MVP of the week — Featuring Pop Trading Company x Adidas and Converse
First up, we’re heading to the world of streetwear, where Amsterdam-based skate brand Pop Trading Company has just announced a collab with Adidas. Despite being founded just ten years ago, Pop has an impressive roster when it comes to collaborative collections: from Burberry to Miffy, they’re no stranger to bringing the unique stylings of two brands together as one. Their latest collab with Adidas, however, might just be their most fleshed out and rich. Inspired by a short film that Pop produced with director Fabio de Frel a few years back, the collection is based around the ‘Pop Training Company’, a fictitious organization that’s essentially a boarding school for skateboarders. What does the collab have to do with this? It’s what Pop and Adidas envisage as the uniform for the students at the training camp. The collab takes its source of inspiration seriously, and the result is a collection that’s suitably stripped back: just Adidas staples with fun, characteristically Pop details. There’s, amongst other bits, a clean tracksuit and Pop’s take on both the TRX Runners and the Superstars. And all of it has Adidas’ iconic three stripes.
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Converse emerged way back in 1922 and are considered to be something of a household name in the footwear world. But this week the heritage brand announced that their iconic Chuck Taylor All Star was about to get redesigned by some of the biggest women creatives. The full roster includes French designer Isabel Marant, Chinese-born, London-based menswear designer Feng Chen Wang, and Brooklyn-based jewellery and accessories designer, Martine Ali. Though only Ali’s take on the classic trainer has been released so far, it’s certainly a strong start: she’s taken the Chuck 70 De Luxe Wedge – Converse’s uber 00s, controversial heeled trainer – and transformed it a sleek and stylish ode to hip-hop culture. It features an all-black colour-way, signature metallic finishes and contrast stitching on the collar. We reckon it’s only a matter of days (or hours) before it gets worked into the fits of the most stylish ‘it’ girls.
When it comes to what you should be feasting your eyes on this weekend, it’s the ’33 ⅓ Vinyl Exhibition’, which is opening its doors to the public at The Vinyl Cafe in Tileyard. The exhibition has been curated by Key Production Group, some of the leading people in vinyl pressing, design and packaging. With this exhibition, the clue’s in the name: it’s 33 legendary albums from 1990, 33 and a third years after they were first released. More recently, Key Production Group has been behind the physical releases of the artists defining the here and now – Little Simz and the Mercury Prize winning Ezra Collective, to name just a few – and the exhibition is a celebration of that too.
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Last but certainly not least? Soho, every Londoner’s fave shopping location, just got a revamp. While it’s more than likely that you were already planning on popping into central this festive period, it’s essentially just turned into even more of a pleasure to do so. As well as the other independent and concept fashion stores that call the West End their home, there’s now Glassworks, the independent fashion brand that’s all about creating less waste, A Day’s March, the Swedish label debuting both mens and womenswear across three storeys of a listed townhouse, and Wear London, the menswear brand marking their third London location with their store on Berwick Street. There’s also mens jewellers TWOJEYS and a new MALIN+GOETZ store for everyone that’s planning to gift all their friends and family a mini version of one of their products. In terms of food, there’s Bébé Bob, the latest restaurant from the team at Bob Bob Ricard that’s offering up, amongst a lot of other tasty things, caviar… Sold.
