We love telling a good story here at KSPACE, as much as we love playing around with the idea of all things classic – past, present, future and even future primitive. So we’re delighted at this time to be unrolling a story not previously told, of an iconic brand steeped in ‘the Classic’ and better yet we get to tell it with the help of eight highly credible international designers over the next couple weeks – it goes a little something like this …..

California son Sam Querrey is now Team K-Swiss. He recently took the title at LA’s Tennis Open and is ranked 24th in the world, second-highest American behind Roddick. The 22 year-old has been touted as America’s next great talent.

People come to California, expecting a perpetual sunbathed beach front that glide right up to the Golden Gate bridge — a beautiful, exotic locale. However, there’s a big expanse between LA and SF, which is filled with some of the best agricultural and natural land in the world. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some incredible sights along the coast. However, there’s also one city, the equivalent of the flyover states for California, a town called Fresno. Nicknamed by many “the armpit of California”…

Ari has been shooting the zeitgeist that is his life, from snowboarders and skateboards that he calls friends, and the obligatory downtown characters, for over 20 years. He came up alongside the Haring and Basquiat, and had deep connections to the art community that nourished his raw talent.

If you remember Dogtown and Z Boys, the early incarnation of skateboarding as a competitive sport was slalom. Eventually, the push towards freestyle would leave it in the dust, seeming like a relic from another age. However, the sport itself is still young…

Templeton embodies the juxtaposition between modern art and suburban culture. He’s one of the few pioneers at the cross-section between street art and street skating, an intersection that has gone on to produce a new generation of artists and skaters. Actually, he is the cross-section. Just as skating took a leap toward innovation and singular expression, the art world began to embrace the same principals.

Nosaj Thing has quickly garnered attention from outlets as dispersed as the BBC, The Fader and Giant Robot magazine. Called an “essential purchase”, “startlingly good” and “the future of hip-hop and what producers will be biting in the next couple of years”, Drift, the electronic, beat-driven debut LP has already topped the Bleep and Boomkat…

Woe to anyone in Southern California who tries to put on any sort of non-basketball related event on the night of a Lakers game during the finals. Even the electronic-music nerds couldn’t tear themselves away from the Lakers crushing Orlando Magic 100-75, as was evident to The Field playing to 30 people exactly (yes, I counted) last night at the Glass House in Pomona. Come all the way from Sweden for this?