Supreme London store opening: I wasn't there

It was all because of this

I've done my fair share of waiting outside shops. There was many a Saturday morning back in the day when you would find me queueing outside Busy Workshop with all the other Bapeheads for a chance to get my paws on a shark hoody.

But I never did get my head round waiting there overnight like some of the true (mainly Japanese, it must be said) devotees. Which is why I only ever managed to get second best, which was usually something like a purple camo crew neck sweat. Although I did once grab a Kaws chomper hoodie.

It should be noted, however, that not a single item I have ever qeueued for is still in my wardrobe, and that goes for Supreme as well as it does Bape. In fact I disliked my Supreme Damien Hirst box logo tee so much that it was on Ebay within a day of me waiting for hours outside Dover Street Market to get it.

So when I turned that corner off Wardour Street into Peter Street yesterday afternoon and discovered that the small gathering outside the new Supreme store was just the beginning of the queue which started again at the Co-Op up the road (so cars could get through) and went from there round the corner past the loading bays, I didn't feel like hanging about.

And for the first time ever I also felt a little bit old, seeing as I had just come from work and wasn't wearing a snap-back cap, a chambray shirt, skinny chinos or Vans Era.

So I hoofed it. I was later tweeted by someone who told me he had waited 18 hours in the queue. For a t-shirt.

To add insult to injury, my invite to the opening party must have got lost in the post, so these pics have been lifted with great care and many huge thanks from Hypebeast, Better Never than Late, and Firmament.

I'm going to try and get in there again in a little while.

Just imagine turning around to find that yellow thing staring at you

The crowd looked a bit cock-heavy to be honest

Insert names of people I should know here

Viewed from the front or the back it was still a massive yellow plastic thing

If I had got this close I would have considered it a success

Add caption

Leopard camo

Big white plastic thing

Bubble camo

If she got this at the store, what was she wearing when she came in?

Eddie Chen and Aaron Bonderoff

Futura still does it

Supreme London: about time

Just when I was beginning to think there was jack all to post about, along comes news of a Supreme store in London.

It's right in the middle of Soho, just off Wardour Street and in perfect trotting distance for all the skater-types working in the media companies around there.

It opens on Thursday so I'm probably the last to hear about it.

Supreme
Peter Street
London
W1F OAA

Thanks to Slamxhype for the heads up and pics

The last train from Fenchurch Street

There I am, plotted up in my usual seat, last train home, last man sober, the only one who's just worked till midnight, and there's a phone ringing.

It's one of those old fashioned ringtones, the default one you get on a Blackberry - urgent, loud, piercing - and the bloke in the seats in front of me is saying "Hello?" but he hasn't pressed the button, he's so out of it, so it's still ringing, and he keeps saying "hello?"

And after about twenty rings or so we're all telling him to push the button, and he says "Im trying", and eventually he finds it and he's speaking in this sort of gibberish, all his words merging into this monotonous tone. It's pitiful.

Then he passes out, forehead in his torpedo roll, phone in hand outstretched.

Further up the carriage, a security guard is standing between some seats. Just standing there, smiling, not saying a word, and from behind these seats you can hear a couple of blokes, sounds like they know each other, but they're getting a bit fresh, giving it the large. And all the while the guard is just standing there, smiling.

Next stop is me. That phone starts ringing, like it's some sort of alarm, right on cue. But this time it's ringing and this bloke keeps pushing the button, semi-conscious, then it rings again and again, like someone's desperate to speak to him.

So I tap him on the shoulder, tell him it's ringing.

He looks at me with this half grin, like the words have gone in but he's forgot how to process them. And then, like it's the most natural thing in the world, no dramatics, no nothing, he gives this tiny jerk and throws up. Mainly red wine by the looks of it, I can smell it now as I'm typing. It's all over the table, floating his torpedo, sloshing onto his suit.

The doors open and I'm gone. As I'm walking along the platform, I can hear a phone ringing.

Water cooler moments

Water cooler moment. An overused phrase if there ever was one, conjures images of beautiful young employees congregating around a dispenser, plastic cups in hand, chatting enthusiastuically about life.

Like, right. For one, this office lacks any of the required beautiful young types to fulfil the fantasy, and if it did, our 'water cooler', as it is so endearingly called in glossy-mag ponce speak, is located next to the fridge, which, if you had read my previous posts, is a biohazard of such potency that we have taken to donning chemical suits and gas masks just to open it.

Even the other water cooler, located outside the toilets, fails to attract the audiences for these facinating debates about US TV series and other mediocre throwaway gossip topics. Not once have I seen more than one person standing at it - and that is the person filling a cup, or emptying the drip tray.

In fact, the staff in this office go to such lengths to avoid bumping into people at the water cooler that they actually loiter at a safe distance, empty bottles in hand, as if they are waiting to give urine samples at an STD clinic. Any conversation is purely accidental.

But when the bottle is empty the fun really begins. Then, grown adults revert to their most basic of instincts as they hunt those responsible for taking the last cup, and force them to change the bottle.

Stussy at the Hideout / the Friday Five list, 03/04

The Hideout got its first delivery of Stussy on Friday, which consisted of a few new designs in a couple of colours.

Not much to shout about really, but those Hideout chaps are never ones to miss out on an opportunity so out came the free beer, and along came some bloke to do graffiti outside on the window.

It did the trick - that and the new Supreme drop on the same night - every fixed gear bike rider and media skater type within Soho seemed to want a look.

Which just goes to show, if you make the effort, the shoppers are still out there and willing to buy things, and that brings me to the Friday Five list, albeit a bit late, because this is Sunday.

This week the theme is retailing, or more precisely, five things retailers should be doing to get people into their shops. The first things shops should do is throw more parties, however tenuous the reason - people like a drink, and they buy stuff when they've had a drink. No brainer really.

2 - Open later. You all whinge that you're going under, but have you thought about opening when people are actually around, instead of at work? Like in the evening?

3 - Answer emails. I waited four weeks for a reply from Dover Street Market, by which time I tracked down the shoes I was looking for elsewhere.

4 - Give stuff away. Beer is good, but it could even be a free pen. Anything that makes the customer feel like you want them there, and to come back, even if he doesn't buy anything there and then.

5 - Get a website that works. There's a whole world of people out there who can't make it to the store, even if they knew it existed. They are your customers too.

Here endeth my sermon, from a customer's point of view.

G20 protest protection

Day two of G20 protests in the City of London, and another day of misjudged casualwear by the bankers and financial types. Like the adoption of a dodgy pair of Diesel jeans is going to persuade the mighty unwashed that you're actually one of them.

Now a hoodie, that's a different matter. Wonderful garment, the hoodie. On a Sunday morning while the coffee's brewing it becomes a cosy friend, something to snuggle up in while still bleary eyed. But in the urban jungle it can take on a totally different demeanor. It says 'youthful, streetwise,' and in SAS black with the hood up, it says 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.'

I wore my black zip fronted Acronym hoodie to work yesterday. Not because of any fear of attack, but because it seemed the right weather - mild, with an outside chance of rain.

I garnered confused looks. A shirt and trousers with a hoodie isn't a frequent sight. Was I a crusty or a hard working member of society? In my hoodie disguise I could have done a day at work and quite comfortably infiltrated the ranks of anarchy at the Bank had I so wished, and nobody would have batted an eyelid.

Now imagine the confusion if the entire workforce of the City had turned out in a hoodie. The crusties wouldn't have known who to direct their spittle at. Chaos would have reigned and some might even have ended up at work. There's a thought.

Jazzy funk

Dozing off on the train when my nostrils are filled with a sickly stench, evoking painful memories of misdirected teenage years I'd rather forget.

YSL Jazz. Made me feel nauseous then and it makes me want to retch all over this man who is violating my nostrils now. It might actually make him smell better.

Back in the late eighties the stuff was all the rage. That and Kouros, equally offensive. I think Joop! was also an option. The kind of aftershaves that are less a refreshing sensation than a full frontal indecent assault on the snout. They would strip paint. I thought they'd been banned.

Nevertheless at the time they were an improvement on the Old Spice my mum splashed over me just as I was leaving for my first school disco, with the immortal words: "you'll be fighting the girls off now!" Well mum, I didn't.

So have I gone into a timewarp or is this person actually wearing 20-year-old aftershave? There's a credit crunch on I know, but are people really that poor?

I Google it. They still make it. Costs £30. You can get something decent for that price.

I don't know what bothers me more - the fact it is still being made or that people buy it.

The Jazz is in my nose, I can smell it everywhere, like a rolling flashback. If it carries on like this I'll be wearing Global Hypercolour t-shirts again. Don't tell me they still make them. Surely not.