Dave White just launched a much needed update and redesign to his site, the new design was done by Unkempt Studios. Finally his site includes an online store where you can buy prints as posters and on canvas in various sizes as well as the awesomely-bad-ass custom Dave White GelaSkins covers for your iPods and Macbook’s (shown here on the right) . Keep an eye out for Dave on the 18th of May at Sneaker Pimps in Shanghai– as well as upcoming shows in Tokyo, Bangkok and Taipei.

For many of you this weekend, e-cards will save your life, or at least delay your mother disowning you for another year because you forgot her Hallmark holiday. If you’re looking for a fun, interactive one, head over to Sprint Sweets; after typing in your own message or letting their “auto poet” pick one for you, their little people will write out your message in lights. Literally. Try the underwear one and let me know how it works out for you…it just seems so much easier than doing laundry.

I live in jeans. As a result, I go through between fifteen and twenty pairs a year– sometimes it has to do with bad choices/impulse buys (hello, OND), weight gain/loss (hello, Christmas) or the downright abuse that occurs when I fall in love with a pair of jeans (see: Esprit, on sale, for $17. I bought three pair.) I’ve had my True Religion Bobby skirt for almost two years now, and I have a sad feeling it may die sometime this summer. If everything is right in the world, I’ll be able to pick up a pair of Paige leather-trimmed bootcuts this weekend without bursting into tears or killing a sales associate. I like to switch up between premium denim and consumer denim– after all, I’m not wearing a $200 pair of jeans to tend bar where they’ll inevitably end up covered in beer, Jagermeister and who knows what else, but on the other hand it’s still important my butt looks good in them.

So the question here is, folks: what denim are you wearing? When was the last time you bought a pair? Do you mix it up, or are you a fierce loyalist? Are you like my friend, Steven, who stockpiled twelve pairs of 501s back in 1996 and haven’t bought a pair since*? Tell us in the comments because it’s, you know, Talk Shop Friday.

*Seriously dude, it’s been over ten years. Its time to go shopping.

If you’re going to be in NYC for Design Week (May 19-22), be sure to check out Core77’s incredibly comprehensive calendar of events. Covering the best on- and off-site exhibits and parties, they’ve cut right through the garbage to bring you the best of what New York Design Week has to offer. And that, in the words of Martha Stewart, is a good thing.

I’m heading to BKLYN Designs tomorrow and Sunday, and then next week I’ll be hitting ICFF, HauteGREEN and MePa Design Week. If you want to catch up, drop me an email, and if you’re not in town (or not into hoardes of design nerds like me), I’ll be posting the best-of right here, as it happens.

Summer is nearly upon us here in the Midwest. To celebrate its imminent arrival along with onslaught of street festivals, block parties, outdoor exhibitions, backyard barbecues, and shows, shows, and more shows, spend this weekend catching one of Chicago’s finest up-and-coming indie rockers, The Ponys. The Ponys play a weird but compelling mix of country, rock, and psychedelia and can be found all over the Windy City this weekend supporting their most recent album, Turn The Lights Out. You can find them tonight at Looptopia (I don’t think anybody knows what to expect from Chicago’s first foray into an all-night downtown party, but I digress) along with Mucca Pazza and others, or Saturday night at Subterranean.

We’d been waiting with baited breath to see the winning entries for UNKL’s UniPo-By-You contest, and yesterday, that email came. Even more exciting than finding out they had over four hundred sumbissions for the contest was from all over the world was seeing house favorite Scott Rench in the winning line-up. The UNKL Fan Series will hit the shelves in late 2007. Congratulations to all the winners!