Last week I was blessed with a trifecta of packages in the mail… always good to know people are looking out for you haha. First up was the Zebra Sharbo X pen. Its claim to fame is an assortment of different customizable pen options and tips. Two of the three different options can include ball-point, gel and stylus tips in all your usual widths such as 0.38 mm, 0.5 mm and 0.7 mm. Of course colors range from your usual blue, black and red to more unorthodox colors under the rainbow. The 3rd option is a mechanical pencil and I really won’t be using that shit all that often which sucks cause you can’t roll with three pen options. But the whole pen is pretty solid, made out of brass. The clip would have been better off if it wasn’t plastic. Oh well. The ink is pretty buttery smooth so no complaints here. No point assaulting your eyes with a pen test with my horrendous hand-writing. I bought my barrel off of English Rakuten and the refills from pencils.jp (you can buy barrel and refills off there but I didn’t know) but if you’re in the US, you can get it all through Jet Pens.

Next up was a pair of the new Stussy x Haze x PRO-KEDS joints courtesy of Dante Ross who’s overseeing things at PRO-KEDS. Haze has been BIG this year in 2010 already, making airwaves with his Stussy collabo. Can’t really fault these two entities, few are more legit or respected. Some might say that Haze’s work is overly simple, yet from so many angles being un-complex in your aesthetics isn’t an easy feat either. I always love watching people do up their tags and when Haze was in Hong Kong a few years ago, it was great seeing how smooth and methodical he was. But back to PRO-KEDS, I must say Dante Ross has been doing a fine job and putting together some real solid collaborations hitting various markets. Awhile back he had offered to do something with Hypebeast but I must say, we were a little narrow-sighted and weren’t sure exactly what Dante had cooked up in the pipeline. That’s the shitty party about conversing and trying to talk shop over the Internet, it really can be difficult to get the point across at times. Oh well our loss totally but what can you really do?

Last but certainly not least, Philly G. hooked up this sick Bread & Butter (the tradeshow) x Penfield down vest. Real solid shit, with a nice raw denim meets rich brown leather yoke. How do I know it’s essentially raw denim… aside from the coarse texture as you’d assume with raw denim steez, it stained the shit outta my white Bedwin button-up haha… but as I told Philly, “I ain’t mad at you” cause luckily that shit washed out. But worth noting, this recently concluded Bread & Butter was Phil’s last one before he takes the plunge to start his own shit. I feel for the person filling his shoes cause Phil was a super character with Bread & Butter… a definite great all around guy who I had the good fortune of meeting in person in Tokyo during Halloween. In addition, he’s put together some solid projects with B&B in the past which include this aforementioned vest, headphones with WeSC, a fucking baby stroller with Bugaboo (!!!) and a two-pack of “Salmon & Butter” sneakers last year with ASICS. Best of luck to this dude… but he won’t need it.

-Eugene

1 – 0.38 mm Pencil | 2 – 0.5 mm Black Gel | 3 – 0.7 mm Magenta Gel

Different lines mark each option.

Packaging was legit.

Unfortunately, in one month I’ll have to put this sucker away cause it’ll be too war.