Love/Hate

Love - Zimtstern Snowboard Apparel

I'll admit, I don't know much about this up and coming label, but I have a feeling many of us will soon. Based in Germany, Zimtstern has set out to create a fashion forward collection while still implementing the highest standards of snowboard technology. They recently won Breakthrough Brand of the Year at the SOURCE European Snowboarding Industry forum and the novel way the approach marketing their brand is already making waves in the industry. Their site showcases their products as well as a ton of wallpapers, info on their team, and a blog of their own. This brings me to the entire reason I know of them in the first place. A friend linked me to the most recent ad for their new collection and its mind-blowing to say the least. I wont embed the video here because seeing it HD as big as possible is the only real way to the work justice. Heres the link and be sure the check the making of after. I have immense respect for the guys, choosing to make the concept work in reality as opposed to using CGI to put the entire thing together.

Hate - Goofy Snowboard Collaborations

686 has made a name for themselves in the last couple years for branching out to other companies in their industry, and beyond, to collaborate in their annual collections. I respected their efforts with Dragon and New Era to name a couple, but New Balance? Nikes making a effort of their own, and I'll reserve judgement till I get a better look at what they have to offer. I respected their foray into skateboarding, until I saw their movie Debacle. The trailers looked amazing, shot all in HD, lots of great skating and smashing stuff. Until I got to the end of the movie and it was revealed that all the fights they got into in the video and all the windows they smashed were fake. Everything was acted. The skating and quality was great, but it felt like such a cop out, I guess its a trade off when dealing with such a huge company. They have the budget to film the highest quality and attract some of the best skaters, but it can't be completely true. A move that I didn't hope Nike would pull, but did, sticking themselves out for more criticism than they already face entering such a hostile market. But New Balance? Come on guys.