Vane Lifestyle Clothing.

End of April

I just threw up the remaining pictures from April. I got the new Blackberry Pearl and it's a lil small for my taste but it has a camera in it and I been playin with that. I never used a camera phone before but I guess now I can finally take those pervy pictures up girls skirts in the train that I always dreamed of.

VANE 1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY & SPRING SHOWCASE

Saturday May 19th, 2007
Showcase: 8pm-10pm
Celebration: 10pm-3am
3 W. 30th St. #4 at Broadway, New York City

On Saturday, May19th, join the Vane Fam at a private, Midtown Loft as we celebrate our 1-Year Anniversary and first season in NY Retail! Come early to shop and buy the Spring Line from 8pm-10pm, come [or stay] later at 10pm for the free booze, good music, and better people.

Sounds provided courtesy of DJ Yose and Flith.net, with a special live performance by Folk & Stress.

Please RSVP to events@wearevane.com no later than 6pm Wednesday, May 16th, with VANE ANNIVERSARY in the heading of the e-mail.

Labels: Events, Updates

A Son's Sacrifice

Musa Syed, a good friend of mine, and Yoni Brook recently completed a film called "A Son's Sacrifice". The movie is opening in the tribeca film festival and to promote it they are throwing a block party tomorrow, Sunday April 29th. I haven't seen it yet but looks like a great documentary and the black party should be good ol' halal fun. I don't really hike up to Queens that often but this looks like it will be worth the trip.

HalalFest Block Party
Celebrating the Many Cultures of Queens & "A Son's Sacrifice" at Tribeca Film Festival

When:
Sunday, April 29 1PM – 4PM

Where:
Madani Halal Lamb, Goat, & Poultry
100-15 94th Avenue,
Ozone Park, NY (A or J train to 104 St stations)

Celebrate the diversity of Queens and meet neighbors at a FREE block party for the documentary film "A Son's Sacrifice" premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival. This weekend a storefront slaughterhouse in Queens NYC will be transformed into a venue for music, dance, film and international cuisine.

MUSIC & DANCE from the Bangladeshi Institute of Performing Arts, Kashmiri-American band "ZeroBridge", Guyanese singing-sensation Nadir, and legendary hip-hop b-boy Fable Pabon and members of the Rock Steady crew.

FREE HALAL FOOD samples from local West Indian, Afghan, and Bangladeshi restaurants.

FILM SCREENING of "A Son's Sacrifice" a new PBS documentary about the family-run slaughterhouse premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.

TOURS of Madani Halal, where thousands of families gather to bless and buy their meat.

KIDS visit a farm petting zoo, learn Arabic calligraphy, get henna tattoos, and practice their cricket skills with NYC Bengals cricket team.

FREE BUS TRANSPORTATION from midtown Manhattan. Schoolbuses will pick up visitors next to Penn Station at 31st Street and 8th Avenue at 12:15 PM and 12:30 PM sharp and make return trips to Penn Station throughout the afternoon. Check the site for schedule updates.

Tribeca Film Festival Opening Day

I was hired to shoot the opening of the Tribeca film festival today which basically meant I had an all access pass (sweeet). So in addition to getting some great flicks, I got to see the first line up of films which all dealt with "the climate crisis". Some of them were real powerful and got the message across real well and others were just "eh", boring i guess you could call it. Global warming is a serious problem but it is also one that most people don't care about or want to be bothered about. It's a dry subject and if your making a film about it, it better be energetic, young and inspiring.
Here are some pictures from the night...

Jon Bon Jovi Performed

Check out this kick ass venue the after party was at

True Story, No Bull[Sh*t]

Ok, so true story. My boy would get to work at Merrill Lynch and log onto the Vane site, everyday, to stay up with us. And I mean EVERYDAY. And my boy is thorough, and he read every section on the site. Twice.

Well since corporate communications are monitored more than Al Queda airwaves, the site was revisited so often that it got red flagged. And then it was BANNED from being accessed from the Merril server. Vane is no longer welcome there. Single-handedly, my boy got our site restriced from that office forever.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Maaad props to Pino. Vane all day every damn day.

When Collie Buddz Come Around….He’s rocking Vane!

A couple of days ago we had a photoshoot for YRB magazine with the man that’s being hailed as the next Sean Paul in terms of his crossover appeal, although the man neither sounds nor looks much like him. His current single, “Come Around,” has been getting massive radio and MTV rotation, and has undoubtedly been rocking your favorite local club as well. What makes his mainstream appeal even more…umm, appealing, is the fact that he looks white at first glance, due to his half-Bermudian and half-white lineage. Believe me people, the dood is set to blow up crazy.

We were fortunate enough to bullshit with Collie on-set, and he was super humble, rolling only with his road manager and his publicist. It was funny because someone threw on his music to listen to during the shoot to relax him, but Collie wasn’t having it. He asked for anything but himself. I guess when you’re all over the radio, you tend to get sick of hearing yourself.

In any case, Collie was feeling the One Love Tee, and happily rocked it not only for the YRB shoot, but also out of the studio to his next gig. Shouts to Collie Buddz and his road manager Kevin, and much love to Sami and Darius at YRB.

Click here to buy this tee.

A World Free of TB by James Nachtwey

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the James Nachtwey exhibit at the UN. Well, I finally got around to checking it out. The project is called "World Free of TB" and is an attemt to raise awareness about Tuberculosis.
Someone at the show said "I didn't even know this was a problem." Thats so true, there are many issues around the world that we are so oblivious to, we don't acknowledge or just simply don't hear about.
I'm not even gonna try to explain how I felt looking at these images cuz, not to be corny or anything, I got no words. Here are some images from the exhibit. All images are property of James Nachtwey.

PS. I turned comments back on, I would like to encourage a dialogue about posts like this. What people feel about the images or the issue in general. So feel free to click on the link at the end of the post and share your thoughts.

To Him We Shall Return

A couple of days ago I was hired to shoot Mohammad Ali (Aerosol Arabic), a South Asian Graffiti artist from London. Mohammad was spraying a mural for the Magassa children, that passed away in a fire in the Bronx. The mural is about 20 feet wide and is a fusion of arabic and english. In arabic it say Inalillahe which translates to "From him we came." In english it reads "to him we shall return"

It was like a mini block party, people from all over the community stopped by to show their support. Local restaurants were sending us food. By the second day kids were cutting school just to see this go down. At one point Mrs. Magassa, the mother of the children, stopped by with food for everyone who was there. Coincidently that was the moment when Mohammad was throwing up the names of the children. Not being to control her emotions, the mother started crying and as a reaction to her other people there started crying and some teary eyed, even the artist. I have never seen so much emotion surrounding a piece of art. It was as if everyone there felt a fraction of her pain for that moment.

He did something that I thought was really smart. He gave every kid on that block a can of paint and asked them to contribute. This way the kids have a sense of ownership of that piece and will make sure that no one messes it up or takes it down.

If you would like to view the Mural take the 4 train to Mt Eden and goto the corner of Mt Eden and Townsend. Its a block from the train and is worth checking out.

I thought I would share some of the flicks from those days...