It's (allegedly) summer, which means people are thinking boat shoes and riviera chic. And things are no different over at Visvim towers, where Hiroki Nakamura has added a bit of colour to this year's Hockney offering.
As well as your standard black and brown and navy, there's a royal blue and a plum and a minty green for you to fawn over. And as any Vis-head will tell you, socks are optional but frowned upon. Unless you're thinking about reselling them any time, in which case they are recommended, if only for the sake of the new owner.
These are an F.I.L exclusive so get in touch with your friendly neighbourhood proxy.
Artists will often find inspiration in that which is dear to them, so it would be acceptable to draw the conclusion that the South Korean artist, Yang Tae Tae has been quite taken by Rapha.
It's easy to see why, and the kind of obsession that would lead someone to put paintbrush to canvas could quite easily get out of hand. But Yang Tae Tae's artwork is a world away from some exercise in logo-tastic fandom.
Christopher Nolan has become the go-to man for rebooted superhero franchises. His Batman series took the Dark Knight back to his grim beginnings and dispensed with the chubby casting, ushering in the perennially disturbed Christian Bale. The gadgets became believable, the sets apocolyptic, and the whole feeling was of aching, jaw-dropping cool. And that's before we've even started on the villains.
But Batman is over, the trilogy complete. Bruce Wayne has skipped off into the sunset with Selina Kyle and there isn't a millimetre of polycarbonate resin between them. All is quiet in Gotham.
Well not exactly. Because where Nolan has dropped one Marvel man off, he's picked the next one up. Many will be familiar with Batman's battles with Superman in the Marvel comics. The pair never really did see eye to eye with Batman existing just below the law and Superman regarded as a Government sell-out by the Dark Knight.
There's no telling whether Nolan will pick up that particular storyline but his incarnation of Superman has certainly been sprinkled with a bit of Batman cool. This is moody, gritty, and full of big things which go bump in a big way. And that's just the trailer.
Judging by the other recent efforts at reviving Superman, it would be fair to say Nolan is becoming the superhero's superhero.
Back in 2001 Visvim brought itself to the attention of the world with a pair of fringed mocassins with a trainer soul. The world stood there, gobsmacked, and many people asked themselves "why didn't we think of that?"
Fast forward 12 years and most of the brands who said that have just decided "fuck it" and released their own rip-offs of the Visvim FBT. Visvim, as we all know, took no notice of what anyone else is doing, and carried on leading the way with its trainer-soled creations and jackets with coloured seam tape. And when absolutely everyone had got wise to these details and the street fashion industry was awash with coloured seam-tape and waterproof zips, Visvim, or Hiroki Nakamura to be precise, simply abandoned the whole technical side of clothing manufacture and concentrated knocking out stuff made out of yarn that was shat out of the arse of a yak, and that kind of thing. And all the time the price of the creations has gone up and up.
But while Visvim has evolved, or devolved, whichever way you look at it, there is one thing that has remained constant. The FBT shoe that started it all is still being released, year after year. This time around it is fringed with a tablecloth belonging to a frail Hungarian fishwife.
The proceeds will go towards the replacement, so I'm told.
Part of the appeal of W)Taps is the timeless nature of the military-inspired collections. Haters might label it military surplus but it's a bit more than that, in terms of quality and looks.
This is a bit Real McCoys or Buzz Rickson's but without the slavish adherence to the original patterns and with one or two modern twists.
The build up to the release of the Rapha Raeburn wind jacket has been tantalising to say the least. The latest little teaser ahead of the release of the collaboration with Christopher Raeburn is this moody 30-second video.
With only 600 of these to be made, ever, it's going to be a case of blink and you'll miss it.
They've already done a grey version and now Loopwheeler are back to give Nike's vintage Vortex another supersoft jersey reworking with a pair in Fuwa Max.
These will be, as you might expect, incredibly soft, manufactured from Loopwheeler's trademark cotton jersey. They will also be pretty difficult to come by. They are scheduled for a May 18 release in Loopwheeler stores Japan and selected Beams stores as well as one or two Nike stores around the world.
No word on a UK release at time of writing but if they're going to drop anywhere it will most likely be at 1948London.
There's something quite cool about cycling mitts, especially when they look like they could have provided marco Pantani himself with added grip as he carved through the field on one of his Tours de France.
But appearances can be deceptive. This is the debut collection from Gantolini, a small Canadian company which has been so taken with the romance of the heritage of cycling they decided to make something that could have come from the archives.
You get three styles, in the colours of Italy, Germany and France, as well as a pair with plain crochet backing and another pair with black crochet backing, and you can choose to go with knuckle holes or without.
