The Best Party of the Year..So far- Adidas

Adidas is one of my favorite brands. Back when I lived in Korea, they use to throw the most awesome branding parties with all the right celebs and musicians in attendance. For the 60th anniversary, the company really splashed out! They threw a global party celebrating six decades of sports and sneaker style. Here in Honkers, they rented a massive loft space in Aberdeen called The Factory. The space was painted entirely by renowned comic book artist Mauro Marchesi and it was exactly the edgy kind of venue needed for such a huge event. I had quite a number of events to attend that night- a couple for luxury brands and one for Lucky Jeans- so I decided to ditch the high-end appearances and just go to the photography exhibit at Lucky Jeans. Everyone was making fun of me because I was wearing this one piece Adidas jumpsuit with a huge logo that went right across my mid-section. People were like "Hey you're at the wrong party!" or "Are you working at the Adidas party tonite?" Well in the end my over the top outfit worked to my advantage...

I was on the the 24 Herbs list (Thanks GS!) but I was with an enormous posse many of whom were not on the the list. When we arrived at the factory, the queue was TITANIC. The line practically stretched around the block in both directions. We walked past this Adidas ice-cream truck which was parked right at the front.  I went straight into the ice-cream truck bit of a 'photo op' session since my outfit actually matched!

The old dude working inside the truck didn't seem to mind. I'm sure at that point he was used to the happily drunk people.We squeezed past the pleb line and angled our way towards the entrance. There was a big crush to get in but we couldn't locate the person with the guestlist. In any case we just melded past security with some of the model clan. Everyone was waiting in line again to get into the lift but I kind of scooted around the side and the entourage followed suite. I'm quite sure security thought I was working there and I needed to get inside to do something.The lifts were crammed with people and it was a bit claustrophobic but once inside the venue, we were delighted by the fabulous set-up!  The set deisgners and brand managers really managed to create a festive carnival-like atmosphere. In addition, they managed to make it homey and cozy despite the venue being so large. There was a pool table, fuzball, a mock swimming pool full of plastic balls in the blue and white Adidas theme colors. There was cotton candy, balloon-like seats that bounced up and down and several art installations which looked like rooms in a house- all plastered with Adidas paraphenalia. In fact, the Adidas logo was absolutely everywhere. There were big projectors projecting Adidas signs on the walls and huge Adidas balloons on all the corners of the roof.24 Herbs performed, models danced around on stage and there was a cake cutting ceremony with actress Shu Qi, some other local celebs and 70's tennis star Stan Smith who Adidas fashioned a line of tennis shoes after. Then DJ Steve Aoki took to the decks and a big heaving crowd gathered around him. Everyone was taking photos, putting their hands up in the air like they just didn't care and Steve himself put on quite a good show.The energy of the crowd was amazing! Everyone was decked out in the three stripes or their streetwear best and everyone was in a good mood- possibly due to the heavy-handed free-flow at the bar. When I got to the bar, I poured a can of red-bull into this jumbo plastic cup and the bartender poured about three shots of vodka in my drink- thus emptying the rest of his bottle. He went on to open another bottle and poured about 4 more shots in my cup. Needless to say, that was the only drink I needed for the rest of the night.There was pandemonium everywhere. Up at the roof, people were dancing their hearts out (including myself). Some were breakdancing, some were line dancing and some guys were stealing balloons and pretending they were breasts. The entire rooftop played volleyball with one of the oversized balloons which we set free. In the main room, people were dancing around in the pit of plastic balls and some were playing tennis with the balls and their purses. I fell into the mock swimming pool at one point and people began bombarding me with balls. I managed to snap this very cool pic as the balls were coming at me.I ran into about 20 of my new facebook friends who I had not yet met in real life. It's nice to know that cyber buddies actually do exist in real life!  The only bad thing about the party was that it ended too early. I don't know what time it was when we descended what seemed like 80 flight of stairs to get out of there but all I know was that I did not want to leave. The next day,  facebook was saturated with Adidas party photos. You could not pay for that kind of publicity and endorsement. It must have cost them a fair bit of money, but for marketing and branding purposes, they did everything right. Not only did they do it right, but it was a righteously fun party as well!See all the party photos here:http://www.hiphongkong.com/party-photos/h ong-kong/adidashouseparty_6009.htm