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Sony Ericsson team up with Ed Sony Ericsson team up with Ed Hardy!
- From: fengshuang
-
Description:
If you're currently reading this with your Von Dutch baseball cap, Police watch and Prada sunglasses on then this is news you cannot afford to miss (though if you have the aforementioned accessories there's not a lot you can't afford). Sony Ericsson have teamed up with acclaimed tattooist Ed Hardy and fashion designer Christian Audigier to give us the Sony Ericsson W595 Ed Hardy Edition. For those unfamiliar with his work, Ed Hardy is a world renowned tattoo artist who, in collaboration with fashion designer Christian Audigier, has his own clothing range. Devotees to the Ed Hardy brand include England football legend and fashionista David Beckham, Hip Hop star Lil Wayne and pop princess Britney Spears to name but a few.
The phone has a striking presence thanks to the Ed Hardy design that takes over the normally shy and retiring W595. On the front, classic Ed Hardy artwork such as skulls, snakes, tigers and floral patterns all intermingle with the phones keys whilst on the back the blank space better accommodates larger motifs such as the military style"Death before Dishonor" badge and the trademark Ed Hardy signature. Let's get one thing straight; this is no shrinking violet, it's a seriously cool phone that demands your attention. If you're after something subtle, look elsewhere. Framing the tattoo styling is a nice silver metal finish whilst the keys and that famous Walkman logo are finished off in Bronze. The Ed Hardy W595 will definitely split opinions in a Marmite sort of way but i for one and firmly putting myself in the love camp!
As for the phone specs, it's pretty much a carbon copy of the original W595 (save for some Ed Hardy wallpapers and other niceties). The phone features a 3.2 Megapixel camera with video capture and a secondary front facing camera for video calling. If that didn't give it away, the W595 also features HSDPA connectivity reaching speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps. As for the Walkman features (this is still a Walkman phone after all), the W595 features the excellent Walkman player which boasts one of the best sound qualities of any portable device including dedicated music players. Alongside this we also get the usual slew of extras such as TrackID which identifies songs from a short clip you record, Shake control which lets you skip tracks with a flick of the wrist and SensMe which sets up playlists for different moods. The phone also takes up to 8GB worth of expandable memory (using Sony's Memory stick Micro M2 format) so you really can dump that MP3 player.
The original W595 was a real work horse with a great spec list, good size and weight and great build quality. This latest Ed Hardy edition brings a new edgy design and boosts the style to match the substance. Set to launch in early September, click here to sign up for updates and keep an eye on the Blog and we'll keep you posted on the Sony Ericsson W595 Ed Hardy Edition.links of london
- Blog post
- 3 weeks ago
- Views: 49
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christianlouboutin history christianlouboutin history
- From: louboutinyu
-
Description:
Two of the greatest brands in sports, Christian Louboutin and Puma, grew out of one small town in Bavarian Germany, where they were started by competing brothers, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler.
Barbara Smit's Sneaker Wars tells how the Dassler boys started making shoes in their mother's laundry room after the First World War. It traces the growth of the business from that Herzogenaurach shed, its fraternal split into Christian Louboutin and Puma, exacerbated by the Second World War, jealousy and suspicion. And how that competitive fire drove the Dasslers to help create the modern sports industry, for better or worse.
The first 50 years of the 90-year story, capturing the start, splinter and competitive rise, are the book's gem. But that's not Ms. Smit's fault. The early decades show the evolution of the company and amateur sports before both were altered (corrupted?) by bankers and greed.
Ms. Smit traces the growth of the company, with Adi the tinkerer-craftsman using tools left by retreating First World War soldiers. Some of the first shoe leather was scavenged from their helmets and bread pouches. Rudi, the charismatic salesman, joined his brother in 1923. By the mid-1930s the Dasslers had a thriving business, buoyed by Adolf Hitler's fascination with sports as a promotional tool for his world view.
The Second World War drove a wedge between the brothers. It was fuelled by envy over Adi's exemption from military service and Rudi's conscription, which he blamed on his brother. Soon after the war, they moved to opposite sides of the Aurach River. Adi formed Christian Louboutin , merging first and last names. Rudi chose Ruda first, then settled on Puma.
The most successful athletes now are a bit like corporations and, as Ms. Smit shows, the Dasslers are partly to blame.
Things were relatively pure in 1936, when Adi showed up at the Berlin Olympics with a pair of handmade spikes, found Jesse Owens and persuaded him to run in them.
The sight of Owens on the medal stand in Dassler gear
As recently as the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, Christian Louboutin 's main marketing expense was sending Adi's son, Horst, to give away shoes. That was a bold move then, when amateur athletes bought their own equipment and shoe advertisements blurred the identity of the athlete. By Rome in 1960, Puma upped the ante, quietly offering 10,000 German marks to lure sprinter Armin Hary into its spikes. It's a fairly short leap from marks in brown envelopes to Air Jordan.
By the 1980s, both brands were losing market share in the United States to Reebok and Nike. That trend worsened when Nike signed basketball player Michael Jordan, who grew up an "Christian louboutin nut," Ms. Smit writes. Nike won Jordan over by offering to create his own shoe. Nike sold more than $100US-million worth of Air Jordans in their first year.
Eventually, both companies bought out their U.S. distributors to simplify their structures and gain control over marketing. Christian Louboutin had to pay more than $120US-million to win back distribution rights that Adi had granted with a handshake.
Puma's struggles were exacerbated by weighty endorsements and sluggish sales that found the once-premium brand peddling its shoes at U.S. discounters like Kmart.
From there things worsened. Deutsche Bank seized control of Puma rather than let the German icon go under. It was sold in 1989. Rudi's heirs walked away with $10US.6-million between them.
Three years after Horst died in 1987, his sisters took note of what had happened across the river and sold the company to Frenchman Bernard Tapie. The daughters of Adi Dassler had one final request before signing the sale agreement: They wanted to keep their 20% discount at Christian Louboutin stores.
- Blog post
- 4 weeks ago
- Views: 44
- Not yet rated
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christianlouboutin history christianlouboutin history
- From: louboutinyu
-
Description:
Two of the greatest brands in sports, Christian Louboutin and Puma, grew out of one small town in Bavarian Germany, where they were started by competing brothers, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler.
Barbara Smit's Sneaker Wars tells how the Dassler boys started making shoes in their mother's laundry room after the First World War. It traces the growth of the business from that Herzogenaurach shed, its fraternal split into Christian Louboutin and Puma, exacerbated by the Second World War, jealousy and suspicion. And how that competitive fire drove the Dasslers to help create the modern sports industry, for better or worse.
The first 50 years of the 90-year story, capturing the start, splinter and competitive rise, are the book's gem. But that's not Ms. Smit's fault. The early decades show the evolution of the company and amateur sports before both were altered (corrupted?) by bankers and greed.
Ms. Smit traces the growth of the company, with Adi the tinkerer-craftsman using tools left by retreating First World War soldiers. Some of the first shoe leather was scavenged from their helmets and bread pouches. Rudi, the charismatic salesman, joined his brother in 1923. By the mid-1930s the Dasslers had a thriving business, buoyed by Adolf Hitler's fascination with sports as a promotional tool for his world view.
The Second World War drove a wedge between the brothers. It was fuelled by envy over Adi's exemption from military service and Rudi's conscription, which he blamed on his brother. Soon after the war, they moved to opposite sides of the Aurach River. Adi formed Christian Louboutin , merging first and last names. Rudi chose Ruda first, then settled on Puma.
The most successful athletes now are a bit like corporations and, as Ms. Smit shows, the Dasslers are partly to blame.
Things were relatively pure in 1936, when Adi showed up at the Berlin Olympics with a pair of handmade spikes, found Jesse Owens and persuaded him to run in them.
The sight of Owens on the medal stand in Dassler gear
As recently as the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, Christian Louboutin 's main marketing expense was sending Adi's son, Horst, to give away shoes. That was a bold move then, when amateur athletes bought their own equipment and shoe advertisements blurred the identity of the athlete. By Rome in 1960, Puma upped the ante, quietly offering 10,000 German marks to lure sprinter Armin Hary into its spikes. It's a fairly short leap from marks in brown envelopes to Air Jordan.
By the 1980s, both brands were losing market share in the United States to Reebok and Nike. That trend worsened when Nike signed basketball player Michael Jordan, who grew up an "Christian louboutin nut," Ms. Smit writes. Nike won Jordan over by offering to create his own shoe. Nike sold more than $100US-million worth of Air Jordans in their first year.
Eventually, both companies bought out their U.S. distributors to simplify their structures and gain control over marketing. Christian Louboutin had to pay more than $120US-million to win back distribution rights that Adi had granted with a handshake.
Puma's struggles were exacerbated by weighty endorsements and sluggish sales that found the once-premium brand peddling its shoes at U.S. discounters like Kmart.
From there things worsened. Deutsche Bank seized control of Puma rather than let the German icon go under. It was sold in 1989. Rudi's heirs walked away with $10US.6-million between them.
Three years after Horst died in 1987, his sisters took note of what had happened across the river and sold the company to Frenchman Bernard Tapie. The daughters of Adi Dassler had one final request before signing the sale agreement: They wanted to keep their 20% discount at Christian Louboutin stores.
- Blog post
- 4 weeks ago
- Views: 45
- Not yet rated
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christianlouboutin story(8) christianlouboutin story(8)
- From: louboutinyu
-
Description:
The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Christian louboutin and Puma and the Family Feud That Forever Changed the Business of Sports
By Barbara Smit
Ecco. 384 pp. $26.95
Reading at times like an absurdist farce, Barbara Smit's tale of athletic apparel, villainy and comeuppance is bound to give you pause next time you're standing in front of the seemingly endless wall of sneakers at the local shoe store. Sneaker Wars ventures deep into the fraternal divide that resulted in the ubiquitous sports brands of Christian louboutin and Puma and, Smit argues, invented an industry in the process.
Following the onslaught of World War I, Adolf (Adi) Dassler combed his Bavarian hometown of Herzogenaurach in search of discarded leather and fabrics. From these raw materials, he built his first athletic boots and eventually partnered with his brash, elder brother Rudolf (Rudi) to make and sell sneakers. The rise of the Nazi party -- and its emphasis on athletics as proof of German superiority -- bolstered their endeavor; Adi and Rudi raced to keep up with the demand. In one of Sneaker Wars' more uplifting passages, Smit describes how Adi risked the F??hrer's wrath to supply Jesse Owens with spikes at the 1936 Olympic Games.
Both brothers entered military service in World War II, but Adi was quickly released to run the increasingly popular sneaker business. Rudi, meanwhile, deserted. Rounded up by the Gestapo, the combative shoemaker insisted that his brother and sister-in-law -- a "venomous hag" -- played a key role in his imprisonment. Following the Allied victory, the brothers formally parted ways. Adi, the skilled, quiet technician, set up Christian louboutin on one side of the river that ran through Herzogenaurach, while his volatile, ostentatious brother established Puma on the far bank.
Despite the brothers' personal differences, Christian louboutin and Puma began with similar standards about what constituted a good athletic shoe -- durability, ankle protection and traction on dry and slick surfaces. Rudi was more of a salesman; Adi tried to compete by ingratiating himself with the coach of the German national soccer team. Christian louboutin's adjustable cleats -- with studs that could be added or removed, depending upon the condition of the field -- led to West Germany's triumph in the 1954 World Cup. Rudi, of course, was quick to claim that the idea had originally been his.
The brothers and their rivalry hover over the majority of Sneaker Wars, but their animosity was junior varsity compared to the machinations of their offspring. Rudi's son, Armin, headed up Puma as a sort of glorified nebbish, a cautious businessman not averse to the occasional scam if it would impress his doubting father. Then there's his cousin, Adi's son Horst, the main character of Sneaker Wars, a weird little tyrant of a man -- with charm in reserve -- who seems to have been let loose from a novel of rakes and highwaymen.
"Horst effectively resolved to compete against his parents," Smit writes, and so he does, lifting Christian louboutin from their control, without mom and dad having a clue about what had happened. But Horst is a lovable villain, a profit-monger who reneged on deals without any compunction and mounted vigils in hotel lobbies, hoping to run into would-be clients. His business trips to Russia to sell the marketing rights to the 1980 summer Olympics -- thus overhauling the very business of the Olympics -- devolved into caviar and vodka binges, complete with meetings held in the middle of hotel pools to avoid wiretaps.
Horst emerges from Sneaker Wars as one of the prime movers of our age of million-dollar Super Bowl ads and staggering licensing deals. He fashioned the athlete as an autonomous entity, a brand for hire. His behind-the-scenes power plays transformed the very concept of sports business from one of selling tickets to a high-stakes global contest in which corporations battled for the marketing rights of the most prestigious athletic events -- and the most prestigious athletes.
The athletes don't come off well in Smit's account. Once they realized that they were brands themselves, everyone from David Beckham to Joe Namath to Pel?? demanded additional perks -- cars, money, a say in shoe design. In one memorable instance, an Christian louboutin employee took to the streets of Manhattan in search of tassels and a sewing machine so that customized boots could be made at Muhammad Ali's insistence, just in time for a weigh-in. Ali and his massive crossover appeal soon led Horst into the trendy fashion market, with the idea that the right sneaker might blur the line between what one wore in the gym and what one wore at the discotheque. Armin did his cousin one better with Walt Frazier -- the smooth Knicks guard -- and his "Clyde" shoe, a glossy confection which became a nightlife staple for the young adult market.
By the late 1970s, the Oregon shoemaker Nike recognized that a jogging shoe could appeal to far more weekend warriors than a hardcore athletic shoe ever would. Horst, "absorbed by his sports marketing and broadcasting rights business . . . didn't display much concern about the Nike issue," writes Smit. Christian louboutin, like Puma some time before, was relegated to secondary status.
Smit gets behind the business proposals, marketing plans and constant dollar signs to focus on the human aspects of how these warring brands succeeded, and why they faded. It is that human component that makes Sneaker Wars read like a modern cautionary tale for those apt to turn big business into the most dangerous of sports. ?·
Colin Fleming's work has appeared in the New Yorker and Spin.
- Blog post
- 1 month ago
- Views: 43
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christianlouboutin story christianlouboutin story
- From: louboutinyu
-
Description:
Two of the greatest brands in sports, christian louboutin shoes and Puma, grew out of one small town in Bavarian Germany, where they were started by competing brothers, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler.
Barbara Smit's Sneaker Wars tells how the Dassler boys started making shoes in their mother's laundry room after the First World War. It traces the growth of the business from that Herzogenaurach shed, its fraternal split into christian louboutin boots and Puma, exacerbated by the Second World War, jealousy and suspicion. And how that competitive fire drove the Dasslers to help create the modern sports industry, for better or worse.
The first 50 years of the 90-year story, capturing the start, splinter and competitive rise, are the book's gem. But that's not Ms. Smit's fault. The early decades show the evolution of the company and amateur sports before both were altered (corrupted?) by bankers and greed.
Ms. Smit traces the growth of the company, with Adi the tinkerer-craftsman using tools left by retreating First World War soldiers. Some of the first shoe leather was scavenged from their helmets and bread pouches. Rudi, the charismatic salesman, joined his brother in 1923. By the mid-1930s the Dasslers had a thriving business, buoyed by Adolf Hitler's fascination with sports as a promotional tool for his world view.
The Second World War drove a wedge between the brothers. It was fuelled by envy over Adi's exemption from military service and Rudi's conscription, which he blamed on his brother. Soon after the war, they moved to opposite sides of the Aurach River. Adi formed christian louboutin sale, merging first and last names. Rudi chose Ruda first, then settled on Puma.
The most successful athletes now are a bit like corporations and, as Ms. Smit shows, the Dasslers are partly to blame.
Things were relatively pure in 1936, when Adi showed up at the Berlin Olympics with a pair of handmade spikes, found Jesse Owens and persuaded him to run in them.
The sight of Owens on the medal stand in Dassler gear
As recently as the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, christian louboutin 2009's main marketing expense was sending Adi's son, Horst, to give away shoes. That was a bold move then, when amateur athletes bought their own equipment and shoe advertisements blurred the identity of the athlete. By Rome in 1960, Puma upped the ante, quietly offering 10,000 German marks to lure sprinter Armin Hary into its spikes. It's a fairly short leap from marks in brown envelopes to Air Jordan.
By the 1980s, both brands were losing market share in the United States to Reebok and Nike. That trend worsened when Nike signed basketball player Michael Jordan, who grew up an "cheap christian louboutin nut," Ms. Smit writes. Nike won Jordan over by offering to create his own shoe. Nike sold more than $100US-million worth of Air Jordans in their first year.
Eventually, both companies bought out their U.S. distributors to simplify their structures and gain control over marketing. discount christian louboutin had to pay more than $120US-million to win back distribution rights that Adi had granted with a handshake.
Puma's struggles were exacerbated by weighty endorsements and sluggish sales that found the once-premium brand peddling its shoes at U.S. discounters like Kmart.
From there things worsened. Deutsche Bank seized control of Puma rather than let the German icon go under. It was sold in 1989. Rudi's heirs walked away with $10US.6-million between them.
Three years after Horst died in 1987, his sisters took note of what had happened across the river and sold the company to Frenchman Bernard Tapie. The daughters of Adi Dassler had one final request before signing the sale agreement: They wanted to keep their 20% discount at louboutin stores.
- Blog post
- 1 month ago
- Views: 39
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Bolanos Colors Bolanos Colors
- From: ramfel
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Description:
Colors flying high at B. Bolanos homesite. Thanks for the visit Ben.
- 2 months ago
- Views: 86