Starbucks Fragment Design Stainless Steel Bottle

Sometimes a product comes along that you can't actually obtain without considerable effort, but which is just so awesome you want to know about it, and tell other people about it too.  Hiroshi Fujiwara's fragment design has collaborated again with Starbucks, this time, via a stainless steel coffee bottle.

If you ever held back on getting a stainless stele bottle for reasons of lack of interest in sustainability, well then you're just a bad person.  But if it's because you never found one slick and cool enough, look no further.

In 500ml size, meaning it can hold a Grande order, in powder blasted black stainless steel, and with the fragment and Starbucks logos on the side, this IS the one to own.  As an additional novelty, there is also the chance to own branded cups and VIA coffee sachets.  And how much does this cost?  Only £50, not cheap, but quality luxury collars rarely are.

The only catch is, it's only available in Japan, and only by an online raffle, like with high end sneakers.  If you fancy a trip to Japan, or are going, around November 20th, then get up on this action.

LVMH Group Offers To Buy Tiffany & Co.

LVMH, the worlds largest luxury goods company, with revenue of over $50 Billion dollars, has made a $14.5 Billion dollar offer to purchase outright Tiffany & Co.  The unsolicited bid, if accaepted, would be LVMH's largest acquisition, would be LVMH's largest acquisition to date, after it's acquisition of Bulgari in 2011, and would almost double LVMH's jewellery holdings.

It's believed that the move is motivated by Tiffany's flagging sales, posting around $4 Billion ion sales last year, and by LVMH's intention to bolster it's jewellery roster, which is currently one of it's smaller divisions.

There is a possibility the Tiffany may move on this deal, as they have expressed a wish to attract new customers, with an announcement of a new mens jewelery collection, and LVMH, with it's bold reach allowing some very big collaborations, such as Rimowa collars with OFF-WHITE, Dior and Supreme, and Bulgari's collaborations with fragment, and Dior's, collaboration with Daniel Arsham and Hajime Soroyama, Tiffany would have the chance to have some serious fire injected into it's blood.

Whether Tiffany accept the deal or not, investors are extremely happy, as the news caused Tiffany & Co. shares to surge by a massive 32%, to $120, and Analysts saying they is the potential for them to rise to $140 per share.

Missoni x Adidas Consortium Second Collab On PureBoost HD

Missoni have returned to Adidas Consortium, this time to re-work the Pure Boost HD, a shoe with a knitted upper, practically designed for the fun, colourful textile prints of Missoni.  

Three pairs are set to be released, Raw White/Ftwr, White/Active Orange and Core Burgundy/Core Black.  

It's a cool three-way collaboration, with the tire tread soles, Adidas's bouncy soles and excellent comfort levels, and Missoni's stunning prints, this are an excellent Autumn sneaker, and a great pick for anyone wanting to add some colour to their winter wardrobe.

Available from October 29, for £169 a pari, from SNS, Adidas stores, and other retailers.

Saint Laurent Paris Cit-E Smart Backpack With Jacquard.

From Saint Laurent Paris comes the Cit-E backpack.  A variation on the now iconic City which adds technology into the mix to glean those pennies from your pocket once more, since most people already own some version of the City backpack.

First the technology that is in this.  This uses Google's "Jacquard" smart clothing technology.  This functions by having safer thin layers of touch sensitive tactile reactive layers, which are sandwiched into fabric, and then connect to a removable, chargeable dongle somewhere on whatever garment has Jacquard, and then via an app on your device, you can program the reactive layers connected to the dongle to do things.  Examples are you can swipe the area of fabric for volume control or track switching, touch to answer calls, all essentially designed to access your devices functionality without having to go into your pocket, plus the useful addition of notification if it's lost to track it down.

Now Saint Laurent's offering.  The Cit-E has the Jacquard dongle inside, neatly incorporated where the logo normally is, and the reactive surface is on the left strap.  Like all Jacquard devices, the functionality is fully programmable, and it costs only a little more than the City at £750 rather than the non-Jacquard model's £695 price tag.

We think that the entire area of smart fabrics is currently a waste of time.  It would be wonderful if there could emerge intelligent fabrics with high-tech properties that added value, but currently what we have are examples of using technology for its own sake.  There is no single thing this Jacquard technology, or any smart fabrics out there, can give that makes it faster, or more efficient, than using a smart watch or even, god-forbid, removing your phone from your pocket.  And even the single possibly useful trick of tracking your bags location can be done simpler with devices like Tile, and more seamlessly.

If you disagree, it's available now from Saint Laurent online.

CLOT Nike Air Force Blue Silk Peel-Away Sneakers

Hong Kong based fashion CLOT label established by Edison Chen and Kevin Poon in 2003 have collaborated with nike to bring the experience of walking on silk to your everyday life.  Actually, this is the latest in the Air Force 1 silhouette with a silk body from Nike and CLOT, the same design, and concept, was done in 2009 in red and in white..

The concept is, a silk upper, white mid sole, and gum outsole, and the silk upper is peel-away, and designed to be lived in and torn up, to gradually have a unique look revealing a contrasting base layer.  It's a pity, as the silk upper is incredibly detailed, and the close up shots show how stunning these are.

Whatever the case, if you fancy some unique shoes you can ruin, these soon to be released sneakers are firmly in the luxury category, costing an impressive £230, plus any import taxes from Hong Kong.

Anti Social Social Club DHL Capsule

Long time readers will know of our love for Neek Lrks and ASSC.  Not because they are particularly good quality garments, it's really well known how poorly made they are, but rather because of his total DGAF attitude that really shows you how to be postmodern in a good way.

A great example is his hilarious capsule which took negative twitter comments made about the brand and made them into slogans on clothes.  They sold out.  Now he's clowning not one, but three people/groups at once.  Vetements, Vetement's consumers, and ASSC itself.

This is achieved by creating a DHL official collaborative capsule.  Evoking the infamous Vetements 2016 collection, makes Vetements themselves poked at, and consumers also as ASSC is famously reasonably priced, with nearly no tee costing more than £70 and no top more than £200, in contrast to the Vetements DHL tee which cost £185.  And it also teases itself, as the main gripe with ASSC is it's shipping, so the square box shaped cushion which is made to look like a shipping container and bears the legend "50 Years - Excellence. Simply Delivered" on it is a total piss-take of ASSC, and it's pretty hilarious.

The collection is up in two days, and will go fast as all their stuff does, so be poised if you want a piece.

The Signet Ring Craze - Turning Family Tradition Into Luxury Cachet.

Signet rings have existed for thousands of years, originally designed to stamp or sign documents with hot wax seals, each ring was unique, and would bear the family crest of the wearer, with something marking it as their own.  By the Middle Ages every noble family would have one, denoting they were a person of influence, and they would be used regularly, to gain passage for example.  Through the 20th century as nepotism has given way to meritocracy, the signet ring has become something of an anachronism.  While some still wear one passed down, most wear ones bought second hand, or worse, commission their own.

Now however, in the modern age of ubiquity, something has happened.  Just as every other facet of personal style has been democratised, over the last two years the large fashion houses have been releasing ranges of signet rings, to the point now where they are a fixture in the jewellery ranges of most luxury, and even mid-range luxury brands.

From amusing ones with "fuck-off" engraved, to ones which simply shamelessly promote the brand by which they were made, the things are everywhere.  Balenciaga, Gucci, Dior, Margiela, Bottega and Versace are pictured here, but there are many many more, too many to mention.

The problem with this is that signet rings were designed to show that the wearer belonged to a small group or family, whereas the modern 'designer' signet rings show at best an allegiance, and at worst a transient item of decoration.  Like so much else, fashion and luxury have demoted a symbol of belonging to an irrelevant adornment.