THE ONE PERCENT

Continuing the dewy-eyed Soho nostalgia trip from a couple of weeks back, Sofarok upped the early 1990s (1992/93?) Bond International catalogue onto his Flickr account that @rdadub kindly took the effort to supply and scan. Between this and the 1997 magalogue, there’s more imagery of Pervert clothing than I’ve ever seen online (and there’s a little more information on Pervert right here). Newburgh Street was the spot — Rhyme Syndicate merchandise, Insane, Ben Davis, NFC, Stüssy, Goodenough, Carhartt and Tommy Boy were all in here with a nice global concept that indicates that they put in work. Anyone interested in notions of streetwear and London’s role as a hub for interesting brands beck in the day should check this out.

The internet has been spitting out jewels this week — if you’re interested in shoes and don’t mess with the Air Humara, Terra Humara or Air Minot, we can’t talk. Those are Peter Fogg designs and he’s one of my favourite footwear designers ever and this Sole Collector series of videos where Nick chats to the people behind the shoes is cool, with some gems coming out of the conversations — the Terra Humara is apparently based on a brake disc from a motorbike.

I also never knew that Steve Van Zandt (one of my heroes) pulled a real-life Silvio Dante move and saved Paul Simon from being assassinated. This Jocks & Nerds piece on Mo’ Wax by former Straight No Chaser man Paul Bradshow is a great read too.

Idiot Twitter was afire with Pharrell hat jokes this week, but it was good to see some discourse on the Buffalo hat resulting from that. There’s none more b-boy or b-girl than that headwear in all its Peru-inspired glory and the fact that, like Bond International, it’s a British creation with overseas connections has got me feeling unexpectedly patriotic right now.

“SERIOUS STUFF FOR TODAY’S SERIOUS PLAYERS”

Nothing to see here tonight, but if you’re strange like me, you should head over to Jonathan Gitlin’s Flickr account and look at the tenth anniversary Bond International “magalogue” from 1997 for a little primer on how things were in London back then. The product offering at the 10 Newburgh Street (pre 17 Newburgh Street) spot was ridiculous — Pervert, Gimme 5, Droors, Pervert before it exited the shelves, Union and their forgotten Polo tribute, Union Sport plus some brand with a box logo — phoning up back then to ask about the box tees and good Zoo York stuff always used to be fruitless, because that stuff seemed to fly out. With the passing of The Hideout, this is a welcome throwback to time when Soho was a destination to take that student loan money for the purposes of spending it on things that were two sizes too big and I wanted DC Clockers as much as I wanted some Humaras. Shouts to Mr. Gitlin for taking the time to up those images.