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Showing posts with label April's Foolery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label April's Foolery. Show all posts
Mary Kate Olsen sporting the latest in protective streetwear...
It just keeps coming back, like Herpes, and now Biker Chic is stronger than ever! Every major fashion house has re-discovered the magnetic sexual pull of the black-clad motorcyclist, and cargo ships from China and Pakistan are foundering under the weight of thousands of cheap leather jackets headed to our shores.
LiLo in black leather..ish. She's got a biker attitude, and looks like she's been chasing white lines...
It doesn't matter that the leather is under 1mm thick, as these jackets will never be used 'in anger', not even on a moped, because let's face it, ACTUAL motorcycling is dead as a doornail. Kids today could give a hoot about escaping their schools, parents, or towns using two wheels; they're not interested in Anything but playing with their little screens.
Appropriate footwear for an oil-spewing Shovelhead? Let's see you kickstart that puppy in heels...
A few oddball youngsters will pick up motorcycling like a foreign language, because they're strange, or their parents ride, but in general, motorcycling has lost its mojo. The skills, fresh air, danger, and freedom granted by riding matters nought, and new bike sales graphs skid downhill like ski slopes.
On the runway, not the roadway...
But the 'Look' of motorcycling is HOT! Who needs to ride when HandM and Zara are selling such cool 'bikerish' leather? When every model is stretched across an old bike, but are never photographed handling a 500lb motorcycle...or are fakey-photographed on a 'moving' bike, while perched on a trailer!
A recent Double RL 'popup shop' in Bushwick Inlet Park, Brooklyn NY
A recent move to NYC brought the welcome impression that America has gone back to Work! Especially in the former epicenters of industrial labor like Brooklyn and Portland, places where men and women would gather to make Things, in riverside industrial hubs renowned the world over for their products, gritty realism, and pollution - all signs that production is really Happening. So it appears on the streets of Williamsburg, where bearded, denim-clad young men pound the pavement looking like extras from 'The Gangs of New York'. I haven't seen this much dress code uniformity since the 1970s in San Francisco, with packs of 'Castro clones' roaming the streets in...jeans and flannel! (But highly tailored). Now we are 'worker clones', in which irony compounds on irony - Labor is dead, or at least, we're not doing any, we all just look like factory workers, lumberjacks, and tradesmen, while we click away on keyboards.
Real industry moved to China and the Third World, which are busy despoiling the landscape, a sure sign that actual Workers are hard at Work. Since Chinese Communism has switched to state-controlled Libertarian Capitalism (is that even POSSIBLE?), Chinese workers have shed their 'Mao' uniforms of drab green... but have they discovered Workwear? Is DoubleRL supplying the multitudes with authentic garb appropriate to an actual life of Labor? I don't know, but they should. Mao jackets were chic in US in the 70s, perhaps we can sell Chinese laborers distressed denim and flannel, which is actually made in China! That would be a coup.
Tattooed pigs pulled from the Huangpu River, downstream from the Tattoo Academy of Jiaxing. Pigs are used for practice by students, their skin being similar to humans'. At the end of each school year, thousands are simply dumped into the river, upsetting Shanghai residents downstream. 'Hipster Pig Soup' is how Shanghaians refer to the river at these times.
While we're talking China, did you know that all 15,000 of those pigs floating in Haungpu River were TATTOOED!?! It seems the Chinese are intent on winning the 'culture wars' as well as the dominating the global economy, and a massive tattoo training academy in Jiaxing is churning out new artists by the thousands! Not only that, the factories which actually produce the 'authentic workwear' found in hipster shops worldwide is made right next door to the Tattoo Academy! It boggles the mind.
I predict the whole Workwear thing will soon float down the East, Thames, and Columbia rivers like so many tattooed pigs. What's next? We better start googling 'Conart' on ebay, because 80s/90s Hip Hop gear will shortly see middle-class hipsters spinning on their backs atop cardboard squares... mark my words!
[While this article hews close to truth, it's really about April Foolery!! ]
LVMH has long held a profound interest in the Vintage car and motorcycle movement, sponsoring the Louis Vuitton Concours d'Elegance(above) for many years. Those who appreciate the finest old vehicles understand that luxury is always the best value, and with the recent stratospheric rise in visibility of top-tier motorcycles, and the enthusiastic arrival of automotive collectors to the world of two-wheeled excellence, L'Vintagent is already the gold standard.
Our new editor needs no introduction; Mr. Pitt is an enthusiastic collector of Vintage and Custom machinery, and will delight readers with unique reflections on his motorcycling, career, and family life. And what a family! Watch for his intimate portrait of his wife, currently filming 'Tail of the Devil', the incredible life story of Marie Therese von Hammerstein, in which Ms. Jolie executes her own stunts on a cleverly disguised 1961 Triumph TR6. "If Bud Ekins can do it, so can I," says the plucky Angelina!
Mr. d'Orléans will continue to draw a devoted following with his 'I'll go anywhere' attitude, and 'I'll ride anything' reportage. His premier article for L'Vintagent is the first road test of the latest LVMH project: a resurrection of the visionary Sinclair C5, completely updated and with a tremendously powerful new engine, which will change every concept of a 'commuter vehicle', forever!
Simonov tests the 'Roaring Mouse' prototype at the Moscow Air Show parking lot in 2010
Long before the first 'Gas crisis' in 1973, Clive Sinclair was pondering an alternative future of personalized transport. The automobile seemed to him extremely wasteful and expensive for 90% of its daily uses - local transport, errands, short pleasure trips. Since his teenage years Sinclair had pondered small, inexpensive electric personal vehicles, while he built up a reputation as an electronics genius, and developed the first 'slimline' pocket calculators. Sinclair had a clever knack for using very cheap electronic components for new purposes, by altering how their power was supplied or creatively masking printed circuit boards to greatly improve their performance. His company, Sinclair Radionics, was thus never a manufacturer, but used bought-in components to create their own designs. This led to supply problems when certain of Sinclair's products grew wildly popular (as with his wristwatch calculator of 1977). Quality control was also difficult with mass-produced, inexpensive componentry, and Sinclair soon developed a 'no questions asked' replacement policy...as none needed to be asked! Sill, Sinclair-designed electronic devices gained a reputation for tremendous innovation, and he was knighted in 1985 for his contributions to British industry.
The success of his electronics company kept development of Sinclair's personal transport dream on the back burner, but batteries and electric motors were always being tested and designed, usually by Chris Curry (later founder of Acorn computers). A door of opportunity opened in 1983; a new British law decreed that vehicles with a top speed under 15mph could be ridden by 14 year olds, without a helmet or driver's license. Sinclair hired Lotus Cars Ltd to design a monococque plastic body with steel spine chassis, for a 3-wheel vehicle with an electric motor and 'light pedal assistance'.
The waterproof 'c5ondom' protected the driver in the wet
The Sinclair C5 debuted in 1985, with clean, futuristic styling, low price of £399, and ad campaign featuring racing legend Stirling Moss. None of which helped the C5 find the audience it needed to recoup development costs, as rumors and urban myths about the machine and its safety problems eventually killed the project with only 12,000 units sold.
The original C5 of 1985, with 14-year-old driver
In 2008, Bernard Arnault of LVMH, realizing the C5 held the answer to a question no-one had yet asked, bought all rights and tooling for the C5, and hired Mikhael Simonov, chief designer of Sukhoi Aircraft, creator of the legendary Russian fighter Su-27 (still in production). Simonov's brief was to create a small and extremely fuel-efficient jet turbine engine, which he dubbed the 'рев мыши' ('Roaring Mouse'). The engine was ready for tests in 2010, and was soon mated to a prototype 'C5Jet'.
The 'business end' of the C5Jet, with engine cover removed.
The C5Jet has a vastly improved chassis: with a proper steel tube frame and disc brakes under its near-indestructible polypropelene skin, the body is inflammable and designed to absorb tremendous impact, protecting the C5Jet rider. Dispensing with the original C5's pedals and anemic electric motor, all propulsion is provided by the 'Mouse' engine, which spins at 40,000 rpm, and is capable of propelling the C5Jet to over 100mph. The Mouse engine will happily run on biofuels, including filtered cooking oil. It is completely 'green' and while not exactly silent, the advantages in traffic of an oncoming jet engine - no matter how small - cannot be overstated. 'Loud pipes save lives', indeed!
Paul d'Orléans, chief road tester of L'Vintagent, ready to try the C5Jet.
The C5Jet will be available at select Louis Vuitton outlets by late 2011, with a retail price of £22,000.
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