Filed under: Fashion | Tags: gothninja, jackets, productlust, rick owens, rider's, steez
Ignore the innuendo in the title, it just my poor punability. This post is about rider’s jackets. I’m not typically a fan. They usually come with 1 millions extra zips and studs and pockets and straps and shit. Also, they’re mostly ill fittingly worn by bikies or supertight on skinny faux punk wannabes.
Rick Owens to the rescue I guess, with this super sleek hooded rider, which is probably closer to an asymmetrical hoodie than a pure rider. Not to mention that its made of Melton. Lol.
It appears that I have lived for the past 8 or 9 years without a watch. In fact, the last time I remember strapping one on, it was to time myself when I went jogging a few years ago. So that doesn’t really count. If anything, my peasant status is affirmed by the lack of any wrist adornments.
Still, one can dream. In my fairytale land, there is a watch, with a weather beaten brown leather strap fixed onto a flattish round stainless steel case with not too much on the black face and super thin contrast dials. Classic and clean but not excessively modern. Geez, I must be getting old.
That or the IWC Portuguese Regulateur below.
Even if its not that costly relatively speaking, I’d still have to sell a kidney. (Saw it online for maybe 12k USD…) Short of doing so, one must search for plausible alternatives or even companion pieces.
Like these rather accessible pair of Archimedes. Available direct from Archimede. The Pilot Chrono is on the left with more details and functionality. The very minimal Pilot H comes with a blue tinged dial and zero branding. From 245 Euro.
The one above with the Garamond numerals is designed by Riki Watanabe for Alba and belies its frugality. Watanabe, of course, is noted for being one of the most important designers in Japanese history. via GMT+9. Also check out the other Watanabe watch for Alba with a fatass case. 5250 Yen.
Obviously, something by Arne Jacobsen would work just fine too. This is his City Hall watch. 630 USD. via Lumens.com.
This Max Chrono would defo fit the Bill too, from Junghans. 1100 UK Pounds.
Or perhaps a Nomos Tangomat. From 1680 Euro.
Also, Nuts from Japan and the MoMA store have got great offerings if you’re more inclined to go for quirky and interesting yet inexpensive timepieces.
Some watch forums. Watchuseek.com Poor Man’s Watch Forum
The kitchen is a fertile place for the imagination. Surely a philosophy that Aldo Bakker subscribes to. I’ve just caught some glimpses of a few tableware products he’s designed, all via the NYT. Pictured below is a flat container for olive oil, which you can use to dip your bread with, dragging up the stuff on the vertical surface without needing to get everything soggy.
What’s great about it, is the minimal adorning and the purity of the function. Its simplicity ends up making it just look damn good. You can also check out some other interesting stuff in the website, like a carafe that lays on the side, so dust doesn’t settle on the mouth.
Which also reminded me of all these product ideas that bounce into my head randomly whenever I’m in the kitchen. You can’t leave everything behind I guess. Like a special spoon for laying sauces or particular plates and serving dishes. 99% of porcelain tableware always seems very one dimensional. There’s no height at all. Instead, the food is expected to pile up elegantly. Why not give the food a bit of help, so you could say, suspend a sauce on a transparent, elevated tier.
The role of product/industrial design in the food industry has been long in the making and even the best chefs get input from designers because they provide an outside the box, customer experience sort of thing. If you ate at El Bulli, you’d be able to use some of the things Luki Huber makes. Heston Blumenthal also loves to use these unique pieces that add to the story and magic of a dish. Like a base containing dry ice with bed of fake twigs surrounding a pot above it. Inside, is a scoop of sorbet, which is doused with a flaming dose of whiskey. He also adds a few drops of this essential oil to give a leathery, burning embers, fireside smell to invoke a childhood memory of his.
I think maybe I’m just nostalgic, cos I was probably most happy designing this set of Chinese dishes for a project once. I guess, I wish one day, I’d be able to combine all my favourite loves into one magical situation, thinking at length about all the mystical, philosophical reasons why and how and resolving everything with a cosmic lightbulb going on.
I happened into a Myer downtown today and went to the frag department, whereupon I chanced on Hermes’ Un Jardin Sur Le Nil. Mmm mmm. It starts out bright and citrusy, then falls into a really clean and green phase before settling down into a light woodiness. I really really like this and kept smelling the paper like every 5 minutes. Pity its $130 bucks in Myer for a 50ml bottle.
Which leads me onto my quest to expand my parfum collection. I’ve been obsessed with smelling like a tree for whatever reason, so if UJSLN is the leaves, then I gotta get Commes des Garcon’s Kyoto for the trunk. I scored a sample from Luckyscent a while back and totally miss it now. I must have that dry, smoky, woody, zen calm smell now.
Researching recently, I also came across Morrissey’s fragrance of choice, also from CdG’s incense series, Avignon. Which makes a whole lotta sense since he’s always going on about roman catholic churches and stuff. Also, I’m very intrigued by this new-ish French label, Etat Libre d’Orange, which is apparently available in MeccaCosmetica stores here in Australia. What’s unique is their unabashedly vulgar naming schemes and seemingly outrageous ideas for fragrances. From the relatively mild Jasmin et Cigarette or Rien (nothing) to stuff like Charogne (carcass), Je Suis Un Homme (I am a man), Nombril Immense (giant belly button) and Secretions Magnifique. The latter has notes like adrenaline and blood and it’s actually meant to smell like jism and juice.
Australia and Sydney, in particular, has this massive love affair for Thai food. On the one hand, you’ve got the exotic element of Thai food and Thai culture, with stuff like lemongrass, fish sauce, chillies and kaffir limes forming the backbone of the classic Thai flavor profile. That plus sugar. Sour, salty, spicy and mind numbingly sweet. This contrast and range of flavor leads to well balanced dishes in general but the sweet element is what makes Thai food Thai for me. Other Asian cultures might use lemongrass, fish sauce etc etc but they don’t use quite the same amount of sugar.
The sugar also has a tendency to dull the flames, making the food more approachable for caucasian palates. In contrast, I could proffer some Szechuan food and its well, mind numbingly spicy to the point where it gets hard to taste the food. The sweetness of Thai food, combined with fresh produce and clean, bright flavors, makes it an excellent choice for the summer. That said, I just had some last night at Spice I Am in Surry Hills and it was pretty packed, with starving people staring at my plate.
Exotic flavor + fresh produce. A simple combination. Thinking about it, also points me towards Japanese food. Yet, I hate the stuff in general, locally that is. Japanese food in Sydney, quite simply, is terribad. If you went into the dingiest joints in Japan, you’d get well better. You’d probably get better Japanese in Singapore. The problem is 2-fold. One is ingredient. Australia’s a long way from Japan and they’re not really big on importing stuff anyway. So getting in top quality product costs a lot of money and the market just isn’t big enough. The other problem is bastardization. Too much mayonnaise and salmon appearing everywhere in every sushi restaurant. Japanese restaurants still run ok because the exotic element overpowers everything else. That plus the haute cuisine status that Japanese food enjoys wherever it goes.
Thai food though, ticks all the right boxes for me. Much of the produce isn’t even imported anymore. If you go down to Pontip in Haymarket, conveniently located next to Chat Thai, you’d be able to see the wonderful, fresh, Thai produce that is used in the successful restaurants in the city. They supply them all because a lot of it is grown locally, or in Australia itself at least. They also don’t bastardize. They might pander to local ideals of cleanliness and no double dipping (they always have a serving spoon for every dish) or have a lot of overtly exotic/modern style type decor but they never compromise on the flavor. They don’t hold back on the chillies. Or the sugar for that matter.
If you ate at the best Thai restaurants in Sydney, you would be able to bring that experience with you to Bangkok and not be afraid to know what else to order besides a pad thai. Which, by the way, is probably one the more dangerous things to order in Thailand, given the raw bean sprouts and listeria, much like pho in Vietnam. Get those stinky white things blanched.
My top 3 Thai joints in Sydney. Gleaned from my limited experience but I believe they really are top notch.
#3. Thai Pothong in Newtown. This joint also comes with a really tacky gift shop right inside. The prices are hideous and the clientele mostly farangs. Still, it must be said that the food was good. I found the flavors weren’t really toned down and their jasmine rice was mind blowingly perfect. Probably the best rice I’ve had in ages. I don’t know how often they can replicate that but it was something strangely ubiquitous that caught my tongue.
#2. Spice I Am in Surry Hills. I finally dined here properly last night with 2 friends and the food was great. Really clean and bright but also perfectly balanced. Service was great for the amount you pay. I don’t expect fine dining standards at shock bottom prices. We BOO’ed and got nice wine glasses, they kept asking us if we wanted more rice and cleared our plates when we were done. It’s really cramped though, which puts it at a disadvantage. Note: They also have a new place in Darlinghurst, which is more upmarket.
#1. Chat Thai in Haymarket. Right next to Pontip, the temple for Thai food, you just know they won’t have supply problems. It’s like a slice of the Bangkok street just fell into a corner of Sydney. With the lovely attention to presentation, both for the food and the staff/site, your eyes tell you it tastes better. The grill out at the front together with the desserts section also adds so much to the color and smells, you are hooked the moment you cast a glance at the window. They even open late and I swear the hottest Thai babes are here every single night. I also love hitting the shop in Manly after work and they got some branches around town.
How divine would it be to be able to dine on prized delicacies from another era? Tudor style Frog Blancmange? Alice in Wonderland inspired 5 flavor drinks? Medieval style Bull’s testes? Absolutely mar-vellous darling.
At least that’s what celebs on Heston Blumenthal’s latest telly show on UK’s Channel 4, Heston’s Feasts would have had. Beyond the outrageous unfood-food that he puts on the menu, is his very logical and methodical approach. The feast is a reimagining of what people would have eaten way back in the day during Tudor/Roman/Medieval/Victorian times. His research is based on facts, actually reading through dusty old tomes and then reconstructing the dishes in his own way. Some of the dishes, like the 5 flavored drink, are completely original but he brings this magical, fairytale esque idea into the mix. Combined with his mad scientist presentation, it all falls into place. This guy’s mind is brill.
Just so you know, real bulls (probably post mortem but I’m no expert) had their testes cut off, which were then cooked sousvide before sliced open and restuffed and made to look like a plum. A bull’s plum pretending to be a plum is a plum tart in my book.
*Disclaimer* Not for the squeamish or males. Highly recommended if your idol is Lorena Bobbitt.
For F/W 09/10, Jun Takahashi answers the age old question, “What did the Machu Picchu Incans wear when they appeared as extras in Return Of The Jedi?”.
I don’t normally listen to the radio or even watch the telly. One day I rented a car to move house. 30 bucks a day got me a chance to drive a Yaris and not have to suffer a cabbie. The car just happened to be tuned into this station, which I’d never heard of before.
They played all kinds of good shit even if the DJs sounded like they was high or sum’in. Although, that’s a good thing mind. It’s FBi 94.5FM by the by. They’re also trying to get Richard Branson to give them $1000000 dollars. If you help them, you get $50000.
Which reminds me that I am currently in the process of securing $1000000000 dollars for charitable works. I harvest Nigerian diamonds and its a sorta multi-level sorta thing, only more princely. Did I mention that I got my honorary degree in money from Bernard L. Madoff’s Fynanshull Yookneeversssity? If you want to get behind da cause, pls send monies in various denominations to my paypal. notreallycharitable@all.com
I liking gurl singers right now. Not sewing machines mind. Blonde Redhead, Asobi Seksu, Bat For Lashes, Camera Obscura, Fever Ray, Ladyhawke, Metric, YYY’s… heck, even Royksopp put out an album fulla chicks putting hot air in a mic.
We shud celebrate this with some videos!
Poor Natasha Khan gets molested by people wearing black boobie shaped balloons on their heads in what looks like Maarten Baas’ studio. At least this time she dumps the bike and gets to drive. This indie chick is clearly moving up the social ladder. This track is actually dedicated to The Karate Kid. I kid you not.
Next up is Kazu Makino’s ode to the 23 enigma set to some dreamy swarthescapes. The Redhead have a new LP coming out soonish.
Now we have Tracyanne Campbell going on about some fella from the French Navy. Its got like 2 chords and the verse and the chorus is like the same but its hella breezy.
Karin Dreijer Andersson scares me when she sings but her amazing “hipster shaman chick who ran through a forest in the fall and got attacked by wolves” look really enamours. I also would like to state my disappointment after waiting 4 minutes to find that she doesn’t get into the pool in that vid.
Welcome back 1980s. I missed you. Phillipa Brown talks about Paris burning as she vamps along looking slightly awkward in a Snoopy tee as she gets variously assaulted by feathers, a drunk, sparks and silver flaky stuff. There’s also a wolf! Probably the one that got Karin from before.
Here’s another Japanese babe in a band. Yuki Chikudate alternating between her mother tongue and mine. Um. I meant English.
I tink Sydneyside needs moar gurls lyk deez.
