For more than 130 years, Seiko has been helping people across the globe get to meetings, dates, and other social engagements on time. And like all watch-makers these days, the challenge is to get people to wear their brands when we're so used to glancing at our phones for a time check.

For such a basic accoutrement, Seiko has aways aimed to innovate. The company lays claim to a number of firsts: the first quartz watch, the first multifunction digital watch, the first TV watch, the first watch with sound-recording functions, and the world’s first watch driven by body heat. They even just churned out the first solar-powered watch that can set its own time via GPS so anybody who travels a lot won’t have to keep resetting it.

All of these innovations have been housed in a wide variety of designs. Now the Seiko brand is turning to New York City to inspire its latest line, the XNY, which is being sold exclusively at Macy’s. According to a press release, the XNY “watches reflect the youthful energy, artistic diversity and powerful strength of New York City.”

Naturally, any New York-inspired timepiece would come in black.Continue reading...

Gap isn't the only apparel brand getting its dance on. Check out Levi's latest videos: for Curve ID, above, and featuring dancer Maybelline Wong, below.Continue reading...

In a summer of shimmering heat, two high-end jewelry brands are offering royalty and art as artistic salve.

As you can see above, Tiffany & Co. is finally opening its Soho store in New York, and fêting the event with four artists’ renderings of true love — a recurring theme for the brand — “to trick out the hoarding around the façade” for two week stints each, each installation displayed on oversized wooden canvases in front of the Tiffany & Co. storefront as behind the scenes everything's getting ready for the opening.

Artist Danielle Dimstom kicked off the collaboration on July 16 with a stylized combination of text and drawings, followed by street artist Ellis Gallagher’s unique take on the colors of love on July 27. The current installation features a mural from Igor + Andre, which will be followed by the final artist in the series, Natasha Law. The installations can be viewed at 97 Greene Street.Continue reading...

Continuing its annual tradition, Jack Daniel's commissioned graphic designers to come up with their interpretation of America's July 4th holiday. The results (along with short films on their process and inspiratioin) can be viewed at jackdaniels.com/independence.

The brand worked with independent artists in Berkeley, CA; Austin, TX; and Brooklyn, NY, to create five posters centered around the theme of Independence. The poster above, for example, was "sewn entirely by hand using hand-dyed, American muslin fabric soaked in tea and Jack Daniel's."

The project also raises a glass this year to letterpress pioneers Yee-Haw Industries, which produced 10 posters for the project kick-off last year and (sadly) recently shut its doors.

For the last three years, Levi’s has been urging Americans, and then last year the world in its first ever global campaign, to “Go Forth” and make a difference. Be a Pioneer! Work Hard! Be Brave!

Since then, the leaders and governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen have all been overthrown and plenty of other countries throughout the globe have experienced change. Levi’s probably isn’t responsible for this, but it did hold back its 2011 commercial in the UK for a bit because it would have originally launched right in the middle of riots in England and that wouldn’t have been the most brilliant PR move.

Maybe because it’s an election year. Maybe it doesn’t want to rabble rouse during the Olympics. Maybe the company is afraid of its own power. Or maybe (more likely) the campaign has run its course and the company just wanted to put its dollars elsewhere. Whatever its reasons, Levi’s has decided to not run its “Go Forth” campaign this year for the first time since it launched in 2009 on Independence Day.Continue reading...

Duct tape maker Duck Tape has a light side, making fun of the common mispronunciation of its product with its brand name. Now it's sponsoring a sticky contest, inviting young fans to design and wear outfits made from duct tape to their spring proms and post pictures on the brand’s website. The winners will be chosen through online voting that runs through July 11.

Brooke Wallace, 17, of Solomon, Kansas (above) spent more than 200 hours creating a western-style prom dress for herself and a suit for her date, using 42 rolls of duct tape. She and her date, Mark Aylward, named one of 10 finalists, could each win $5,000 scholarships and an additional $5,000 for their school, Solomon High School. Wallace chose a rodeo theme because “we both live in the country, so it fit our style.”Continue reading...

When you manufacture electric razors, you spend a lot of time thinking about the shape of people’s faces and noticing how much the simple construction and care of a face communicates about somebody.

Procter & Gamble’s Braun brand took that notion and created the “Wear your face” campaign, which is now turning into a book that will benefit UNICEF. The book, Wear Your Face: Portraits of Men of Varying Ages, Origin, and Character, was the idea of BBDO Proximity Duesseldorf creative director Olaf Reys, who worked on the Braun campaign for P&G.

Reys teamed up with some of the world’s best-known photographers to capture some of the world’s best-known faces, including George Clooney, Robert de Niro, Mickey Rourke, and Mick Jagger.

“Today the male public image is multifaceted and malleable, presenting a kaleidoscope of diversity and sophistication,” Reys said in a press release. “The work I amassed is a visual documentation of how far society has moved towards a more tolerant interpretation of masculinity – and femininity.”Continue reading...

Skechers recently got itself into hot water when it had to shell out $40 million to settle a suit brought against it by the Federal Trade Commission to settle false advertising charges that its “toning sneakers” could make consumers look and actually be healthier without having them change their behavior in any other way.

Now the shoe brand is looking to build back some of the good feeling it torpedoed with that incident.

The company just announced that it has “donated its first million pair of kids’ shoes through its BOBS from SKECHERS program, which gives a new pair to a child in need for every BOBS footwear purchase.” Those shoes will be finding the feet of kids in the U.S., Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The BOBS sub-brand, which already mimics philanthropic brand TOMS in name, logo and shoe design, is clearly taking a cue from TOMS' "One For One" mission, which donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased.

That clearly doesn't bother celebrity ambassador Brooke Burke-Charvet, the co-host of Dancing With the Stars, who trades her Skecher Shape-ups "toning shoes" for BOBS for the photo opp.Continue reading...