The Bag to go with The Shoes

Okay, so now that I'm working and being steezy and so forth, I had to pick up some new gear- a few pairs of jeans, a polo or two, all that good shit. Anyway, a gray area purchase that I made was a pair of sneakers from Undefeated in Silver Lake. The store was great-- an all around fun experience and with a generously stocked sale rack I was able to find something even I could afford. Anyway, while I may aspire to be like Russel Simmons and fresh to death it every day with crisp, shoes shelved for a lifetime after only one wear, that isn't a possibility for me, or probably for him anymore, now that Kimora has walked off with half of his loot, and possibly all of the left foot shoes. Look at me, namedropping people I saw on MTV Cribs, what a pro.

Anyway, so the point is, Undefeated sells products that are a tough combination of long product life cycle, low necessity, and high(ish) price. Plus, the store I went to was in Silverlake, which meant that parking was an impossible bitch. Basically, they need a way to stay top of mind, when there are a thousand other cheaper places to buy shoes, many of whom have more money to spend on advertising.

They came up with a pretty simple solution. After the dude rang me up, the slipped the box into a sturdy looking bag, and sent me on my way. I was pleased to discover that the shopping bag was of the sort environmentally conscious folks use to carry their whole-foods groceries-- namely, made of durable, reusable synthetics. The first thing this did was to validate my purchase price. Nothing is worse than a shitty bag, particularly when you've just exchanged several shekels for what amounts to a luxury item. Beyond that though, I'll keep this bag, and put shit in it when I go grocery shopping or whatever. It's sweet looking, and it doesn't have a smug message about the environment on it.

Well played, Undefeated, well played.

Foot Candy

I am in the midst of a recession, working as an unpaid intern, and as such I have been doing a lot of browser-window shopping. I haven't owned a pair of Nikes in a grip of years, but I'm thinking about changing that as soon as I come into some paper. Further intensifying this desire are the epic fucking user-designs you can put together in nike's customizing shop. As I suck at basketball, I opted for the Action Sports section, but you can do this shit to anything you want. Epic.


In honor of my Trojans kicking ass in the NCAA tourney:




















And in honor of me being a steezy motherfucker:







































Holy shit. Still, things could be worse, at least I'm not lusting after the Louis Vuitton Kanye West Sneaks (thanks Black Raibow):

















Or else, the fucking dominating new Chinese Air Force 1s, which admittedly I mainly want for the box: PS, HighSnobiety is my new fave:

















Oh god... Sorry, I'm kind of having a little fauxmosexual freak out here. Anyway, if you're broke like I am, a nice cheap compromise can be checking out this shit.

This dude Ian has assembled a ton of lacing techniques, which was something I didn't even give a shit about until I realized it was an effective way of taking my mind of my shit being in ruins. Some highlights:

This, I couldn't actually make work:














But this was pretty easy:














The Line method, coupled with some nice new red laces, have helped me to fall in love with my chucks all over again. Anyway, I'm currently twitter following a number of steez based blogs and site sand shit so I'm hoping to be blogging some more steez myself in the future.

Steez: Fake Receipts

Fake receipts, the perfect accessory for any douchebag. Some website for dickbags is offering fake receipts, one dated for every Friday of the year, each showing a massive bank balance, indicating that you are totally rich. "What," you might well ask, "would be the point of such a thing?" Well don't worry-- dear reader, the good folks at custom reciepts have tha answer for you:

"Tired of being used as a drink-dispenser? Maybe if you were rich you’d have more luck.

Ever wanted people to think you’re rich? Just casually let them see your massive bank balance on one of our fake ATM receipts, with your name right on it.

Trying to impress that hottie at the bar? Money talks. Hand out your number on the back of one of our fake ATM receipts. They’re a players dream come true."

First of all, excellent use of the quote feature by me-- yes? Second of all 'a player's dream come true"? Really? All those players with no money, for whom the missing piece in a successful aquisition of pussy is a fake piece of paper. The whole website seems like a cross between a Maxim Magazine article on picking up chicks and one of those novelty joke item descriptions in the back of old kid magazines.

I am going to have to classify this as shit that will not get you fucked. I was going to say that this would be shit that may or may not get you fucked, but that would have required me to make a new tag, and also, while I've certainly associated with broads of a more mercenary nature, I find it difficult to believe that even the most financially motivated of these would be swayed by such a transparent play. Disregard that, I'm sure these work like a fucking charm.

Steez: Transformer Shoes versus Transformer Shoes

Check this shit out!













Boom! Normally I'd write some kind of cutesy copy here but nothing I can do will top these baller shoes. Fuck. How epic. I mean, I thought this was cool:








But holy balls! I feel like the second option has the advantage of actually being shoes, but the first one is truly a robot in disguise. H-F-S! I mean, I'd have to catagorize this as shit that will not get you fucked, but only just. I feel like these kicks will at least get you some tang in the geek chick set, so you can get all the transformers tang you want. Fuck. Love me some shoes.

WHAT NOW MOTHERFUCKER?

Steez: Threadless

Okay, This is officially my last broad steez topic. After this I'm gonna be going through my wardrobe item by item listing shit I like. This is a really good one, and I'm excited to be writing about it.
Threadless is a dank as fuck website where aspiring art n00bs post up shirt designs and they are voted upon and the cream of the crop are produced. Sounds totally stupid right? Actually not the case. Threadless does a lot of innovative stuff using puff ink, glow in the dark, shiny gold ink, all kinds of crazy shit. They rose to prominence a few years ago, propelled largely by their ever popular, ever-present 'Communist Party' (you'll know it when you see it) shirt. I have that shirt, and wear it mainly because I look good in red. Actually, I have about 10 shirts from them and all of 'em have yielded some positve reactions, thus I am rating this as shit that will get you fucked.

The shirts are distinctive, limited run (so you feel like one in a thousand, not like one in ten) and all in all pretty cheap. I have been thinking off and on and on and off for the past year or so that my T-shirt wearing days are coming to an end, and that may be the case, but I always think I'll have a place for better lookin' threadless numbers. The "Select" shirts are a little bit pricier but some of them are brilliant. The "Type" Tees are universally horrible and should be avoided at all costs. I donno, something about shirts with ironic slogans on them just rubs me the wrong way. When I hear a great joke, I can't wait to tell it maybe once or twice to the few people who really appreciate it. Wearing a slogan shirt is like commiting to one joke that you'll be telling everyone all day everytime you wear the shirt. Whenever you make eye contact with a stranger it's like you're waiting for a laugh. Fuck that shit. This coming from a guy who owns a shirt with a picture of Shakespeare reading "Prose before Ho's, but I digress...

Still, I like threadless. More wearable than T-shirtHell.com, more soul than BustedTees, and cheaper than Detroit Sprinkles, Threadless has a little something special that feels organic. It's like what shopping in Whole Foods would feel like if there were only like 20 Whole Foods and you got the impression that maybe the owners knew what was going on in every store and the little touches had some thought in them, or as much thought as they can in a chain of 20 stores, which is a lot more than in the five hundred stores.

Why, in a previous post about my dank clae shooz, I posted a drawing of myself wearing a threadless shirt, so clearly I must think they're pretty ballin if I'm drawin 'em. Looking through my self portrait collection, I find several other examples of threadless shirts, like the one above. Every three months, they put out a shirt that I pretty much need, at least at the time, so I advise you to get on the mailing list, start looking, start voting on shirts, and start upping your shirt game.

Speaking of the Game, you just lost it.

Steez: Detroit Sprinkles

Okay, so I feel like I shot my wad pretty early with those Clae Shoes. I mean, Steez is in the name of the blog, and yet I don't have much else in the way of epic steez. Therefore, I bring to you some other Stylish Steez: Detroit Sprinkles. I heard about this from a buddy of mine who I guess co-owns the place, and my guess is it's going to be blowing up any second now.

I went to some art show that I may or may not be posting about soon under the heading of Culture, since that's the most cultural shit I've done in weeks, and I basically saw hipsters as far as eye could see. I was dressed like a cross between a total asskicker and a total douche, which I guess is sort of the way to do. As my roommate commented, if we'd of had horn rim glasses we woulda fit right in. Basically, this just hammered home for me the fact that semi-ironic shirts are the way to go.

The close (deliberate, trust me) are pretty baller, and while I don't own any because I am officially out of cash, I feel qualified to inform you that you oughta. What separates these from any other shirts? I donno. Who cares? Nobody. They're probably sort of pricey, but you're probably paying for quality, or integrity, or some other intangible shit. Basically, you're paying extra so that when you go out trying to be hip and steezy, you'll be certain that nobody else is gonna be rocking the same baller shirt, and that they'll all be eyein' you up thinkin how fresh your threads is.

Steez: Clae Shooz

Also, since this blog is ostensibly about steez, I think I'll share my steeziest steez, and then never return to the topic again.

Cousteau, like Jacques (they're boat shoes-- get it?), are an epic set of shoes from an epic company of shoes, Clae. I read about them over the summer and was given a pair by that broad I get around with and who now, in a fit of hypocrisy, mocks me when I wear them. Still, they're epic as shit, and make me feel like a true fucking player whenever I gad about in them. They're not the most comfortable things in the world, but that's because I'd a dude, so I'm used to wearing vans all day. They're probs about as comfortable as a standard pair of like fancy shoes or whatever. Anyway, like I said, I feel like a million fucking bucks when I wear em:



Translation: you wouldn't want to wear them if you were walking a couple miles, they're more like what you'd want to leave as part of a trail of clothes to some hot broad's bed, becuase she saw your epic taste in sneaks and immediately wanted to jump your bone.

TL:DR-- wear these shoes, get laid.