Last night I watched a short documentary called Tokyo Rising exploring some of the creative output by Japan following the devastating earthquake in March. It’s presented by Pharrell Williams and is beautifully shot. It’s inspiring and interesting and well worth your time. Check out the trailer!

In what might be one of my dullest blog posts ever — and trust me the competition is fierce — I came across Craft Design Technology a Japanese stationary company through my daily Uncrate newsletter, the aesthetics just tick all my boxes.

I’m going to have to figure out how I can get my hands on some crazy-wicked notebooks and stuff.

I realise that I’m a massive nerd but I’m also a coke fiend, I drink copious amounts of the stuff (a vice that my teeth don’t appreciate) but I have to say I kinda think these exclusive original bottles celebrating the 125th Birthday of Coca Cola are something kinda awesome!

Much to my surprise, my previous post about Drop Dead Clothing has been ridiculously popular, so it seems like a good idea to return to it especially in view of their new collection and store opening. I first heard about the relocation after visiting the Brick Lane store, I missed the launch but found a great video of the day.

Unless you’re cool (like me) you might not have known that the exclusive Japanese fashion label A Bathing Ape, set up one of their exclusive Pirate Pop-Up Stores in Shoreditch last week which ended it’s run today. It was a chance to pick up items for a highly discounted price. Largely this meant t-shirts were still a ridiculous £80 instead of the incredibly ridiculous £160 that they originally sold for!

It took me an absolute age to find the Dray Walk Gallery which was playing host to the store just off Brick Lane. I spent a good while, searching around and walking to dead ends before I discovered it was right around the corner from where the Hyper Japan event was hosted a short while ago. By the time I arrived there was a pretty formidable crowd winding it’s way around the building and I decided I’d come back later. I’m glad I did because I was able to walk straight in when I returned a few hours later.

Unfortunately by the time I returned, there wasn’t really much of anything worth buying. Had I known it was running all week, I might have tried again to pick up something awesome but oh well I’ll just have to visit their permanent store in Central London for that once I’m a millionaire of course!

China is frequently reknowned for it’s cheap luxury knock-offs, Shirtflag aims to change that perception. Hailing from Shanghai, the fashion brand have remixed Mao-era propaganda art with modern cultural icons to create some inspiring designs. There was news that they were planning to open a store in London but that hasn’t seemed to have transpired, not to fret, with the wonders of the internetz you can order online!

Spanish designer Hexagonal, has created a project of distilling film posters to their fundamental elements. Some of them are absolutely brilliant, unsurprisingly I’m quite a fan of his adaptation of Akira. I leave you with a selection of his work below.

Akira belongs in my list of top ten films of all time, straddling somewhere near the very precipice, it’s certainly my favourite animation ever created. A lot of people have been inspired by Akira and one fan in particular hopes to set up an exhibition to honour some of the pain staking work to create the film. Watch his video below and sponsor him if you can afford it!

When I visited Tokyo, my good friend Darren informed me about this curious little character called ‘Gloomy Bear‘, a quick trip to Kiddyland lead me to the purchase of a number of Gloomy Bear related items. I had a really neat keyring but have lost is since then, luckily for me it looks like you can pick them up at the Kidrobot online store. So that’s what I’ll be doing.

Returning back to London from Sheffield, I ventured out with my little sister to go shopping. Whilst walking around Covent Garden I discovered that Kidrobot had opened their first British store while I’d been away. I first came across Kidrobot through my slight obsession with the Japanese Gloomy Bear franchise, as they’re fine purveyors of designer toys for man-babies like myself.

It’s a shame I didn’t have much time to have a look around the store but I definitely plan to when I have a free weekend. If you’re unable to get to London, don’t fret you can always peruse their online store. They’re offering 20% off every Monday during January!