Parra this, Parra that! Parra, yada, yada! First off in Parra related news – Arkitip are presenting Parra’s first ever Exhibition and Pop Up Shop in Germany. Find out more here

Secondly, and more importantly, LOOK AT MY PARRA SHOES!!! (gotta click ‘more…’ to see ‘em though!)

All I need now is a pipe! With the financial world collapsing, and money getting tight, many of us are going to be spending more time at home. So it’s only fair that we should be comfortable whilst lounging around the place. Maybe a pair of slippers wouldn’t be such a bad stocking filler this christmas? Especially if they’re a pair of artificial sneaker slippers from String Republic. Designed to look like your favorite sneakers, these pure virgin-wool lined slippers are stylish enough that don’t have to be ashamed of wearing them when your friends turn up on your doorstep.

Buy them now in time for christmas at String Republic.

Art lovers and denim connoisseurs now have a new joint objects of desire. The artist Damien Hirst has teamed up with Levi’s to produce Damien Hirst X Levi’s a limited edition capsule collection. The Levi’s brand and designer Adrian Nyman worked closely with Hirst to showcase his art in an exclusive, custom range of jeans and tops that is sure to be highly regarded by the most discerning denim collectors. The collection revolves around three key themes of Damien Hirst’s body of work – the skull, spots and tropical butterfly. Jeans and T-shirts are emblazoned with iconic Hirst imagery – tropical butterflies, dots and skulls.

Retail Prices start at £55 for tees, £150 for jeans and the collection will launch at Cinch, Newburgh Street, London, W1F 7RG, from October 14 2008.

So hot, my sunglasses are melting! You gotta love Anna Ter Haar’s Dripping Sunglasses made for the catwalk show of designer Klavers van Engelen fall / winter 2008-2009 collection shown at Milan fashion week.

See more work by Anna Ter Harr.

New clothing available from Parra. I’ve mentioned Rockwell Clothing by illustrator/artist Parra before, but it now seems the clothing store is full of new products featuring Parra’s distinct graphic styles.

Buy some new threads at Rockwell Clothing.

Don’t be S.A.D, be happy! Graphic designer Keith Hancox has created some clever t-shirts for a friend who suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder. The first S.A.D T-Shirt is over printed with black heat sensitive ink which turns transparent at 32ºc. So when the sun comes out, and the heat rises, the black clouds on the t-shirt fade away and the sun shines! The second S.A.D T-Shirt is screen-printed with the statement, “The Sun is nature’s Prozac”, in uv sensitive ink which only appears under sunlight. Clever stuff!

See more work by Keith Hancox.

Upgrade those nasty plastic bags of yours! Curated by Process Packaging, the Re-Bag Exhibition is a collection of limited edition reusable canvas bags designed by 15 of the UK’s leading design talents.

Designers were asked to create a design centered on the theme of sustainability and reusability. The resulting bags are produced in limited edition batches of 250, and are available to buy. So dump those environmentally damaging plastic carrier bags and pick yourself up a stylish eco-friendly alternative.

Find out more at Re-Bag.

Catwalk Fashion. Now available in wallpaper. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is best known in fashion circles for his graphic heavy clothes collections. His coloured pop-art style patterns in the past have referenced Mikey Mouse, Princess Diana, Union Jacks and Jimi Hendrix. Now he’s bringing that style to the world of interiors with a collaboration with the wallpaper company Letuce. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s wallpaper debut features Zebras and the Eiffel Tower, supermarket receipts, Manga cartoons and the Taj Mahal.

They’re going to be priced at roughly £18/€25 per 10m roll, so call 00 33 1 55 34 10 10 for stockists if you’re interested.

Challange to the concept of jewelry, or a porkchop in a bag? I’m not going to get all deep on you, so I’ll just say that Ted Noten is crazy. But good crazy, not ‘eating spiders and mumbling absurdities’ crazy. His jewelry designs consist of porkchops, golden bullets, cocaine, starlings, broken coffee cups and a whole heap of other bizarre objects.

Just go and check it out for yourself at TedNoten.com

Art & Underwear. Although we’re used to the use of homo-erotic photography being used to flog underwear to the greater public, Bulge are doing it with a twist. For €99 you can buy a package consisting of a signed, numbered & framed photographic print of a subject wearing an item of Bulge underwear, and also the item of bulgewear featured in your print for yourself in your size.

So if you’re into artwork of men in their pants, and you happen to be in the market for a new pair of y-fronts, you better get yourself over to Bulge.

“You so Haole, you dont even know you haole.” I get emails from people who run t-shirt companies on a daily basis. It seems like every man and his dog wants to be the owner of a hip designer t-shirt company, and most of the time they’re just carbon copies of each other. It’s the same played-out vector graphics style designs time and time again, and I’m bored of it!

So it was a breath of fresh air to get an email from TheRyde.com. It’s almost like they’ve been going through my garbage to find out my likes and dislikes in order to design my ultimate t-shirt. They’ve got the hand-drawn type I’m a fan of, and a simple black and white colour scheme, but ultimately they’ve based it around my guiltiest pleasure, and that’s the greatest movie ever known to mankind, the 80′s surf film North Shore. Unless you were a surfer growing up in the 80′s you probably wont appreciate the North Shore T-Shirt, but for those who did, it’s probably the best t-shirt ever created (and as an added bonus for those people, check out the North Shore Soundboard!)

Even if you don’t appreciate the North Shore T-Shirt, there are many other great laid-back designs to choose from at TheRyde.com, so go and check it out.

Like a supermarket special offer, only infinitely cooler. Back in March I posted about the designer espadrilles over at The String Republic. It seems they’re now available to buy, and there is even a ‘buy two pairs, get third free’ offer this month.

So I suggest everyone pile over to The String Republic right now to take advantage of the offer before all the best styles are gone (many of my personal faves have already sold out!)

Get your espadrille fix now, before the summer is over, at The String Republic.

Beware the “hoodies”. In the UK, a sub-culture of underclass youths have been given the name of “hoodies” thanks to their penchant for wearing hooded garments. It seems the hooded tops these youths wear are scaring the middle-classes. But what the middle-classes have yet to experience is the gangs of youths creeping around inner-city shopping centres dressed like scary clowns thanks to the hand-printed clothing of Headhoods.

In a bustling factory in Brooklyn, New York each and every hood is meticulously hand-printed and one-of-a-kind. Check out their MySpace page to see some photos and keep up to date.

Visit the official Headhoods website.

Get some new feet. I’m not really a fan of the hipster-vans-style shoes, but the Loker Model from Fallen Footwear might turn me.

Revenge of the Espadrilles. Last summer The String Republic launched a range of espadrilles covered in fantastic designs. When they were first released, I tried telling everyone that they were cool, but no one would believe me. But, it looks like I’m going to get another chance this summer, judging by the The String Republic Teaser!

A year on, is the world now ready for “The Summer of the Espadrille”?

Keep your eyes on The String Republic.

One for the sneaker freaks! If you love customised sneakers, or you just like creative stuff, check out the latest submissions at customsnkr.com It’s amazing to see the amount of work that people put into making their footware unique and personalised.

More at customsnkr.com

Argyle T-shirts & Floral Lions. Aaron Feiger emailled to tell me about the label he and his girlfriend Ashley Marcinczyk run called Pop Junkie. I often get emails from people looking for a quick bit of free exposure, and, quite frankly, most of the time the stuff they want me to pimp is garbage. So it makes a nice change to get an email from Pop Junkie, as their stuff is great. I particularly like the argyle style Floral Lion t-shirts.

Go and check out the products from Pop Junkie.

A lesson in how to earn brownie points! My girlfriend has started a blog about fashion. If her ability to highlight cool fashion items is anything like her ability to spend money on those items, then it’s bound to be a success. To give her a headstart, I thought I’d let my readers know about her blog. If you’re into fashion, and want to be kept up to date with the latest labels and styles, go and check out Random Fashion Coolness (the name sounds familiar, don’t you think?)

Weddings are boring. The while spectacle of weddings bored me to death. Unfortunately. At some point I’m going to be drawn into one of these organised regimented events, but if I had my way it would be done spur of the moment with an Emergency Wedding Dress by Aleksandra Paszkowska (Rachel, if you’re reading, you should buy one!)

Designer underware. I failed to convince people last summer that the cool illustrated espadrilles available from The String Republic were hip. Now The String Republic are back, but this time with underware. So hopefully it’ll be easier to convince people to wear these great designs this time around.

Via NotCot.

My girlfriend is going to kill me for this! I’ve been running Things of Random Coolness for a few months, and while I haven’t been writing it in any kind of secretive manner, I didn’t go out of my way to tell anyone around me (I didn’t think anyone would be that interested). Consequently, my girlfriend didn’t know I was doing it, and when she found out a few days ago, she went wild. In seems that, although it’s not in the same league as cheating on your partner, not informing them that you write a blog is akin to keeping somekind of secret life.

Anyway, in an attempt to get back into the good books with my girlfriend, and to provide some content that appeals to the female readership (which seems to be quite sizable), I’m highlighting Funnel Neck Jacket by Stella McCartney. My girlfriend highlighted it to me, so now she can feel part of my “secret life” too!

Available from Net-A-Porter.

Young lovers never die. Luke from Young Lovers let me know that they’ve just launched their latest range of t-shirts for 2007. In their words…

The latest collection of t-shirts from indie street label Young Lovers can be likened to ripping your eyes out of your head and eating them. In other words… it’s a bold move and shockingly graphic, but also strangely tasty.

All t-shirts are printed in strictly limited editions of 100, and can be delivered anywhere in the world for a flat rate of $9. So get your orders in before they run out. You’ve got to love the tv static fuzz background to their website too – very hot!

Check out the 2007 range at Young Lovers.

Bandages for the Heart. Alyssa Dee Krauss has made some great silver and gold brooches in the style of band-aid plasters called Bandages for the Heart.

The Bandage for the Heart brooch may be worn to communicate the state of healing we can all go through from divorce, break-up, or illness. It can be worn to show support for victims, casualties and survivors of tragedy or as a “medal of honor” for those who have made it through hard times.

See more work by Alyssa Dee Krauss.

I’ve never had the courage to draw all over my shoes… that’s why I’m jealous of Richard Arifin’s customised converse. And, if you think his shoes are hot, check out his illustrations at Made For You Everyday (if you really like the work, check his blog too!)

Opportunities to abuse your credit card. If you’re anything like me, and you’re a bit of a whore for designer magazines, books, prints, etc. You should check out Fusshop. There’s loads of interesting product to abuse your credit card with.

Check out the products at Fusshop.

Nikes as worn by Prince Charles. Maybe I’m getting old, but I really want some of these Tweed Nikes. All I need then is a nice cardigan, pipe and easy chair, and I can rock the cool grampa look.

It’s guaranteed, I’ll never be able to find these in the real world. Maybe somebody will send me some from Christmas (UK size 8.5 or 9 – just in case Santa Claus is a reader of Things of Random Coolness).

Via Hypebeast.com.

Use and throw away. UEG create products that are designed to to be “ultimately purposefully perishable”. The designs printed on their garments are intended to fade, crack and gradually disappear. The items, made of the paper-like Tyvek material, are guaranteed to deteriorate with wear.

There’s a whole philosophical manifesto behind all this, but I hate nonsense like that, so I can’t be bothered to repeat it. I just like the idea that the product is destined to intentially destroy itself with age.

See the products, and learn more, at UEG.

Creating the “definitive ethical trainer.” Using unsold or damaged jackets from charity shops, scrap leather from car seats, recycled rubber, reused coffee bags, surplus military jackets and re-used jacket buttons, Worn Again are trying to create the “definitive ethical trainer”. Why? As they explain…

The trainer business isn’t pretty. From finding the materials, to the treatment of the people who put them together, to transporting the finished product – making shoes is one of the most resource-intensive, polluting and toxic industries there is.

So if you’re feeling guilty about your sweat-shop trainers and want a beautiful, sexy, guilt-free shoe (my pick is the houndstooth styled shoe); check out the products from Worn Again.

Customise your shoes at a Mongolian Shoe BBQ. Back in 2005 Puma introduced a service that would allow you to customise your own shoe (read Coolhunting.com article for more info.) The service was originally a store based scheme, and unless it was happening in a store near you then you probably wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of it. However, now it’s available to anyone through an online service. So, if you like the 80′s styling of Puma’s RS-100 running shoe, you can now knock out a version unique to you.

Make your own shoe on Puma’s Mongolian Shoe BBQ.