LADIES FRESH KICKS:

adidas Originals recently debuted its new, eye-catching mesh silhouette, the adidas Deerupt, and now it is back in a new iteration. The slick runner sports a low-top silhouette, similar to those seen on the popular NMD_R1 and Tennis Hu sneakers, as well as a sock-like upper. The entire shoe is covered in a mesh net overlay, including the midsole. The new adidas Consortium colorway arrives in a white and grey-striped colorway, giving the textured sneaker a 3D-like illusion. Finished off with white built-in laces as well as a branded Trefoil patch on the heel, the silhouette is futuristic and eye-catching all at once.

We’ve previously seen the new sneaker in five colorways, ranging from a bold red and blue to a spring-ready pastel pink, and the shoe is on the road to becoming one of the biggest silhouettes right now. The adidas Consortium Deerupt will hit retailers like INVINCIBLE on April 7.

It’s no secret that Nike is gearing up for a massive women’s push this year. Along with the newly unveiled “The 1 Reimagined” pack in new spring colorways, and the women’s exclusive Unlaced online platform, Swoosh is definitely proving to the world that the force is female. Coinciding with this new mandate, Jumpman has just unveiled a new Air Jordan 11 Low in “Metallic Red Bronze,” made just for the ladies.

For Summer 2018, Jordan Brand will be introducing a slew of new silhouettes that are designed to fuse together both comfort and luxury. Using an array of natural colors and materials, the new reworks will completely reinterpret conceptions of how a sneaker can be worn. Joining these releases is a shimmering Air Jordan 11 Low. Constructed with a dusky pink upper, a gleaming metallic section runs along the area immediately above the crisp white midsole. Rounding off the look is a semi-translucent Gum Brown outsole that perfect ties together the aesthetic.

The Air Jordan 11 Low “Metallic Red Bronze” is slated to drop at select retailers on April 13.

Kanye West has started to tease YEEZY Season 6 footwear and it’s already shaping up to reach winter grail status. Last week the “Taupe” and “Graphite Suede” colorways of the chunky Desert Rat Boot was revealed by industry insiders Yeezy Mafia.

Now the thick soled-shoe arrives in “Blue Steel” and “Forest” green. Each suede upper is completely covered in the rich colors with complementary tones on the midsole. Mesh is patched throughout the lateral and also seen on the tongue. A thin 3M stripe runs through its center right below the tonal cord-cut laces. The muted colorway and ankle cut raises this boot to the top of our wish list.

Reportedly the silhouette will retail for $225 USD and be stocked in the fall. Take a closer look above and be sure to share this news with any YEEZY enthusiasts in your life.

As one of the most praise-worthy releases of the year, Nike‘s “The 1 Reimagined” pack broke down barriers in the realm of women’s sneakers. Completely reworking the Air Force 1 and Air Jordan 1 silhouettes, the launch introduced 10 all-new silhouettes designed by women, for women. Among them was perhaps one of the pack’s most talked-about models: the “JESTER XX.”

Known for its whimsical design, the shoe highlights quirky details throughout. On the side panel, a perforated Swoosh logo replaces the typical emblem that appears along the profile. Complementing the new accent is another leather Swoosh that is placed slightly below the dotted one, overlapping the midsole. Off-kilter Nike Air patches are also seen on the heel, their bizarre positioning underscored further by color-matching tags jutting out from their sides. As with the original release in the pack, the upper is constructed with textured leather. Of course, the most eye-catching aspect of the sneaker is the fact that the entire shoe is monochromatic, down to the bottom of the outsole, completely dipped in a beautiful shade of pastel purple.

Although details are still sparse regarding a release date for the Nike Air Force 1 Low “JESTER XX” in “Violet Mist,” stay tuned here as we find out more. The shoe is slated to retail for $130 USD.

SPORTSWEAR: Chloe x Halle and Salem Mitchell Are the Faces of Nike's High-Vis Pack Campaign

Just in time for festival season, Nike drops its vibrant and colorful High-Vis Pack. The collection features bold graphics and silhouettes updated with a hint of modern style. Footwear designs include the Air Max 270 and the Air More Uptempo. Seen modeling in the campaign are singers and actresses Chloe x Halle, alongside models, Salem Mitchell and Bella Harris. The release is a part of Nike Air Society, an initiative the brand launched last year to empower and uplift women through curated experiences.

In the campaign above, the Air Max 270 is seen in different hues – “Desert Sand/Volt” features highlighter pink and yellow detailing while the Air More Uptempo appears in “Black/Volt” accented by “Total Orange” and “Hot Punch.” The ’90s-inspired kicks have a foam midsole with visible Air Max cushioning made for lightweight support.

Apparel standouts look to the Windrunner pants in “Black,” the Indy Light sports bra in “White/Black” and a mesh dress in “Black/Light Bone.” Each of these pieces includes Swoosh branding; the pants are emblazoned with the brand’s logo across the front, while the bra has a mini logo on the front. Lastly, the dress has a rib crew neck that spells out “NIKE” on the chest.

In an exclusive interview, Chloe x Halle opened up about their thoughts on creativity with Halle sharing:

“What ignites my creativity is definitely situations that I go through in life! I’m almost an adult and these feelings of almost being a woman have been bubbling inside for a while, and also watching people fuels my creativity even more.”

Chloe shared advice for the future generation of creatives:

“Find what makes you different and use that! we are all special beings and it’s important to bring something new and fresh into the world. Don’t be afraid to use your honest voice.”

Head to Nike.com to purchase the High-Vis Pack now. The pack also includes an Air Max Plus and Air Max Sequent 3. Select pieces will also be available at the Revolve Social Club located in Los Angeles, California starting on April 6 through the 8th.

Revolve Social Club
8070 Melrose Ave., LA
11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

ART: Our Future is Now :: The Illustrations of Mad Dog Jones By Mike Steyels (THE HUNDREDS)

We’ve stared into the glow of the future for generations. In movies, art, and music, visions of what may come have been fed to us since childhood, before we could even comprehend the notion of time. A lot of those concepts have come true, whether it be a double-life lived in the virtual matrix, big brother constantly peering over our shoulder, or machines that learn on their own. These ideas were accepted long before they came to be a part of everyday life.

The cyberpunk concept of inequality, where grime lives up close and personal with the technology of the gods, is increasingly the way of the world. Ubiquitous and blinding LEDs cast stark shadows on the squalor around them; greasy ATMs that threaten to scam your card glow on every street corner; and new chemical drugs bought online can be copped at the deli. It’s not just a theme of struggle with inequality and crime, but with the power of technology itself and the danger that lurks so closely beneath its promise. Oppressive governments monitor their citizens with unrivaled access and hacked corporate data on entire populations is sold on the black market. As an artist, reproducing these things isn’t simply self-referential of a genre, it’s a reflection of reality.

Enter Mad Dog Jones, Instagram artist extraordinaire. His work is part collage, part illustration, and 100 percent designed for social media. The Toronto-based artist creates vivid imagery with bright colors and fine linework, combining hectic environments with serene portraiture. Akira bikes and Gundam bots are paired with Asian cityscapes and signage, then overlaid with characters pulled straight from the app store. There’s also a heavy focus on clothing brands and style. His work could be described as illustrated sci-fi fashion editorials.

There’s a fluency in the existing visual language, a battle with the pull to unplug, and the cultivation of walled internet gardens to grow a following. While it all goes unspoken and is only communicated through the work itself, it’s intentional. “This style was developed specifically for Instagram,” Mad Dog, also known as Michah Dowbak, says over Skype from a snowy northern Ontario. “There’s no way I could be reaching this level of [a following] while simultaneously doing my other stuff. I prefer Instagram, because words can hurt someone a lot more than images.”

But the pressures of constantly being plugged in takes its toll. He’s turned off his notifications to make space for himself, and the characters with wires hanging out of them are a comment on the tethers that bind us to this virtual second life. “A lot of my art is about the human connection with the digital world and it being overwhelming and destructive. But you can’t look at technology as good or bad. There’s so much of both, it’s hard to judge on a macro scale.”

He finds his balance through creation. Constant scrolling with no output is unhealthy, and he encourages everyone to add their own voice to the feed. Just don’t do it for the fame and try not to compare yourself to others. Do it for the fun of it. “Even if you don’t get a ton of followers, being creative will make you feel so much better,” Dowbak urges. “Theodore Roosevelt said something like, ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’ Just do your thing and you’ll find happiness.” As we dedicate an increasing amount of time on social media—despite studies showing how bad it can be for your mental health—this may actually be good advice.

A collaboration with photographer @MontyKaplan.

His means of creating also hint at liberation in the near future. While we were once limited to connecting through an immobile box in our homes or libraries, we now have devices that can be taken everywhere. It’s not a choice between the IRL world and the internet, the two are becoming one, and this will continue to blur. When Dowbak draws, he uses a tablet. Wherever he is, he can get to work.

On an iPad pro with the Pro Create program and an Apple pen, he combs through piles of collected images, creating collages that he then strips down and rebuilds. Outlines are redrawn, colors are replaced, and it’s all thrown back together as a new whole. Even though he repurposes these elements into fresh creations, he still credits the photographers and models where he can.

As a white guy from Canada, his fascination with Asian motifs may raise some questions. The Japanese characters prominent throughout most of his work is, in fact, due to the “otherness” of the lettering. Their unintelligibility adds a layer of satisfaction for him and his like-minded followers. But it could also be interpreted aesthetically as a continuation of the cyberpunk theme in the tradition of Blade Runner and an honest appreciation for the form of lettering.

“Any type of dystopian future always has that Asian-centric world. I also like that I can’t read the characters, it’s not about the words,” he admits. “Russian letters look cool, but Japanese letters look cooler.”

Despite the complexities of being a digital interloper, Dowbak has created an irresistible world that hangs in the balance of the present and the future. In many ways it’s a fantasy, the creation of a world that’s unattainable, but increasingly becoming a representation of our truths. Urban creep, globalization, pervasive technology, and the blurring of digital and physical spaces are all here already. Who’s to say that our present isn’t the future?

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Follow Mad Dog Jones on Instagram @mad.dog.jones.

ART: The Art of Fighting :: An Interview with Artist & Illustrator Gian Galang By Mike Steyels (THE HUNDREDS)

Detail of “200 TRIPTYCH,” 2016. Acrylic, Digital 18×24″.

With aggressive brushstrokes, hardened textures like weathered rock, and stark monotone colors, Gian Galang has developed the perfect style to portray a world of violence and physicality. From ultimate fighting and boxing, to comic book characters and basketball, Galang’s focus is the human form and what the body can do. His stripped-down colors and bare line work allow for a raw expression, honing in on anatomy and movement with dynamic surfaces. The style is a balance between illustration and fine art, one that’s as much about personal expression as it is about instant appeal.

Work in progress detail and final of “IRON MIKE,” 2016. Acrylic, Digital 16×26″.

Galang came from the world of advertising, where getting a message across clearly without any messy pretense is the goal, and that direct sensibility shows. Through boutique advertising agencies, he found space to be creative and paint occasionally, but he didn’t find it fulfilling enough. So in his spare time, he continued working on personal projects that allowed him to find himself artistically.

As a lifelong practitioner of martial arts, he decided a few years ago to do a series focusing on the UFC championships. This first series was in full color with a Street Fighter motif, with the style hewing closely along the lines of his passion for video game and comic book art. And it proved popular with viewers, plugging him into an active audience, where his work grew popular on Reddit.

“SPIDER,” 2016.”Acrylic, Digital, 18×30″. Read the feature article on Vice Fightland.

Soon VICE’s Fightland wrote a piece about the series and asked him to do illustrations for the site, an ongoing gig that would prove essential to his development. “I really discovered this style with Fightland, where I was doing a lot more experimental stuff,” he says over Skype from his home in Brooklyn. “It was a locked in subject matter that I already knew about. I would experiment with different styles and my deadlines kept me working quickly and not thinking too much. Who’s fighting next? I’ll paint them.”

“NATURAL BORN KILLER, 2015. Acrylic, Digital 16×20”. For Fightland’s Carlos Condit feature.

“SUPER SAMOAN,” 2016. Acrylic, Digital, 20×24″. For Vice Fightland.

“I got to a place where I could be very expressive, especially when the subject matter is action or violence, which loans itself to my gritty style. With monotone, I can really focus on movement and texture without being bogged down by subtle tones and blending. The more color and dimension I add, the more it just looks like a regular painting.”

While he’s found momentum with his current style, which is quite distinct and easily identifiable—somewhere between Frank Miller and WK Interact—Galang is working on unreleased pieces that experiment with more color but continue a close dialogue with the graphic inspirations that his current work is rooted in. And he hopes to eventually do some cover runs for comic books.

Gian Galang in front of a mural he painted for New York City’s Five Points Academy.

Galang’s process is to use black and white acrylic on paper that’s about 2 x 3 feet, painting each body separately and then combining them in photoshop, where he adds color and cleans the paintings up. “I discovered a lot of tools when I got hired to do murals,” he explains. “One of my biggest concerns was how to get the texture on that big scale. I found different, bigger rollers; experimented with ripped up cleaning sponges; putting knives, which give you uncertain textures; even crumpled aluminum foil, which I dip in paint and dab onto the piece. I use that on paper now, too.”

“CROSSOVER,” 2018. Artwork for the Reebok/Allen Iverson Answer IV Royal Purple release.

“Zatoichi Bootleg Poster,” 2017. Acrylic, Digital 12×31″. Prints here.

Galang credits a lot of his inspiration to painter George Pratt, a teacher of his from Virginia Commonwealth University where he studied illustration and graphic design. “[George is] always exploring new techniques and trying new mediums, stressing the need to be fresh.” Galang grew up in Virginia, where he moved when he was ten. Before that, he lived in Hong Kong where his mother worked after leaving the Philippines. He moved to New York about 10 years ago to work in the ad world, soon joining the prestigious Wieden + Kennedy 12 in its fifth year and working at award-winning agency Anomaly NYC.

Through a combination of selling prints, doing commercial work for brands like Nike and Everlast (where he dropped a new line of limited edition gloves this week), editorial projects, and commissioned paintings, he was able to break out onto his own as an artist over a year ago. “I had always done painting and drawing on the side until I finally had enough projects (and confidence) to go all in,” he told Dojo Drifter in an interview last year.

But Galang says he owes a lot to the last ad firm he worked at, The Brooklyn Brothers. In fact, his studio is still in their office. “I’m just in the back room of the firm like a ghost. I just float around, use the scanner,” he laughs. “They’ve been really supportive of me, it definitely helped fill the gap where I would have been a starving artist.”

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Follow Gian at giangalang.com and on Instagram @giangalang. Shop his limited edition collaboration with Everlast here.