It’s been three months since I got my hands on a pair of Momotaro’s Going to Battle Labels and it’s only fair that you’ll be updated on my wear project. First, let’s take a look at what they looked like brand new:

Nice, crisp and dark indigo with the back pocket’s white lines clear and shiny.

This is what they look like after three months of repeated torture, drunken snow angels (kinda like the normal angels, but with their halos left in the locker room), stacking, cuffing, stretching and whatnots. No being dragged behind a moving car, but I suppose that’s got to be left for the summer when there’s more friction from the sand and concrete.

A few lines here and there, some extra wear on the cuffs and a few faded whiskers on the front, the white lines fading a bit, but that’s about it. It’s annoying really. No matter how bad I treat these jeans, they refuse to begin to show some wear. It’s like they’ve got a mind of their own and they’ve decided to piss me off. Hardly. Here at NDH there is no giving up, no backing down. I will break them if it’s the last thing I do.

Then again, all this compliments Momotaro on creating denim that lasts through everything. If my possible future kid somewhere does not wear these when I pass away, I will personally haunt his ass for eternity out of pure spite for his disrespect towards art – which these jeans are.

After three months there is one person in particular I wish to recommend these jeans to. John Connor, you’ve found your attire. Now go and win that battle!

Sex sells.

Indeed. What hasn’t it sold so far? Maybe horse plows for mormons, but that would be the proverbial exception to the rule. Continuing with the excellent topic of Tony’s about naked girls, here’s something related from the wonderful world of denim advertising.

There’s been two new advertising campaigns by Diesel for the winter/spring seasons of 2010. This is the better (forget the other, it’s just stupid).

Image courtesy of Denimology.

Then again, we all knew that sex sells. It’s not yesterday’s news, it’s not even last week’s news. Even neanderthals always went for the best looking cavegirl or -man. Which then begs the question: are we supposed to appreciate this not-even-slightly disguised insinuation that our buying behaviour stems from pre-historic times and we are little better than our trogdolytic forebears?

Sure we are. How can we even begin to deny the basest of our impulses? We can’t.

Yet, what bums me out a bit, is that the Diesel ad above says that sex sells, but does little else. Puma did it a whole lot better a couple of years ago. Sure, officially Puma claims that this is not theirs, but I genuinely doubt it. Whatever the case may be, personally I think this is brilliant. Forget subliminal messages, double entendres and puns and go straight for it!

“It” being the clever straightforward advert of course. Ahem.

Image courtesy of Ads of the World.

So what do you guys think? Does sex in advertising products get you excited, erect(81) even? Or do you do what we promote here at NDH and put the sex into sex appeal.

Whatever you do, remember to be safe.

After Tony’s posts of some brilliantly faded Momotaros (scroll down here), and because of his ongoing personal project, I thought it only appropriate that the denim advert of the occasion concentrates on the actual “wear”.

This time we’ve got an old Levi’s advert from a few years back and it is, quite appropriately, titled Wear Them Out. Now, Tony’s been talking about this a lot and I fully agree. I’ve been torturing my Going to Battle Labels just under 3 months now, and they’re sprouting a few nice whiskers on the thighs and the cuffs’ve received some extra wear, and even some tear, from stacking them. Winter is a brilliant time to start wearing new jeans: Lots of opportunities to dip them into snow, waiting for that spring when the ice begins to melt and the possibility of washing the denim in the sea just keeps inching closer. Just to get more of that personalised thing going on. More on this wear-project of mine in the coming weeks.

Back to business. This ad not only demonstrates how important proper wear is for denim, but is kinda cool as well. The only thing that would’ve made the ad better would be if the instead of the guy they’d had a Naked Girl.

Ok, fine. Not a naked girl, but a girl wearing denim. Sheesh. Can’t a guy even dream. Besides, I blame Tony for adding the excellent Quolomo and erect81 labels to our product lines.

Anyway, here’s the ad:

Cracked me up. So naturally, I had to share.

Yet another Stuff to… post. It’s a good thing there’s an abundance of material – the world is just full of cool stuff.

Tony’s been talking about this being the Year of the Tiger, and even posted a picture of that black and orange beast. I got a whole new beast for you. The Vyrus 987 C3 4V. The fastest and most powerful production bike in the world. Fastest. Most powerful. ‘Nuff said.

Image courtesy of Team-BHP.

Not to mention it’s Friday! One of the best days of the week. The weekend begins. How good does that first drink of the weekend taste like when you get home before launching into the wild nightlife of Wherever City? It tastes gooood. Just make sure that your bar is up the speed and hefty enough to take the weight of the assortment of bottles on it. For example by using an old workbench as a bar, voilá:

Image courtesy of PotteryBarn.

And just because Fallout is that cool, here’s the new trailer for Fallout: New Vegas. Enjoy. And have a great weekend!

Ah. Another week, another post.

Let’s create an imaginary scenario (if you’re a guy that is).

You come home from the office, the factory, the bar or the sweatshop and you want to change into something more comfortable. You pull on your dark denim Momotaro’s – the ones that you’ve been wearing for a while, the ones starting to show some of that wear already -  and the pleasure of feeling them becoming a second skin makes you smile. Heading to that ragged bunch of T-shirts piled up at the back of the closet, you pick something nifty like the Amity Island Boat Hire tee. Just because you watched the re-run of Jaws: The Revenge last night.

Image courtesy of Red Bubble.

You then vamoose to the living room, pulling out that laptop from a cool old duffel bag, not unlike Tony’s, smacking it on your table. Why not make it a cool puzzle coffee table, the kind you can get from Viva Terra.

Image courtesy of Cool Material.

Putting your feet up, the laptop warm on your belly, you might wander over to your favourite website; the NDH blog, knowing the people there are always ready to entertain you with the coolest and most interesting randomness found online. Like Darth Bale here (yeah, we can’t help but put Star Wars stuff here constantly – bear with it, (Storm) Trooper).

Now then – you might think after giggling manfully at Darth Bale – what all men need, is an axe. And you would be right in thinking that. All men need an axe, and what better axe than the one that sets the standard for all professional axes – the LaGana Vietnam Tactical Tomahawk. Yes. It’s a tactical axe. A. Tactical. Axe. How could you not want one? You should want one. A tactical axe.

For example: “Honey, I’m home! What’s for dinner? Oh, pot roast – my favourite. Let me get my tactical axe and chop it up for us.” Let the romance ensue.

No axe, no romance.

Later, watching TV after dinner, you can always whack it on your cool puzzle coffee table to keep it safe. Plus, I’m fairly certain, it’d work great as a bottle opener.

Image courstesy of Cool Material.

Keep on hacking, boys and girls.

-R

Is when, upon

watching this short clip below, you

realise how damn cool Ray Park is. And just then, after the shock

and awe, you notice something. “Hang on…” You think to yourself. “Are those…?”

Yes. Yes they are. Darth Maul is rocking True Religions. Get your Sith on and don a pair of Ricky Big-Ts.

If you’re still jonesing for more,

there needn’t be any fear. Remember our first

news flashes of Adidas and Star Wars collaborations (here and here)?

Well, here’s the first official promo-video of Adidas Originals Star Wars Collection. Enjoy.

Hey guys,

This is the very first post about denim advertising, something we promised to entertain you with this year.

Some of the best advertising any denim brand can get is through its brand image, compiled of course, of the values of the company as well as its history (plus some damn good copywriting, among other things). Momotaro did this great when releasing the videoclips describing the manufacturing process of its jeans. What better way to endorse customers of the superior quality of a product than to actually show how it’s done, rather than merely voicing it. If you missed the vids, fret not, but check out our Media Centre.

Now, back to the ad at hand. This was for Levi’s 501s, made in 1992 and titled the “Swimmer”. Why is it here? Well, it was the very first denim ad I ever saw. Viewing it again, the 50s look is very striking, plus The Graduate-ish ending gives extra points. I must admit I do not condone washing your denim in chorine, but the idea is there. Wash your jeans – they get better. Try the Seto Sea for instance. Or barring that, any local lakes or nearby seas. Barring that, use your washing machine. But not too often – you do want to get that nice wear to your denim, don’t you?

Check out the ad and let us know what you think.

Yeah, bub. You heard me. Snikt. Just add them claws and there’s nothing that’d go better with your denim.

Image courtesy of The Awesomer.

Hello boys and girls, how’s it going?

As promised, the first “stuff to wear…” post is here. The other topics will surface later on, but let’s concentrate on this particular item for now.

Got to admit, Saxon had it right: denim and leather really are together. First of all, and I can not express this strongly enough. I love leather jackets. Nay, I love (just imagine a lot of emphasis on that ok?) leather jackets. Even Indiana Jones wore one. So they can not be anything but cool. And they do go well with denim. Let’s leave the colour coding to you guys as I have no doubt that you would be anything less than perfectly proficient with it.

Now that we’ve got our personal 30 Days of Night here up North we’ve had to dig out our parkas, beanies and woollen underwear. Even though the promise of spring is still but a dream, this is the perfect time to do just that – dream, and get ready for those less than ohmygodithinkijustfrozemybootstotheground days. For those days this AR-65 leather jacket by SWAGGER is more than appropriate. Drawing its styling from the military M-65 jacket as well as biker jackets, it features Thinsulate lining, making it kinda great for the first days of spring. Pair it with our spanking new Lil’ Brooklyn’s and we’ve got a winner.

Image courtesy of Streetlevel.

As a bonus we’ve got a short story for you tonight.

‘Twas a cold, cold winter’s night, and our hero was a-shiver. He said: “Please Lord, let me not go home alone tonight, for I will freeze my butt off.” He cussed the weather, cursed and said a lot of nasty stuff. And then, the Big Man delivered.

She was amazing! All legs and hips and sway. Our hero, he jumped at the opportunity. With a great show of masculinity and swagger (or stagger, for he had had a few – which was nothing new), he stopped her: “Oh you beautiful mistress of the winter! This night with me will you stay? (or bleeeeeerrg – for he had downed many a Carlsberg).”

She laughed a brilliant laugh, but as cold as icicles dancing in the wind she was. And alas, our hero had to walk home alone that fateful night, after giving his dreamgirl such a fright. One step, another, another, he dragged, swayed like a wounded willow ‘fore reaching home, laying his curls on his soft, comfy condom pillow.

Good night!

Image courtesy of Streetlevel.

Remember to check back from time to time to see how Tony’s new project goes.