Panerai Mare Nostrum Steel special edition: For the love of war

If you're the type who prefers his timepieces to possess the dimensions of a car wheel, you're going to love what Panerai has come up with this time.

The Mare Nostrum is a beast of a watch. A chunk of steel that ArcelorMittal would be quite pleased to have dug up, heavier than a dumbbell and twice as thick.

This is the way Panerai does things. Nothing dainty about this brand. It's all about the heft with them, the sheer smash you in the face brutish side of watchmaking.

This monster is actually a re-issue. Panerai originally released the 52mm Mare Nostrum during the Second World War - presumably to double as a weapon, should the need arise.

Just to reinforce the military history associated with Panerai, the company has added an olive green strap to this one.

Camouflage uniform is optional.

Via Selectism

Banksy Exit Through the Gift Shop film preview

One thing's for sure when it comes to Banksy - you never know what he's going to come up with next. Painting stencils has never in itself been enough for the graffiti artist who has created his own industry out of not revealing his identity.

First there were the tours, to the likes of Beirut and Jerusalem, then the Hollywood art shows.

Then he went quiet for a while before returning last year with a guerilla attack (sanctioned) on the Bristol Museum.

Each of Banksy's landmark events have been preceded by a bit of random vandalism in the form of stencils on walls - a sort of home-made marketing campaign. It certainly beats traditional advertising.

So now we see what all Banksy's recent manoeuvres on the Regents Canal have been leading up to. Because he is releasing his very first film. And it has nothing to do with water, or boats. Or King Robbo.

This is going to be previewed at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah at the end of January and has something to do with an eccentric French shopkeeper who tried to track down Banksy only to have the camera turned back on him.

In Banksy's own words: "It's about how one man set out to film the unfilmable. And failed."

The film apparently wasn't even on the programme for the festival, and has been preceded by a series of stencils on walls around the town, so I bet the organisers are chuffed to bits.

Back in Banksy's homeland we'll have to wait patiently until March to find out what this is all about.

At least we've got a few paintings to look at in the meantime.


Via Slamxhype

Tokihito Yoshida x Barbour SS 2010 TO KI TO Beacon line

There was a time when a Barbour jacket without wax on it would have been considered unfinished. It would have ended up on the reject pile of the factory.

Now it seems that wax is fast becoming an optional extra since the label shed the mud and stink of the country and started to wake up to the possibilities of urban streetwear.

This has a shed load to do with the newly opened lines of communication with Japan, in particular Tokihito Yoshida, who has given Barbour the sort of direction it was never going to get from a farmer at the edge of a field.

All of a sudden Barbour has become a UK label to be reckoned with. It is regaining its rightful position as quality outerwear.

Before the agricultural types among you bombard me with cowpat scented comments, I'm sure they still do waxed jackets. It's just that they do other stuff now too.

Google Nexus: Toy ninja proof

What's this then? A bunch of Action Men prancing around a dining room table in ninja suits? I'd have loved this when I was a kid. I would have been straight up to my toy box and mobilised my own squad before you could say "little man, big nunchuck."

But look closer and the real star of this film is in the box. It's the Nexus One, Google's answer to the iPhone and the gadget the tech world has been dying to get its hands on.

If Google's rivals really wanted to get rid of the Nexus maybe they should have sent someone more suited to finishing the demolition job. Like a ten-year-old. You wouldn't recognise the thing after he'd finished.

Via Kineda

Nico: The beautiful fall

There was a post about Nico from the Velvet Underground on The Impossible Cool, which was a coincidence since she had just been mentioned in the Peter Hook I was reading - The Hacienda: How not to run a club.

For such an icon of our times it's odd that she ended up as a heroin addict in Salford in the eighties. That's what happens when a wild child doesn't know when to stop I guess.

Peter Hook summed it up quite well when he said: "It's hardly surprising she was grumpy - she'd gone from Jim Morrison in LA to a bedsit in Prestwich."

But there were the glory days - probably around the time this picture was taken by Mark Shaw.

Nice room, too.

You can find more shots here.

Iron Man 2 trailer: Nice suit, let's talk about the colour scheme

You can have your Spiderman and Superman. I prefer my superheros with all their human faculties intact and a bank balance to rival the GDP of a small African country. I want suits of military grade, high tensile, RPG proof material. I want gadgets, I want rockets, a base in the mountains and a leggy PA.

A red and gold suit? What's all that about?

Batman, have a word will you?

Via Kineda

Original Fake SS2010

Kaws has come on in leaps and bounds since his collaborations with the likes of Bape a few years ago. Even the early Original Fake (Kaws' brand launched with Medicom) releases have nothing on the kind of collections it is putting out these days.

It's like it has grown up. You still get the quirky details, the neat little chomper teeth and strategically placed crosses, but these days it's all a lot more stylish. Those cartoons prints are over, unless you count the t-shirts, which have become affordable artworks in themselves.

The spring summer collection is carrying on with the style over shock philosophy, which is why I could quite happily wear the lot of it.

I'll be lucky if any of it fits but there's no harm in dreaming.

Via Slamxhype