They have a very full collection that covers men’s and women’s apparel including t-shirts, sweat shirts, pants, shorts and blazers. They will be launching caps and their denim line this fall. “Denim is being worn religiously everywhere. We want to make it a household name, something you always wear. Our jeans won’t have all over print or studding; you’ll be able to wear it with everything. We’re working on price point and we want it to make it feasible for everyone. It will be durable denim. We don’t want people to spend a fortune on their denim; this is for every day people,” Mrs. White explained.

Mizchif is a company that thrives on their creativity and the feedback of their loyal customers, “Everything inspires us… We’re inspired by our surroundings, our day to day living. We pretty much go on what we feel.  We’re local right now, so we get our customer response, that’s how we get an idea that we’re going in the right direction,” Mrs. White said. For example she describes the current rock and roll trend that’s sweeping the nation, “We’re not doing too much skulls because my husband and a lot of our customers think that skulls are more negative than positive. Everything is really earthy; we incorporate a lot of animals. We do a lot of wings, to get some rock and roll feel.”

It all began in 2001 with basic T-shirts being sold out of the White’s basement. They were a passionate duo withcreativity and commitment, and when they realized the ideas they sketched out, they created some of the hottest designs. It wasn’t long before they opened their first boutique because the demand for Mizchif became so great it exceeded their home. From there they were able to move into an even bigger location in Brooklyn, and they’ve been there for almost three years now.

Mizchif is looking out for their beloved customers, and tries to be something that will outlast trends. “We do a lot of black, white, brown earth tones so it’s trendy, but can last for the upcoming years as well. Earth tones are no longer just fall colors,” Mrs. White said, and with a stable color palate and hot designs Mizchif is certainly going to be a force to be reckoned with in the fashion industry.

Krazi Junction is dress sport. This is how the dress shoe and the sneaker met and married. It performs like a sneaker, but looks like a dress shoe. It’s all about comfort meets style. “It’s sort of like the Uggs, but they’re not as “Ugg-ly” as the Uggs” Johnson explains.

Krazi Junction is officially about two years old. “(It’s) is really starting to take off, it’s my little baby it’s watching it grow,” Johnson says. He has been working on Krazi Junction even before it existed, for about six years now.

You’ll start to see Krazi Junction all over the place soon. Columbus Short of Stomp The Yard has been strutting around in the Faith shoe. Tre Songz, dozens of music producers, and others in showbiz love the M1 shoe which looks a little more like a sneaker, but it’s still dressy. Krazi Junction has made a shoe just for artist Neo, a special wing tip high top. You’ll also see NFL and MBA players rocking Krazi Junction shoes as well! “My goal is to make a size 22 wingtip croc, which would take 3-4 skins, for Shaq,” Johnson says.

Krazi Junction shoes can be found at boutiques all over, and Johnson has made a special line, KJ Classics that will be at Sears soon.

Not wanting to leave this gem unpolished, we returned to the Yak Pak headquarters in a swanky part of New York City. Katie Murphy, their PR Manager walked us through a wide range of their goodies, which we’ll only do some justice summarizing below. The company was started in 1989 by a college student (out of his dorm room, no less) who sensed that there was an opportunity to innovate and improve the fashion of the common backpack. To this enterprising student, “a bag isn’t just something you carry, it’s something you wear.”

From these humble beginnings, Yak Pak grew to create the first micro and mini backpacks, DJ bags, origami bags, cross body shoulder bags, and now their billboard bags, wallets, and even cases to carry chef’s knives. The biggest area of innovation was that Yak Pak pioneered the trend in bringing fashionable prints to the backpack market away from boring solid colors.

Some highlights from our recent visit:

• Billboard bags — Yak Pak partnered with Terracycle to create a unique approach to recycling billboard advertisements. According to Terracycle, over 3,000,000 vinyl billboards end up in US landfills each year. Turns out that the tough, weatherproof stuff that billboards are made of are perfect for bags. The resulting product is stylish and individually unqiue because each is made from a different cut of a billboard resulting in a one-of-a-kind piece of art.  The product line includes a variety of functional shapes including messenger bags, backpacks, laptop sleeves and totes at prices retailing under $35 for most.

• Chef’s knife bags — I already knew about Yak Pak’s fabulous backpacks and messenger / shoulder bags, but I didn’t know they also catered to the catering set. Yak Pak’s fashionable and functional 12 pocket chef bags are great for amateur and professional chefs alike. Keep your sharp knives here without risking puncture as there is a 2-inch webbing strip protection to minimize knife punctures. The bags are easy to roll and secure with air clip lock and include a flap bag for extra accessories. They come in 8 colors and are made of high quality, water resistant polyester.

• Laptop sleeves — I confess. I just bought a new Acer netbook and I had no means to carry it. The folks at Yak Pak were generous enough to give me one of their new Laptop Sleeves, and I love it. Lest you think this makes for biased reporting, I have to report that I’m putting it through its paces, so consider this a product review! The long and short of it is that it comes in 17 different print options, and carries all notebooks up to 15.4 in size. Compatible with all Yak Pak totes, Big P backpack, and Le T mesh backpacks.

As a final note, Yak Pak minds its environmental P’s and Q’s. Their products are manufactured at a wholly owned hydroelectric powered facility in El Salvador, and their employees are paid fair wages in proper working conditions.

Founded in 2002 by veteran entrepreneur Rick Alden, Skullcandy tapped into a market that every headphone and music company failed to attack – the adventure sports, snowboarding, skate boarding and street crowds. Which mainly was his initial target, Alden found that his funky style of headphones were being worn by literally everyone that was looking for an alternative to what Alden says, “black headphones, after black headphones, after black headphones…” Alden, was referring to what he saw on the shelves of stores prior starting Skullcandy (http://www.entrepreneur.com/e2009/vote/established.php#633) which gave Skullcandy the opportunity to hit harder on the market. Alden’s goal was to make a difference, to offer an alternative and that is exactly what he did.

With sales of more than $85,000,000 in 2008, the Utah native has lit a match under the sometimes stagnant electronic industry. We were able to sit down and chat with Skullcandy’s reps at MAGIC who practically bursting out of their bodies to talk about Skullcandy.  You can tell that Skullcandy is more than just a company, it has become a lifestyle; a lifestyle that seems to have taken a subculture of dedicated followers that were for a long time searching for an alternative to the standard headphones that seemed to never do justice. With Skullcandy, not only can you rock headphones that come in every color of the rainbow (including the neon rainbow) and shockingly different patterns with names like Rasta, Viking and Metalica.

Do ears a favor and got get your own set of Skullcandy headphones now… unless you like sporting gear from the 80s! For more info on Skullcandy, check out www.Skullcandy.com

As Andre explained, “Legendary Convertible Bertt is a conceptual brand that is trying to create our own lane as far as blending muscle cars and fashion. A lot of brands that you see in young men’s urban or young men’s apparel period is dominated by subculture… You know some people like sports, some people like music. I think almost 80% of men like cars.”

Their men’s line consists of verbiage tee’s, mechanics shirts and coveralls. One of Andre’s favorites is a tee which states “Headed to Hell With A Full Tank of Gas” with a fifties style image of a gas attendant. Imagine blue collar mechanic gear with a lot of flash and sass. “What Legends Are Made Of…” is their simple slogan that is on many of their pieces. Honestly, their men’s line is so sharp that it has me looking forward to their women’s line! It’s going to debut soon, called Mustang Sally aka Wives of Winners.

And the attitude of the men who are putting this brand out is phenomenal. Andre describes how “at a downtime in the industry it’s easy to not want to try anything new. It’s easy to be just a run of the mill brand just to get some money. But we would rather fail at trying to succeed at something different, than succeed for about two weeks in doing something everyone else is doing. It’s a maturation process, and we’re just working together and trying to have fun.” Now that is what legends are made of!

He explained that tokidoki is a lifestyle brand that is based off of the artwork of Simone Legno, an Italian artist who came to America to realize his dream of creating the brand tokidoki. Tokidoki means “sometimes” in Japanese, because there’s always that sometime when destiny comes and something great happens in your life.

Jeff introduced us to some of tokidoki’s characters, “all of the characters have a little bit of edge to them, and cuteness. There’s Donutella, she’s so sweet she’s got a little donut costume on. Probably the most popular characters are Adios and Ciao Ciao, which are two souls that were kicked out of hell for being too good. So they have to roam the world together trying to do good. And another popular one is probably Bastardino. He’s a little dog trying to act tough in a cactus suit, but he’s really not that tough, he’s actually pretty nice.”

Tokidoki has also done some collaborations with Marvel. The tokidoki versions of these well known characters almost look like the childhood versions of them. Wolverine is eating a steak, spiderman is saving one of the tokidoki characters.

]]> http://urbanapparelmag.com/2010/02/18/tokidoki-okie-dokie/feed/ 0 http://urbanapparelmag.com/2010/02/18/delicious-yums/ http://urbanapparelmag.com/2010/02/18/delicious-yums/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:25:48 +0000 Kathleen Murray http://urbanapparelmag.com/?p=338 Yums is one of the most recognized brands in hip hop. Their sassy smiling face beams from the caps and kicks of artists such as Soulja Boy Tellem, Sean Kingston, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Lil’ Wayne, Snoop Dogg. I was able to speak with Chris Parker from Yums at MAGIC.

Chris walked us through the history of their brand. It’s only been about three years since they began shipping. They started off primarily as a footwear brand but it has now explanded to New Era 59/50 hats, tee shirts, work shirts, polos and track jackets.

“One of the hooks on the shoe is the custom patented artwork which is on the bottom of the shoe which is created by the Yums designer, his name is Tex.” Chris explains,  “Tex was a member of the most legendary graffiti crew in Dallas, from a section of Dallas called Pleasant Grove. He took his vision and his skills with the graffiti and he put it towards his vision of a shoe.”

All yums shoes are based around flavors. There’s peppermint, cherry cheesecake, blue coconut slush, snow cone. The ladies footwear line is called jellybean and includes radical raspberry, grape goodness, luscious liquorish, and poppin’ pink lemonade.

Their newest materials include shoes featuring fly tops, which match their 59/50 caps and track jackets. “People who rock Yums usually rock it from head to toe,” Chris said. “We’re looking forward to more development, more additions to the collection, to make Yums a more complete brand.”

As I sit her typing this – with a collection of business cards on my left, samples on my right and tons of photos on my computer – I’m not quite sure how to start discussing my week at the MAGIC Marketplace. Mainly because I’m still trying to make sense of it all myself! This being my first year at MAGIC, I didn’t know what to expect. For months prior to boarding my plane to Las Vegas I researched everything I could about MAGIC; Who will be there? How to approach the conference? Where to start? The list went on and on. However, once I stepped foot into the Las Vegas Convention Center and The Mandalay Bay, I realized any amount of planning won’t help you once you see exactly how huge of a show this conference truly is.

I bounced from MAGIC Menswear, Project, Pool Trade Show, S.L.A.T.E., Street, Platform and Premium (sorry WWD). Designers from all walks of style, prestige and genres packed both centers wall to wall with their unique and original designs. From young designers like Flip The Bird, Nappi Clothing, Likuid Nation or Flood Watches to the mega brands like TapouT, Ralph Lauren, Mavi, Billionaire Mafia or Rocawear, my eyes knocked around the room like a pinball. Every designer brought what they had to make sure that “pinball eyes” like mine stayed focused on them. And if you didn’t dig the clothes themselves, you had to appreciate the approach; celebrities, models, cars, trucks, big screens, you name it – each line allowed their true personalities and collections to show off at their booths. But then again, it’s Vegas baby!… Would you expect anything less?

The event at MAGIC didn’t stop at 5PM either – clubs held parties for the MAGIC conference as well once again reminding us that Las Vegas is a city that has no clocks. Whether it was hotspots like Vanity Nightclub or Prive, it seemed that the MAGIC attendees and showcasers refused to let the excitement end just because the conference doors closed. And trust me, you never know what incredible and fascinating people you will run into at 2AM. For us, it worked out great because the vibe at MAGIC was “We are here to connect with people”. Wherever I turned there were crowds of people that seemed to know each other for years and really had just met. It was that moment that realized the fashion world is far more aligned than most people would think, you just have to embrace it. Needless to say MAGIC delivered! It delivered on every level that combining some of the most creative artists in the world could provide. If anyone out there cares to see their careers skyrocket in fashion, MAGIC could very well make that happen. For more information, check out www.MagicOnline.com.

As described by Karmaloop, “Flud Watches was established in 2007 by a few good men who loved the streetwear scene and good business. In an effort to bring the watch back to its rightful place as one of the ultimate accessories, the concept for Flud was born. Our goal is to create unique, fresh watches for the casual and streetwear scene without the pretentiousness or price tag. Fresh style, nice price, its a simple formula. We could get more wordy, but that’s not what we’re about- we’re all about the watches.”

Flud showed us their most recent collection at the show, including a wide range of watches that can appeal to varying tastes. From a heavy, substantial watch “suitable for manly types” to artistic pieces playing off hip hop turntablism, Flud carves a path of uniqueness without breaking the bank. Most of their watches retail in the low hundreds, making these accessible to most buyers.