Old Skool: Revival of Nike's Dunk

NikeBeTrue.com features a roster of the 2008 Dunks, which feature Japanese manga designs. Mangazine, a collaboration between Nike and a select group of manga artists, features  Japanese comics.

Apart from this, Nike stores are gearing up for the Be True campaign. In Hong Kong, the three-week exhibition at Exit by Double Park features Japanese artworks and the latest releases of Dunks. Last week, LA Dunk was launched with many pairs of Dunk hung on a wire at 144 LAB in Los Angeles. Los Angeles, New York, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, will see 86 pairs of their colourful, city-specific shoes released. All feature a rich black leather upper and gum bottom, but each city gets its own unique accent colour that makes its way through the laces and the edge of the leather.

Visit NikeBetTrue.com or Nike outlets in Bangkok for details.

American nylons

Once seen as a miracle fibre, nylon was intended to be a synthetic replacement for silk. In its first year on the market, 1938, DuPont sold 64 million pairs of stockings. It was used in military applications such as parachutes, flak vests, and many types of vehicle tires. Famously, nylon stockings were also the favourite gift that American soldiers gave to British women.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of nylon stockings, American Apparel is offering 10 styles and 34 colours from over-the-knee to pantyhose and from opaque footless to shiny stirrup tights. Also, American Apparel has teamed up with the LA Contemporary Dance Company for a video shoot that puts the colourful legwear on display.

The video can be found by searching for "American Apparel" on YouTube.com.

Reused innovations

The concept of recycling and reusing is not new, but the different ways things we produce are reused is always fascinating. The DIY Flowerchair by German artist Mareike Gast is a simple but smart solution of how to recycle and reuse old newspapers.

Easy, fast and cheap well describes the characteristics of this flower chair made of folded magazines or piled-up papers. A graduate of the Netherlands-based Design Academy Eindhoven, Gast guides people to make objects by their own design, as it increases the personal value of those objects. Each piece of the chair's structure is dipped in coloured lacquer, which also serves to strengthen the structure. It might not be as comfortable as your old sofa, but does reduce those piles of papers around your home.

More ecofriendly and innovative designs can be found at MareikeGast.de.

Vertical Limit

With its innovative cellphone already a hot issue for luxury gadget fans, Porsche Design Studio shows it can travel the high-speed road from avant-garde technology to a more sophisticated lifestyle with its standalone Champagne rack called "Vertical Limit".

Handcrafted from brushed stainless steel, the reason for its stunning sticker price of US$70,000 (Bt2.2 million) each is that the each rack is filled with with 12 select bottles of Veuve Clicquot vintage Champagne.

The rack is a cooler, to keep the pricey bottles at 12 degrees, which is the exact temperature of Veuve Clicquot cellars at Reims, and the most appropriate for tasting.

Each shelf is individually lighted. When opening the door, the bottle behind it is presented on a Veuve Clicquot-yellow illuminated background. The labels on the champagne bottles were also designed by the Porsche Design Studio and repeat the succinct, graphic lines of the shelf unit.