GELLED

I’ve got some other things ready to go up here, but there was a slight delay in obtaining the relevant imagery. So in the meantime, I’ll plug some other things — a couple of months ago I put together a rough ASICS history for size? (hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to refine and expand it a little soon) that you can see here, here and here. While I’m bored as hell with the slew of occasionally unremarkable collaborations dropping every hour, I’m obsessed with that brand’s 1985-1995 archive (some of the best pure sports performance design I’ve ever seen), I got the opportunity to visit their headquarters in Kobe last year and a quick spot of research revealed some superior apparel creations and logo design from the late 1980s. Currently, there’s a lot of interest in the brand’s early 1990s output and an emphasis on the same couple of silhouettes, but there’s a lot more to talk about. Last week I got the second opportunity to talk to Shigeyuki Mitsui, designer of the ASICS Gel-Lyte III (and co-designer on the Gel-Lyte and Gel-Lyte II). You can read the brief interview here on Complex UK (can you see that if you’re in the USA? I’m not sure). Apologies for the basic nature of the questions — Mitsui-san speaks perfectly proficient English, but a background of obvious hip-hop records booming meant that discussing anything that didn’t involved loud, short queries and pointing would be impossible to transcribe. The man’s skills and humility deserve respect.