Honestly, have you ever seen a book bag as stupid as this? No, no you haven’t. Because this shit right here? Ha-ha, this shit is STOOPID. From the first moment I saw it, I knew it had to be mine. Because c’mon, who in their right mind would walk around with book bag that's got zippers as big as your fist?

WU-WEAR

Hey, remember Wu-Wear? No? Damn, where were you in the mid-90’s? Okay quick refresher course. See back between 1993 and 1997, the Wu-Tang Clan could do no wrong. They dropped classic album after classic album after classic album:

• 1993 - Wu-Tang Clan, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
• 1994 - Method Man, Tical
• 1995 - O.D.B., Return to the 36 Chambers
• 1995 - Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...
• 1995 - GZA, Liquid Swords
• 1996 - Ghostface, Ironman
• 1997 - Wu-Tang Clan, Wu-Tang Forever

Every one of those was a bona fide classic. The Wu really had something special going on back then. They had that Midas touch. And it was during that time that the Wu released their own brand of clothing, Wu-Wear. Everybody bought into it. I mean everybody. Timbs, Champion hoodies, and Wu-Wear was the fashion order of the day.

After a while tho, the Wu shit got outta hand. The second wave of Wu solo albums were good, but not as good as the first round (with the exception of Ghostface’s Supreme Clientele). Seemingly every friend the Clan ever had put out an album under the Wu-Tang affiliate banner. The RZA was no longer the primary music producer. Method Man started acting, even doing a bad FOX sitcom. ODB embarrassingly crashed the stage at the Grammys, then later got thrown in the clink for violating parole, then became a fugitive. And then he tragically died at age 35.

And Wu-Wear brand clothing, much like the dominant era of the Wu itself, eventually got played out.

RESURGENCE

Even though the Wu-Tang clan lost their stranglehold on the industry, they never quite disappeared. And as it turned out, neither did Wu-Wear. Now, 15 years after the introduction of the clothing line, there’s been a little resurgence of the brand. For a while there, no one woulda been caught dead rockin Wu-Wear, but then ALIFE came along and did an incredible colab with the brand. Suddenly they were on the streets again. And then Applebum, a Japanese brand, released a series of outstanding apparel products last year.

I think there’s a couple of reasons for this. First and foremost, there’s been some great Wu-Tang music that’s dropped recently, like last year’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II by Raekwon and this year’s Wu-Massacre by Meth-Ghost-Rae. But mostly I think it’s because enough time has passed that there’s now a nostalgic quality to the Wu-Tang Clan. Old folks like me remember how great the Wu was back in the day, and the new generation of kids are too young to remember just how bad shit got in the early 2000s.

WU-TANG x NAT-2 BOOK BAG

So that brings me to this Wu-Tang book bag. It was produced earlier this year in colab with a German company called Nat-2 (and you know the Germans, they make good stuff). It’s an import product that you can only get from the Wu-Wear website--and at $75 it costs too damn much, but i just had to have it. It’s a nice little book bag with lots of embroidery details, including a nice big Wu logo on the front. And it’s got a cool hidden “stash” pocket. But c’mon, the killer feature is the giant fucking zippers. Holy shit, have you ever seen zippers this big? Of course not, because they’re positively outlandish. To me, they just scream out that this Wu-Tang bag ain’t nuthin ta fuck with.

- dsicle

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