Hasta La Ideas

Japanese designer and inveterate snowboarder Taro Tamai has been hand-shaping his eye-catching Gentemstick boards for over a decade. An answer to the homogenization of board shapes that happened as snowboarding gained mainstream appeal, Tamai’s goal is no less than to “perfectly blend into the terrain miraculously made of snow and wind, just as if birds flying in the sky or fish flowing in the stream.” The upshot of his philosophical approach to the sport (he calls it snow-surfing) is a line of boards renowned for their flexible fins, oversized sized fish tails and rideability in almost any snow condition.

The Taro Tamai custom line includes the Rocket Fish, Big Fish, Super Fish and the bamboo-core Giant Mantaray (pictured below, from left to right).

Previously only available in Japan, Gentemsticks made their U.S. debut last year, yet you can still only get a glimpse at a couple that live at San Francisco, CA’s Mollusk Surf Shop. Otherwise, they sell from their online store, or by making a direct email request. As long as you place yours before the July cut-off, they’ll hand-make it to your specifications.

Rome SDS, the Waterbury, Vermont-based snowboard company, recently unveiled next year’s installment of the annual Addictive Collection: a series of three boards designed by a trio of artists. Whereas virtually every other board is a composite of many people’s input, these boards benefit from the complete control of Rome photographer and art director Mike Paddock.

The first of the series (above) is Paddock’s own, the 155 Agent Rocker, is based loosely on an H. L. Mencken quote: “There comes a time when a man must spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats.” To that particularly macabre end, it opts for a red and black palate and copious blood-like drips. And like the 157 below, it features the new Rocker shape with camber tips and a rocker mid-section for the most all-mountain fun.

The 156 Agent is the brainchild of former Rome employee Al Engleheart, and features a summer’s worth of Polaroids taken of his food. The meat-heavy fare sits on a pink checkered pattern in what they’ve dubbed a “smorgasbord of shred.”

And finally, the 157 Agent Rocker is Mike Forester’s blunt comment on our celebrity-fueled tabloid culture. It’s a dark spin on Da Vinci’s Last Supper with Michael Jackson supplanting JC and surrounded by a flock of celebrities who all passed away in the last year.

Visit the Rome site for more info on the generally hard-to-find Addictive Collection.