Born in rural Kentucky and raised on a farm he describes as, “in the woods, down a dirt road,” fashion designer Orondava Mumford has worked with some of the world’s most iconic brands. After lending his keen eye to Converse and acting as…
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The fashion vet makes his interior design debut for backstage VIPs at the Emmys
by Naheed Simjee There has been no shortage of excitement from recent collaborations between artists, designers and some of the world’s most recognized luxury brands from Gucci and Fiat to Yayoi Kusama and Louis Vuitton. Most recently, Audi tapped New York-based fashion designer Derek Lam to work together on the…
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Electroluminescent fabric designed by emerging Chinese designer Vega Zaishi Wang
As her name would suggest, Beijing-based designer and 2008 Central St. Martins graduate Vega Zaishi Wang is definitely among the brightest stars of China’s fashion scene. Coincidentally, she developed a love for experimenting with light and luminous clothing as a way to get closer to her parents, who are…
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Next-generation heritage from the British menswear label
With 257 years of brand heritage behind it, Wolsey’s Fall/Winter 2012 collection remains fully modern in a marriage of robust fabrics and forward-minded design. Moleskin and mohair are everywhere in the coming season, as are old favorites like cable knits and Fair Isle sweaters, in this case updated with…
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Emerging designers from The Netherlands and Belgium showcase their best efforts in contemporary design
Over the last year or so a number of smaller nation players in the global fashion game have gotten a creative boost from new cultural institutions funded by their respective government organizations. In the Netherlands, a new venture called High Fashion Low Countries has been initiated by the Dutch…
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Classic styling in hybrid seaside apparel
High-end beach basics are the provenance of Quit Mad Stop, a menswear label delivering handsewn apparel out of NYC. Their Spring/Summer 2013 line expands the label beyond trunks, windbreakers and totes, bringing in hybrid short-trunks and button-down polos to face variable beachside elements. The tailored fit and fine fabrics…
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Four limited-run caps inspired by the Good Moods collection from NYC’s Reed Space and Hawaii’s KICKS/HI
Making a case for the value of a good collaboration is LA-based fashion brand Publish. After dropping their well-recieved “Good Moods” collection just two weeks ago the label teamed up with NYC’s premiere lifestyle boutique Reed Space and Hawaii’s world-renowned sneaker shop KICKS/HI for two limited-run joint projects for your head. Officially launching tomorrow, 13 July, the line will feature a snapback and a five-panel inspired by the retailers’s respective digs.
As an ode to the controlled chaos and artisanal history of New York City, Reed Space’s snapback features muted floral prints conjuring what might grow in the dark alleys if given the chance. The five-panel, on the other hand, features a bright, flowery pattern vaguely reminiscent of a cheetah, in homage to the concrete jungle.
While Reed Space finds inspiration in the dark city of cynics, KICKS/HI’s prints inspire with vivid colors and an unmistakably laid-back attitude. The five-panel seems like it was crafted from a swatch of Victorian-era wallpaper, rather than palm trees and hibiscuses. The snapback’s vibe seems more like digi-camo upholstery, marking a welcome departure from more traditional motifs.
All in all the four collaboration hats stay very much on-brand for the three influential companies. Find the American-made caps in store only at Reed Space and KICKS/HI tomorrow, 13 July. For a closer look see the slideshow.
Images by Graham Hiemstra
Jeans made from recycled brown beer bottles in NYC
As the name implies, I AM NOT A VIRGIN uses recycled—non virgin—materials to produce their jeans and T-shirts. Now nearly four years into the business, founder Peter Heron is reaching out to his audience with a Kickstarter to keep the NYC-based label alive.
As with many entrepreneurial ventures, IANAV has diverged from its original path over time. Heron began by making prototype jeans from fabric scraps collected at various Chinese manufacturing mills with the goal to reduce factory waste, but it didn’t seem to be working. Spurred on by a friendly tip in early 2011 Heron started experimenting with a new American-made fabric of 75% cotton and 25% recycled synthetics, including brown beer bottles collected from recycling factories. Although the recycled percentage doesn’t seem like much, Heron explains it’s actually more stable this way. “You need a certain amount of virgin cotton for durability,” he says. “It’s the same as if you were making denim from scraps, the right balance of polyester and cotton will give you a long-lasting jean.”
The process of breaking down the beer bottles to a thread-like material is just about as complicated as one would imagine. Once collected in a recycling facility, the bottles are sorted and ground, labels, caps and all into small chips. The chips are then placed in a water bath where the paper and scraps float to the top and the usable chips sink. From here the usable chips are ground down even further into a fine particle, which is actually the same compound found in polyester. The particle is then melted and squeezed through a high-pressure nozzle, creating a continuous strand of loose material ready to be twisted into yarn, and subsequently blended with virgin cotton and woven into denim.
To show the unique properties of this particle, IANAV has created a limited run of 400 brown beer bottle jeans, stitched inside out to reveal the unique weave. Heron says these fit more like a comfortable straight leg trouser than a jean, as they’ve been washed without dye. The standard IANAV men’s jeans, on the other hand, are dyed a dark indigo and left raw, while the washed women’s jean is woven with 1% elasticity for stretch.
Armed with the knowledge he’s gained, Heron has brought on a partner—Walt Connelly, former executive creative director at JWT and Ogilvy—to keep the creative train moving. Once funded the two have big plans for the company. “We will eventually have different lines of jeans made from green soda bottles, blue water bottles, and my original idea of using fabric scraps collected at the manufacturing mills,” says Heron. “We’re also making T-shirts that are made with recycled food tray (tri-blend black color), clear water bottles (white color), discarded x-ray film (light gray color) and in the future empty yogurt cartons. The T-shirts are super soft and feel great.”
To help support Heron and I AM NOT A VIRGIN make a pledge at their Kickstarter page. For $55 you’ll get a limited edition T-shirt made from recycled food trays or water bottles, for $100 or more you’ll be rewarded with a pair of indigo jeans and so on depending on amount of pledge. For those feeling particularly philanthropic, a pledge of $5000 earns you a pair of limited edition brown beer bottle jeans along with whole slew of goodies like t shirts, VIP acess to future parties and a heads up on to-be-released jeans. While you’re there you’ll notice Heron’s other crusade—keeping the rights to his tongue-in-cheek brand name, which is being disputed by Virgin (they suggest slightly less captivating names like I AM NOT CHASTE or I AM NOT PURE). There’s a petition in IANAV’s favor if you’re so inclined.
For a more detailed look at I AM NOT A VIRGIN jeans see the slideshow.
Young UK designers strike out on their own with color, humor and innovation
One menswear collection stood out among all the others at A/W 2012 London Fashion Week in March. Bright, bold and bearing no resemblance to anything seen before, Agi & Sam hit the headlines for their seemingly effortless fusion of color and style. Launched in 2011 by Agape Mdumulla and Sam Cotton, two 26-year-old UK designers who cut their teeth working at Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld, J.W. Anderson, and Blaak Homme, Agi & Sam is fast gaining recognition for its bespoke prints, original designs and ability to inject humor into the world of men’s couture. We caught up with Mdumulla and Cotton in their East London studio to find out more about their eclectic young label.
I think it was the frustration and limitation for applying our own tastes and styles on a collection. When you are at a big house you learn their ways and techniques and your aesthetic starts to turn into what is needed to produce their collections. This was great initially as it formed our taste and style and we are massively influenced by McQueen, even still now, but I think we wanted to apply a bit more to a collection and really develop something we felt was interesting, different and had so far been untouched in fashion.
We have always said we wanted to be positive with our approach to fashion and have fun. I think color links directly to positive connotations and really shows you can have fun. The colors we use are always inspired by whatever we look at for influence for the season. Being as we always choose humorous projects to look at we often find we are bombarded with bright colors and imagery. If we were to look at death and depression as an influence you’d of course find a lot less color than a guy who was found in a bin dressed as Dr. Who outside the large Hadron Collider.
No we design all the prints by ourselves. The more work we have on our plates the more we regret doing so, but we are quite picky with our tastes and prints. Everything we produce is quite personal to our own humor and the way we work with color and print might be quite hard for an artist to kind of understand and hence wouldn’t come out quite right in the print.
I’d say working to make the brand accessible was hard. We are working on a business model that doesn’t really have anything to go off, we can’t start a tailoring brand and then follow the methods of Saville Row companies, or produce a sports range that has massive inspiration from Nike. We have had to kind of test the water really quickly by plunging our heads in and holding our breath. When we were awarded the MAN show we knew we had a lot to change with the brand and had to pull it all together to fit a catwalk and become a business. This was the hardest thing we’ve ever done in our life. We didn’t talk for about a month.
Tupac, Dre, Neil Young, Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens and Hudson Mohawke.
Red Hot Chili Peppers were probably first and the strangest. Flea liked the trousers so much he decided he wasn’t going to give them back. At least they’ve gone to a good home, as long as they didn’t end up in the bin. In fact, I hope he sleeps in them.
Put all your thoughts and work into developing a strong identity, don’t settle for someone telling you can’t do anything you want to, and remember it’s a business not a hobby.
Cycling-ready heat-sealed rainwear that looks hot too
Braving the elements in style just got a whole lot easier thanks to Terra New York, a new line of fashion-conscious, 100% waterproof rainwear. The semi-transparent, smoky-hued jackets and accessories have NYC-centric names including the “Lower East Side” parka and the “Nolita” cape, and consist of materials like TPU/Urethane—which is derived from recycled materials—to provide structure while still allowing breathability.
Designed with urban cyclists and pedestrians in mind, Terra’s first collection also includes special pieces like a parka with an adjustable hood that can accommodate a helmet.
Each garment is created using a heat-sealing technique at the seams to block out the water. According to co-founders and cycling enthusiasts Yurika Nakazono and Marie Saeki, “Each part of the coat has its own mold, and each seam is heat-sealed with another mold. Our ‘Tribeca’ trench coat, for example, is built with 75 different molds, each one specially made for a specific seam. The seam mold is heated, then applied on to the fabric, merging two, three, or more layers of fabric together. No needle, no holes, no chemicals and no water inside!”
“The inspiration was to allow people to brave the rain with a smile, knowing they look good and are protected,” says Saeki. Nakazono agrees: “Living in Stockholm, Tokyo, London, Paris, and New York, I destroyed so many beautiful pieces of clothes, bags and shoes in the rain. Not finding any cool and 100% waterproof raincoats, I started thinking about doing it myself. Living in big cities, I never wanted the look of the British lord of the manor or the girl with the huge red and pink flowery rubber boots. I wanted to be chic, blend in the rain and feel comfortable.”
Jackets start at $240 and are available online at Terra New York.
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