for the majority of the day. After a long day at the factory, we headed back into the city of Hangzhou. The most infamous part of this city is its lake, called the Westlake. It is definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. Our vendor put us up at the Shangri-La there which is an amazing hotel, overlooking the lake. The design of it has a plantation style kind of vibe to it. Since our flight to Guangzhou (south China) was real early the next day, we had to get up early and take a quick tour of the lake. After enjoying a great breakfast overseeing the lake, we headed off to the airport. Peep below.
Right before we left the lake, I noticed this guy on this park bench with some funny looking socks. His style was so wacked that it was kind of cool. I had to take a picture of it.
I’ve been to China five times in the last year. The country has never ceased to amaze me. The first time I came I received all these warnings saying to be careful with the food, China was ghetto, etc. I’d have to say I’ve only had amazing experiences here. The people are great, the country is beautiful, the food is unreal and it’s definitely an exciting place to visit. The growth of this country is unbelievable. Every time you drive in the city or the country, all you see is massive construction going on with huge office and residential buildings being put up. In fact, every time I come back and visit the same area that I went to last time, I see many completed construction projects. It’s a great place to be and I recommend everyone to visit at some point in your life. Your eyes will definitely be exposed to some great things. I always get a rush when I come here, partially because Five Four is now doing big things over here but also to see the growth and rapid expansion of such a magnificent place.
We got into Guangzhou and it was raining pretty hard. The worst kind of rain, humid and warm water rains. Since we would only be in the city for 24 hours we headed straight to the factory for a long day of work. Checking into the hotel was quite an experience. The ceiling was very low so Ryan decided to play with it and created a big hole on the ceiling. It was pretty hilarious.
We showered and then went to another great Chinese style dinner, but this time we had Korean BBQ. After a long night of eating and drinking, we hit the sack at about 5am and woke up at 10am to catch our train to HK. I must say though, I’m very exhausted. We’ve covered 5 cities in 4 days so far, roughly 18-24 hours per city.
I’m very excited to go to Hong Kong. However, we just got a call on the train warning us that there is a black storm coming tonight. Yikesssssssssssssssss!
Lastly, here are two more of those great literal translations from Chinese to English. You gotta love it.
Came back to the office to work all the way until late, went to another great Chinese style dinner. Check out the bowl of chili peppers that welcomes you when you walk in to the restaurant.
For those of you that have been to Shanghai, you know the city is incredible. We decided to head out to The Bund at night for a drink. There is this club called 18 on The Bund (I think that’s the name) there that has a great view of the Bund and the river as well, its pretty nuts.
The next morning we went to a city outside of Shanghai called Ningbo to check out a factory. I slept the whole 3 hour drive. The city is pretty nice, peep below.
Everywhere I’ve been China people drive like nuts. Here is one instance how we were sandwiched between 2 other cars on one street, you almost seem to think like you are always going to get hit by another car but luckily you never really do…
After hitting up the factory, we went to another Chinese style dinner. This time we ate at the yacht club. Our private room overlooked the river.
We headed back to the hotel and decided to grab a drink. The first bar we saw next to the hotel was called O’Reilly’s, a brand new Irish pub that opened today. Since it was opening day, it was free drinks all night. Ningbo isn’t really the most popping town, so I think this might have been the coolest thing going down all night. In L.A. it’s usually a hot private party or club that’s going off w/a good crowd and bottles poppin’, here it might be foosball and pool tables at O’Reilly’s as the hot night in the town. Pretty young look…
On a side note, I’ve been noticing translations from Chinese to English on many signs and packaging, here are some that were pretty funny.
Our summer line has started shipping, it should be hitting all stores w/in the next 2 weeks. Also, check out our new look book that is being distributed in all of our stores. It has some shots from our summer campaign and a preview of our fall collection. Shout out to Tyler Shields for shooting a great book and our friends who were shot for the book. I don’t really like using models, I prefer to take people that I’m friends with or off the street that I feel have the right look for our brand. Thanks again to our friends Jon, David, Max, Soleil and Aaron for participating.
On the marketing side, we’ve been everywhere the past 6 months from huge events to TV shows to movies. Some notables include Sundance, Super Bowl, Grammys, Oscars and the MTV Movie Awards. TV Shows include Entourage, Deal or no Deal, Best Damn Sports Show, and countless MTV shows. J has definitely been holding us down strong in 2006.
