Day: 19/08/2021

Is This Dee End?

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The former deejay is alleged to have done all those things he was accused of a year ago

“Some of the allegations baffled me,” Darryl Ian Koshy wrote on Instagram around this time last year, “because they were baseless and untrue.” The seven-image text denial came in the wake of accusations that he had solicited sexual favours from underaged boys. When he was arrested at his Woodlands HDB home in October last year, the police found that the loud and bawdy former deejay/YouTuber, better known as Dee Kosh, possessed “obscene videos”—23 of them, a few reportedly surreptitiously shot, and showed him and his victims in incriminating positions. According to Today, “Some of the videos that Koshy allegedly possessed showed him performing sexual acts with others. These were taken without the other party’s knowledge, the police said in a statement on Wednesday evening.” The 33-year-old had, at first, vehemently denied any wrong doing, even when the first boy to accuse him told Coconuts Singapore shortly after the scandal blew up, “It is disgusting to know that such a big public figure has the audacity to carry out such acts, and yet has no courage to own up for his own mistakes.” Another four more boys emerged to corroborate the first’s allegation with accounts that were disturbingly similar. Mr Koshy posted on IG a firm denial: “Let me state categorically that I did not ever have any sexual relations with him (the first accuser) or with any minor.”

Yet, a total of seven charges were brought against Mr Koshy earlier today: “three counts of communicating with a minor under 18 to obtain their sexual services, one of sexually exploiting a minor under 18, and three for possessing and making obscene videos of minors”, as widely reported in the media. He appeared in person to have the charges read to him, dressed in all black (including motorcycle boots that appeared to conceal a tracking device secured to his left ankle)), a colour that belied his more florid online drag personae. such as the course-mouthed Ria Warna and Leachme Teachu. Under a gag order, the names of the boys involved were not revealed to protect their identities. According to the police, Koshy had, between 2017 and 2020, allegedly induced victims below the age of 18 years old to agree to sexual services in exchange for monetary payments. In one specific charge involving the youngest victim, aged 15, he supposedly asked the boy to perform recompensed—undisclosed amount (he was known to call “incentive”)—sexual acts, between March and June 2018. The results of the lengthy investigation seem to confirm what was filed with the police last year—at that time, at least six reports were known to be lodged against the sexual perpetrator.

It started with online allegations in mid-August last year—and screenshots of explicit chats between Mr Koshy and his victims, who claimed they connected with the “talent scout”, as he was thought to be, on Telegram, as well as through the direct message feature on IG. Those conversations were damning enough, but he refuted the accusations vehemently on Instagram Stories at first, and then later apologised and admitted “that there is truth to some of the things which are being said now”. When the reports were lodged with the police, investigations followed. More reveals circulated on social media. Celebrity friends shared their views—a mix of disbelief and support. Even AWARE lent their weight, posting on IG: “It is categorically wrong to engage a minor in sexual conversation. And there is no situation in which quid pro quo sexual harassment could be acceptable.” Mr Koshy, who still enjoys 188,000 followers on Instagram and 367,000 on YouTube, remained largely quiet, but about a month after the arm of the law caught up with him, he posted on IG a defiant message: “Not dead. Not gone. Just waiting for police investigations.” The wait is now over.

Illustration: Just So

This Collab Now Involves Three

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Why have two when you can add one more?

Is it possible that when there are more names to a collaboration, the end product would sell better? We might fear the too-many-cooks situation, but brands, especially those seriously trending, are not. In the case of Nike, Fragment Design, and Sacai, three in collaborative mode is the magic number. But how would the extra-name hype increase sales when these collaborative outputs would still be sold in ridiculously limited quantities and priced beyond the reach of the average sneaker lover? We don’t know. As sneaker collabs go, this two-easts-meet-one-west team-up is destined to make big what is already a major hit: the LDWaffle. This time, it is still unmistakably Sacai: double the Swoosh, heel counter, and tongue, and the more obvious the heel wedge, to better let fellow MRT commuters to step on it. But what makes this round of collaboration more desirable is the addition of the third name, spelled out noticeably on the heel wedge. After Fragment Designs, look out for Clot and Undercover, as we have been recently told, courtesy of Edison Chen’s teaser post on Instagram.

Sacai is, of course, the brand name on everyone’s lips these days. No sneaker designer Chitose Abe touches, it appears, does not turn to gold. At least with Nike, that has been the case, starting from the Nike Blazer Mid of 2019. Ms Abe’s former boss Junya Watanabe has, of course, been a long-time Nike collaborator, going back to his debut of the Nike Zoom Haven in 1999 (our favourite is the low-key Super Fly from 2001). At the launch of the Blazer Mid, not many sneakerheads thought Sacai could go as far as Junya Watanabe, but the former did. When the LDWaffle (hybrid of Waffle Daybreak and LDV) appeared in 2020, the sneaker space went berserk. About a year later, the staggering Vaporwaffle, with its gaping heel, sealed the deal and Sacai’s reputation as the collaborator that can produce extreme sneakers that sell was cemented.

That Fragment Design is in the triumvirate is not surprising. Hiroshi Fujiwara’s work with Nike goes back even further: to 2002 when the other threesome—Mr Fujiwara, Tinker Hatfield and Mark Parker (both from Nike) formed HTM (from the initials of their first names) and, later, HTM2, the project that would, hitherto, produce grail-level sneakers. Sneakerheads never get enough of his output, including those under the Air Jordan imprint. Nike’s global director of influencer marketing and collaborations, Fraser Cooke, once said to the media that Mr Fujiwara “has remained relevant for so long because he has good taste and a very acute sense of timing—he’s good at partnering with the right people at the right time.” And that he is a prolific collaborator helps too. The founder of Fragment Design’s other presently-trending collaboration is with Travis Scott, also in partnership with Nike—Air Jordan 1.

For this iteration of the LDWaffle involving Fragment Design, Mr Fujiwara picked a navy, later named Blackened Blue, as the shade of the mesh and suede upper. There’s something almost old-school about the kicks in this colour, a chromatic hush that Nike called “understated”. The heel wedge in white, acting like an underscore, comes with the branding of all three, with Nike’s known simply as ”the classic” (the double Swooches enough to take the place of a single four-letter name?). On the second (bottom) layer of the two tongues, Fragment Design’s logo of the double thunder bolt within a circle is immediately discernible. To fans, this is possibly the most important inclusion above all else. Read, even now, sold out!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

LDWaffle x Sacai x Fragment Blackened Blue, SGD249, will be available on the Nike e-store on 24 August 2021, 10am. Product photos: Nike