THE WOOZY LIFE

After Tahoe I decided to take a quick trip out to Vegas to check out MAGIC since I’ve never been before. My homegirl Nereida aka womens footwear merchandiser/color wizard/illustrator extraordinaire/my fashion guru at DC Shoes was heading out there to do the rounds so I decided to go with her. 36 hours in Vegas and a room at the Venetian courtesy of DC Shoes? How could I say no? Having been to ASR, SIA and SURF EXPO, the only tradeshow experience I know involves bros, energy drink pro-hos, groms running around feening for schwag and usually the perfect beer buzz right around 4pm…so I was interested to see how a fashion tradeshow would stack up. MAGIC is actually a bunch of tradeshows linked together. The ones we made it to were MAGIC, PROJECT, S.L.A.T.E and POOL. From what I took away from it all, MAGIC is basically women’s fashion big brands, everything from true religion to skechers (barf). PROJECT is fashion forward boutique-y brands big and small such as L.A.M.B, Alife, Insight plus lots of up and comers. S.L.A.T.E is basically ASR and Agenda mixed with Affliction, Ed Hardy + MMA brands + HOT TOPIC type stuff. POOL is more accessory based brands such as Tokidoki, Yakpak and Baggu and focused on brands that have a message behind the fashion such as green initiatives, etc. SLATE is the most relevant for me and anyone in action sports and in true skate/surf/snow/streetwear nature it was definitely the most happening of the four shows. I guess having Skullcandy on any tradeshow floor rockin live DJ sets pretty much always means a party.

PS. to the couple of people that gave me shit when they saw me taking photos, I say to you, if your products are really that amazing and unique, you should be confident that no one will be able to replicate it. And if someone does come up with the same shit…then that just means you need to step up your marketing game. It’s a dog eat dog world we live in so stop worrying about me taking photos and start working a little harder. End of story.

And here is the photo recap of our trip:

PROJECT

dear gwen, let's be friends?

no kegs here, just chandeliers

not surprising...

DC booth poppin off

art at SLATE

skullcandy display

neff lookin good as always

the girl version of the jessie beanie, called the jessica. love it

dig

the bedazzled trend apparently is not going anywhere. fuck.

kimbo slice!

my favorite brand!! no really i'm not being sarcastic. i love a tshirt that looks like someone puked on it and the puke took the shape of a dragon holding a rose wrapped around a skull sitting on a tiger who is holding hands with a koi fish. whats not to love?

leggings for men? this guy has a perfect body and it still looks wrong which means its not going to work, sorry.

nope not shaun white's brand...weird

who cares if you are wearing the worlds ugliest shoes, as long as you are losing weight

lounge area display....i like

i wonder how many beers i need to drink in order to make my own

every other booth had some as seen on blah blah blah celeb ... glad im in action sports and we have people who actually do something cool aka riders to rep our brands

american apparel lookin clean as always

you be the judge

they need to hit up liz lemon for some product placement ASAP

high fydelity stereo bags lookin fresh

neon green - solar panels that charge your iphone...genius

this is how we do

wouldn't be a complete vegas trip without having a beer on the strip

what a beautiful.....mall.

elvis signing autographs in front of mickey d's . doesn't get more vegas than that

just like the real venice. except not at all.

keepin it classy

nothing like a fake pretty blue sky

nereida getting down to business - iphoning and crackberrying at the same time. such a dedicated employee.

A special “people watching at MAGIC” photo gallery on the next post. It’s entertaining, I promise.