It's a no-brainer: Give a huge budget to three avowedly style-conscious gentlemen (Kanye, André 3000, and sartorial consultant Fonzworth Bentley), and you're gonna get a great music video. So it is with "Everybody," the first video from Bentley's long-awaited debut album C.O.L.O.U.R.S., which, by the way, still has no release date. (It does, however, have its priorities clear: As the trio bellows in the single, the name stands for "Cool Outrageous Lovers of Uniquely Raw Style.") The video's styling and dance moves are both top-notch, as is our favorite new pick-up line, delivered by the ever-suave Mr. Benjamin: "What's your favorite Gatorade, lady?" Check it out, below:

[Kanye Universecity via The Fader]

Assouline just opened its first-ever U.S. store inside the Plaza Hotel. Not a bad choice: The shop overlooks the storied building's lobby—full of foreign tourists enjoying the weak dollar, of course—and is conveniently across from the Rose Bar, which will deliver Champagne as you browse. Knock back a few while checking out everything from the brand's Humidor Library to a one-off Goyard suitcase that comes stocked with pre-selected tomes, not to mention (of course) the brand's signature art titles. But the highlight is a vintage library curated by founder Prosper Assouline—with every title, from Barbie's Fashion Success to Babar Comes to America, for sale. In fact, only one thing inside the 1,000-square-foot location isn't available for purchase: that hippo skull in the picture.
768 Fifth Avenue, (212) 593-7236, NYC, assouline.com

Ferrari has teamed with Fiat to produce 200 limited-edition 500s, complete with leather interiors and, of course, a paint job in the former's trademark red. Want to drive one? Good luck. They're only available to Ferrari owners whose cars are in the shop. That's right: You're looking at the world's coolest courtesy car. As if driving a Ferrari wasn't privilege enough.

[Carscoop]

The new Nekura Tumbler watch from Japan's TokyoFlash is, well, pretty much what you'd expect from a design-driven Japanese company: eye-catching, thanks to a curving band and scale-style display. Of course, it's also more or less unwearable for those same reasons. Then again, what's wrong with a watch that looks just as good on your shelf as on your wrist?
$84, tokyoflash.com

PLUS: For more work-appropriate options, check out our dress watch Hotlist.

[Dvice]

We've long considered Rockports to be little more than dad shoes—sort of the Dockers of the feet. Don't tell Pops, but the brand is bringing out a line more attuned to your sensibilities than his, and the sneakers aren't bad looking, to boot. The buffalo-plaid Mandelas have an appealing Dunk-inspired shape and just a hint of that ubiquitous print to keep your interest. Best of all, when they arrive next month, they'll go for a wallet-friendly $100. Even Pops wouldn't object to that.
Available next month at Commonwealth, Bodega, and Undefeated

[Complex]

Designers, start your engines: Uniqlo has announced a global call for submissions for its T-shirt Grand Prix. The winner will receive ¥3,000,000 (a slightly less eye-popping $30,000 or so U.S.) and have their shirt sold at Uniqlo stores worldwide. Come to think of it, it wouldn't be a bad idea to send the winning one over to those other, automotive Grand Prix types: A McDonald's-and-Penzoil-logo-printed jumpsuit is fine on the track, but off of it…
Submission period runs until September 21; for more information, visit ut.uniqlo.com

[DesignBoom]

As you might have read elsewhere, Parisian expat Rick Owens opened his first Manhattan store yesterday, which features the designer's men's and womenswear, and, naturally, a certain moneyed-goth aesthetic. The design is minimal, but the space does have marble displays and a tank with fog circulating inside it. As Owens told Style.com: "Fog's nice. It's mysterious. It reminds us all of, you know, having blurry vision at a disco at four in the morning." (Also: unsafe driving conditions, but we digress.) The designer gave our sister site a preview of the space earlier this summer—see the video below.
Rick Owens, 250 Hudson St., New York, (212) 627-7222, owenscorp.com

Unlike the last Lotus we showed you, the British automaker's newest coupe is not made partially from hemp. But on the plus side, the new Eagle (pictured) is definitely going into production. The 276-hp vehicle gets its official premiere at next week's London auto show, though the brand has (of course) already leaked pictures to Autoblog. Looks good, and unlike the Lotus Elise, it even comes with cup holders. Look for it next spring, when it will retail for about 90 grand.

That's small change compared to the likely cost of the Shelby Ultimate Aero TT, an independently produced electric supercar. The company claims it's the world's fastest in that genre, and that it will run a whopping six years on a single charge. No confirmation on whether it is, in fact, powered by unicorn tears.

[Autoblog]

For his project The World Stage, Brooklyn artist Kehinde Wiley traveled across three continents in search of his muse. "It began in China and it followed from there to India, Brazil, parts of West Africa, and so on," he says. "The idea is to sort of use the experience of black American popular culture that has been beamed out into the world and collect it and trace it and track it." Toward that end, he abandoned his usual approach—painting African-American men in rococo settings—for pitting them against the cultural graphic backdrops of their respective countries. "I've been using the decorative elements of all of these cultures," he says. "In China, we'd use the decorative patterns on silk and pottery. In Brazil, we'd go to marketplaces and collect fabrics." Tomorrow, ten of his latest World Stage works (painted in Senegal and Nigeria) go on display at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It's Wiley's first solo show at the place where he got his start—he was an artist-in-residence there after graduating from Yale.

He's also planning a limited-edition series of bomber jackets, to be sold in a pop-up store. "It will be a discreet space in Manhattan and exist for a certain amount of months and then it will decay and peter out," he says. For Wiley, the concept is more about art than fashion: "I've been approached by a number of major labels that we all know. And I decided to do something decidedly homespun, where all of the control is in my hands." Stay tuned: The outerwear will be available this October.
The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar, tomorrow through October 26, The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 W. 125 St., New York, (212) 864-4500, studiomuseum.org

Abstract Expressionist Cy Twombly has been taking photographs since his Black Mountain College days in the early fifties, though they've understandably been eclipsed by his painting and sculpture. Cy Twombly: Photographs 1951-2007 attempts to remedy this, even if many of the photos in the book (like the beach scene pictured here), are out of focus. Nonetheless, the ethereal glimpses of his studios and snatches of works in progress are a must-see for any enthusiast, and provide a glimpse at Twombly's artistic process. A master of abstract photography? Definitely.
$84, available July 30 at amazon.com

The next victims of the international credit crunch? European soccer players. At least according to Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood, who tells the team's Web site that footballers "need to be waking up to the realities of the world... The days of easy money have come to a pretty sudden end." Economic prognostication or negotiating ploy? Well, let's just say the English Premier League just negotiated a record $3.4-billion dollar TV contract.

[GQ UK]

Record sales being what they are, it was perhaps inevitable that Sony BMG would find an innovative way to earn some income: Selling off archival prints through NYC's Morrison Hotel Gallery. We're not complaining: The stunning black-and-white images were taken by Don Hunstein, who, as Columbia Records' house photographer, captured recording artists like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Glenn Gould, Charles Mingus, and (naturally) Muhammad Ali. (The Champ recorded a spoken-world album back in the sixties. Heady times.) But even those unwilling to drop some serious cash on Cash—or, say, $1,500 on this Miles Davis photo—should nonetheless find a stroll through the gallery (online or otherwise) worthwhile.
"In Session at the Columbia Records 30th Street Studio" opens Friday at the Morrison Hotel Gallery, 124 Prince St., New York, (212) 941-8770, morrisonhotelgallery.com

Five things worth knowing today

- The World Eskimo-Indian Olympics begins in Fairbanks, Alaska. Take that, Beijing.
- Van Morrison and Mary J. Blige go Nordic at the Stockholm Jazz Festival.
- Liam Neeson brings fellow Irishman Samuel Beckett's Eh Joe to New York's Gerald W. Lynch Theater. (And it's only a half-hour long!)
- Today in 1955, the original Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA.
- And today in 1967, comedian Will Ferrell was born. Word to the wise: Keep him off your porch (see below).