Busy Busy Busy!

Busy busy busy! Where to start?

I left Copenhagen on 23rd December, after finishing off most of the odd jobs I needed to do before the Christmas break. The Spring 12 Pre-Collection was released (something I was responsible for) With a lot of help from my co-workers, the collection was launched and people were happy.

We had a few nice breakfasts in the office:

And we had a lovely visitor in the apartment just before I left:

Christmas was great. I was back home in Woking for a few days, with family friends in Newbury, and then in St. Alban's for the rest of my Christmas break. It was a well needed rest and I ended up going back to Copenhagen feeling much healthier than when I left 10 days beforehand!

We went to the theatre for Ellie's birthday:

My first week back was packed, as expected, with the January sale in full flow and lots of sales planning going on for AW12. Insight AW12 collection for Men and Women arrived in the apartment:

The buyers are currently at Pitti Uomo (Florence) to do the majority of the buying for Norse Store. As for Streetmachine, they will be doing a lot in Berlin from Wednesday next week. 

Some very exciting news... I will be representing Norse Projects at "Capsule" in Berlin and Paris! I will be selling to existing stores and showing the collection to potential buyers, alongside Kenneth, the commercial manager. So, I leave for Berlin on Wednesday 18th, fly to Paris on the 20th and come back to Copenhagen on the 24th. This will be my first time at the trade fairs so I am pretty pumped about meeting lots of new people.

Last Friday I got back to the apartment after a long day in the office, only to find Ellie there! Surprise was an understatement! We went to Malmö, Sweden, on Saturday, and had a really good weekend hanging out. We went to a museum / art gallery / aquarium which was super cool, and ate lots of nice food!

Check out the last photo - that painting was pretty creepy. Anyway... very good times indeed. 

My next post will be about my travels. I hope to take lots of photos, but I might not be able to take many because everyone is going to be very sensitive in regards to photography (seeing as the product I will be seeing isn't out in stores until August / September 2012). I'll see what I can do, just you can get the idea of where I went! :)

Champion Cook?

Hi all! As with every post on here, I will start by saying that work has been busy but enjoyable! My highlight has probably been seeing the success of the latest Norse Projects caps. Mikkel found some interesting fabrics on one of his trips to Japan, took it to the factory in America and made a few very special 5 panel caps. This is what they look like:

Crazy, right? Well, the top ones sold out in a few days - pretty impressive. Then we released the second batch on Wednesday and they sold out in under 6 hours. Insane! So... we're going to make more interesting exclusives like this because we know that they are incredibly popular! I will of course share them on here once they are released!

Last night we went down to Streetmachine for a few beers after work. I bumped into American rapper 'The Game' outside the store. Apparently he played a show in Copenhagen last night and fancied a bit of Pre-Christmas shopping before his flight in the evening. Obviously, a photo would have been dope, but he refused. Never mind.

Here's a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago about a very special brand called Mister Freedom. They make clothing with amazing attention to detail, some of the most well-made stuff I've seen this year.

Mister Freedom Blog Post

Today I went down to the skatepark for the annual Streetmachine x HUF skate comp. Me and Nick picked up 500 bottles off the lovely people at 'Vitamin Well' yesterday and delivered it to the park:

Photos from today:

Onto more important stuff... a collection of photos from the past few weeks. 

Tonight's dinner:

Followed by:

Last week I made Angel Delight for my housemates. They liked it! I haven't seen it in Denmark and they have never had it before. Thanks go to Ellie for sending it to me!

My second favourite dog in Denmark (my favourite is Gustav, the office dog!):

 Nice job:

Polaroid:

All taken on my £25 a month alarm clock (also called a BlackBerry).

Anyway, I'm going to go and wrap some presents. (Please note, at this point I would make a really funny joke about 'wrapping' and 'rapping', maybe with a comical reference to 'The Game', but I wouldn't want to disappoint my Father's gifted sense of humour). Hyggelig.

What did you say?

This week was an interesting one. We released the first drop of new caps, which are absolutely flying. I wrote a very short blog post about them here. Next week we're releasing the next batch... they're pretty loud!

Last night was the worldwide premiere of the new Nike SB Chronicles film. Streetmachine were one of two Danish stores taking part in the event - we all crammed into a room with a projector and some free beer, and waited until the release at 1am. The movie was INSANE! Here's the trailer:

The last part (Grant Taylor) was unreal. Definitely worth a watch if skateboarding is your thing. (Note: Skateboarding isn't really my thing, but the culture here revolves around skate lifestyle so I've pretty much been dragged straight into it!). 

Today was rather out of the ordinary. A few months ago someone phoned me asking whether I could do some voice recordings because I am English. Today, I went to a recording studio near Hellerup (north of Copenhagen) to find out what it was all about.

Turns out that the recording was for the English summer exams in Danish schools... nationwide! So, come May or June 2012, every student in the 9th Grade will hear my voice reading out various speaking / listening / comprehension exercises! I always used to hate it in German listening exams, not being able to understand what they were saying (because languages were never my strong point), so it was pretty funny to be on the "other side" today. I'm sure many Danish kids will walk out of their exam next year hating my voice because of it! Good stuff.

And finally... Christmas is coming. Norse Projects Holiday 2011 collection should be arriving any time this week, so things are going to get busy! Then again, they never really stopped getting busy. Fun fun fun!

Home

I visited home last weekend for a short break. On Friday I saw my Dad and Sister in Woking, then went down to Bournemouth in the evening to see Ellie. I was pleasantly surprised by a party of guests that had all come to see me... so good!

Here are most of us on Friday evening:

Saturday consisted of [me winning] mini golf and on Sunday it was so good to see everyone from church. 

Back in Denmark, the weather is way colder! We're getting closer to the launch of Norse Projects Holiday 2011 collection which is looking lovely, and I am currently working hard on that.

Here's some blogging I've done recently on the Norse Store website.

Who said red is dead?

Grandpa sandals are cool.

And in other exciting news, we received the samples of the new Norse Projects x Ally Capellino bag in the office the other week. It's going to be released sometime in January or February, hopefully in time for fashion week!

p.s. squash racquets are tasty.

Lager Udsalg!

Yes, this weekend was the warehouse sale in our apartment. Lots of cheap goodies for boys and girls...

Friday was by far the busiest day, but there was a constant flow of traffic on Saturday and Sunday. We had a load of stuff from Etnies, Vans, Insight and Elwood, as well as a few other bits and bobs.

Sunday evening we all helped Bjorn pack everything down, and enjoyed a glass of wine once we had finished. Good stuff!

J Day!

Friday saw the official beginning of Christmas in Denmark, with the release of Julebryg (Christmas beer!):

All the pubs and bars celebrate with over the top decorations, including fake snow and the odd reindeer cardboard cut out. Here's one just down the road from the offices I work in:

And here's a very Christmassy Georg Jensen in town:

That photo was taken at 4.45pm today - it's really starting to feel like Winter. Now I just have to wait for the cold weather to begin I guess!

The oncoming festive season means that deadlines are slowly approaching and the Norse Projects AW12 collection is starting to take some real shape. I took a look at everything in the office that had been done so far, and I am very excited to say it's looking great. I'm looking forward to seeing how some of it turns out, as we expect to receive samples before the shows in January. 

Moving on... here's what I am currently tucking into:

Followed by this:

Top notch.