In recent years e-commerce has been booming at light-speed in China. Shoppers have quickly become familiar with online wonderlands like Taobao that suck you in as you start looking for an air purifier, only to lose track of time browsing design replicas and smartphones until finally you shut down…
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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.
Our latest shipment with the subscription service features Joshua Harker’s 3D filigree brilliance
Back in November 2011, we announced our partnership with the subscription service Quarterly Co., which offers users the chance to receive gifts in the mail from a roster of design-minded contributors four times per year. For the second shipment, Cool Hunting co-founders Josh Rubin and Evan Orensten sent subscribers a miniature “Crania Anatomica”, a sculpture by Chicago-based artist Joshua Harker.
We first learned about Joshua when he was seeking funding for the project on Kickstarter with the goal to raise $500; he ended up with $77,271, the highest funded sculpture project in the history of the website. Now, Joshua has created a version exclusively for our second Quarterly shipment. We’re thrilled to offer subscribers a little something that celebrates the human form and serves as a solid addition to any cabinet of curiosities. Subscribers have been receiving theirs over the last few days and have been tweeting pictures of the little 3D-printed filigree wonder in various settings.
Due to high demand, Quarterly Co. is currently closed to new subscribers, but you can join their waiting list or check out their blog for more information.
Images by Josh Rubin
Discover the “Storyverse” of real world places, music and movies from your favorite book
Taking an ambitious approach to filtering information online, Small Demons is a new site dedicated to opening up the worlds inside of books. Not just another search engine for what’s inside your favorite novel, Small Demons collects and catalogs the millions of references to real-world and fictional music, movies, people, and objects that are found in literature. Your new favorite restaurant could be on the next page of the book you’re reading, and Small Demons hopes to provide a place where you can draw meaningful connections between stories and everyday life.
The site uses both algorithms and human touch to make these links and open up what Small Demons calls a “Storyverse,” or the expanse of details that support a good story. “A computer can tell us how many times a song appears in a book. But it can’t tell us that it is the song that the couple dances to at the wedding reception or the song the jilted lover plays after being dumped. It can’t tell you the emotional resonance of it. So we are going to be relying on librarians and authors and gifted amateurs to come in and help us fix and add and weight and evaluate all the data we are generating,” says Richard Nash, the start-up’s VP of Community and Content.
Founded by former Yahoo Product VPs Valla Vakili and Tony Amidei, the original idea for Small Demons came to Vakili while on a trip to Madrid and Paris. He also happened to be reading Jean-Claude Izzo’s celebrated Mediterranean noir novel Total Chaos, the first book in the French author’s well-known Marseilles Trilogy. Vakili changed the Paris leg of his trip and headed to Marseilles, finding himself enchanted by the fact that he was enjoying the same scotch and walking down the same streets as the protagonist in Izzo’s book. The story in Total Chaos had a life beyond the page, and Vakili realized that many more books had the same experiences to offer.
Small Demons is currently in beta, and you can apply for an invite here.
A story-centered approach to collaborative retail
Taking the principles learned from NYC-based start-ups, retail consultant Rachel Shechtman quietly unrolled A Startup Store last night in the shadow of the High Line. “A Startup Store has the point of view of a magazine, but it changes like a gallery and it sells things like a store,” she says. Shechtman calls the concept “transactional storytelling,” placing a narrative at the center of a retail venture. The store will be completely reinvented every four to six weeks, with a different theme guiding every detail.
The first story is “Beta.” Shechtman asks, “If a website can be in beta, then why can’t a store be in beta to work out its kinks?” As workers walked around setting up displays and adjusting light fixtures, the first few customers browsed the selection of goods from five NYC startups. Birchbox, a subscription retailer of beauty products, is displaying their monthly collection with a range of items from both couture and grass-roots brands. Also featured is Quirky, an online community that selects products to invent based on user votes.
Shechtman grew up around trade shows and as a girl wanted to shop for a living like the buyers she met. Six years ago, the idea for this new retail concept was born. A simple conversation with Shechtman essentially offers an education in retail, and she sees a clear path for the future of story-driven consumption. “As people have less time, they want more from their experiences,” she says. Dedicated to crafting new business models and forecasting trends, Shechtman wants to create an experience that is as much about the process as the final product.
In a display case near the back of the store is BaubleBar jewelry’s range of original neckwear. Nearby you can check out the goods from Joor, an online professional matchmaker for designers and retailers. The site is a valuable resource for up-and-coming brands as well as bigger businesses looking to reach boutique audiences.
Shechtman plans to launch a complimentary online shop that, with a fixed name and web address, will ironically have a more permanent feel than the polymorphous brick-and-mortar location.
Until recently, the interior was masked by massive eyes plastered by anonymous artist and TED prize-winner JR. Now, the current exhibition is displayed on modular furniture made from 90% recycled paper by Way Basics, and Mark Kusher of Architizer will curate the furniture of each new installation by matching architects to the theme. The back wall of the space holds artwork from Artspace, an online marketplace for affordable pieces from top contemporary artists.
As the store evolves, a permanent name will be attached and graphic designer and typographer Stefan Sagmeister will provide the logo and branding—a rare treat from an artist who rarely does this kind of commercial work. Each upcoming installation will be underwritten by a brand that fits with the overarching theme. The store launches officially in February as a “Love” story.
A modular cabinet from the budding Italian furniture-maker Homecode
The young Treviso, Italy-based company Homecode puts a twist on traditional design with its latest project, Hollo. The basic solid cabinets feature removable modular front doors that come in a wide variety of designs. Simply pop them off their hinges with a handful of screws, and use the piece of furniture as a blank canvas to change the mood of a room.
The customizable patterns come from an elite roster of international artists and designers including Gruppo 407, Julie Joliat, Matteo Cibic and more, all coordinated by art director Andrea Magnani. Their contributions elevate the level of design in a functional cabinet without the added price. Calling itself “the T-shirt of furnishings,” Hollo blends irony and style with easy-to-change convenience and affordability, not to mention the work of an actual T-shirt designer. In addition to graphic artists and illustrators, Hollo has worked with Abiscuit Accident on graphics applied to both furniture and shirts.
Made entirely in Italy, Hollo ships flat-packed to reduce waste during transit. Choose from the ever-growing range of designs at Hollo’s e-shop, where cabinets are available for €389 and sets of replacement doors for €199.
Our “store” with the new subscription service puts physical gifts in your mail box
You might have already read about how impressed we were with Quarterly Co., a new subscription service offering gifts hand-selected by a unique roster of influential contributors. Well, now it’s our turn—opening today at 12 p.m. PST, the Cool Hunting c/o Quarterly Co. “store” will be live for 48 hours, during which time users may buy subscriptions to receive CH-curated packages—called “issues”—every three months.
Subscriptions start at $25 per quarter for a selection handpicked by Cool Hunting co-founders Josh Rubin and Evan Orensten. Items included in each issue will reflect their interest in design based on clever combinations of form and function. “Think Transformers, but with a utilitarian angle” says Rubin. Subscribe within the next 48 hours to receive Cool Hunting c/o Quarterly Co. mailings.
RCRD LBL’s creative director gives us some insight into the world of music and start-ups
An extensive collection of diverse artists combined with a huge assortment of free and legal downloads, RCRD LBL is the premiere site for discovering emerging artists. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with RCRD LBL’s Creative Director Elliot Aronow, who told us about music distribution, start-ups and the importance of sharing.
RCRD LBL is an editorially driven, free and legal music site focusing mostly on emergent talent. If I were talking to my aunt I’d call us a curated, cool, free iTunes.
Personally I always believed that the expiration date for records on the Internet was way too short. What we do is plan out our schedule 5-10 days in advance so we are able to offer a robust second wind to a label. The response from our audience has been remarkable, we get about 40,000 people downloading a record that has been “out” on the internet for a few days.
I would say our market would be very well intentioned, passionate music fans that want to get put on to good stuff. It’s regular people who are interested in more left-field or independent music—a really refreshing audience to be communicating with. There are college kids and cool dads, and then there are the communities that we’re super meshed in with, DJs, producers, punk guys or Brooklyn and London kids.
My dream from a creative standpoint was to cross the brand over. I always looked at shows like “120 Minutes” and “Yo MTV Raps.” Thats how I got into PIL, Depeche Mode, Nirvana and all that kind of stuff. I knew that because of the level of taste we were always going to resonate with DJs and the music heads, but really for me it was more about breaking things to a more casual listener. That’s what I try to do, that’s why you can juxtapose Waka Flaka Flame with some super weird UK funky guy that’s put out his first 12-inch. You get people with the big hook and hopefully you keep them with the newer stuff that they haven’t heard before.
We started right after the first wave of professional blogging. Initially we wanted to design something people could come check out everyday and there would always be cool new records. In the past couple years things have changed to where we are entering into much more interesting distribution agreements or using platforms that are super commonplace now. Rather than building the mountain and expecting people to come, we have decided that people want to engage with the material in a lot of different ways. They might follow us on Twitter, check in on Facebook, they might get it in their email or check it out via RSS—it’s just important to give people a lot of different ways to interact with the music rather than creating a very static one-dimensional relationship with them.
It’s important to expose the artist to the public because people that are making compelling music, that know how to tie it together with good-looking album artwork and great live performances, I think they deserve to have a career that goes beyond the Internet. If we’re going to put MNDR in front of people I want them to listen to her record, enjoy it, and then hopefully be inspired to go check out a show or buy a t-shirt.The artist is always the centerpiece.
When we started I was mostly working with groups that I knew, mostly from Brooklyn and a couple from L.A. My logic at the time was that if this band can sell 3,000 CDs then we can give away 40,000 free downloads. But then I realized that once you get out of major cities certain bands are a lot less exposed than you think. One of the decisions I made around two years ago was rather than being in a conversation with blogs, I was more interested in being in a conversation with our users and I think that decision has really paid off for us.
We have an intentionally narrow focus. We don’t do interviews, we don’t do videos, we don’t do news—we serve up downloads everyday. I think its good for people to know that when they come to RCRD LBL there will a bunch of new stuff. We’re not music critics, I like to think of us more as authoritative, passionate fans. A lot of people like to interact with music from a trusted source, and they want a little “amuse-bouche” if you will. I think that we do something similar where if we are turning you on to a new band we’ll give you what we have decided is the best song, and if you are interested in digging a little bit deeper you can certainly go and do that. There’s always been a really rich history of DJs and journalists and people in the scene putting people on to other stuff, that’s where I’ve always drawn our editorial inspiration from.
Well I’m a bit biased but I do think our model certainly has room to grow. Our audience has really pleasantly surprised me in the past few years. I think there are more and more people out there interested in the stuff we are excited about, and I think there is always an opportunity to reach them.
Without giving away any of the trade secrets that we keep in a small box under lock and key, I see us being able to offer more kinds of music to people. I think the format of a site that offers you free music with the artist’s and the label’s blessing is a good model. Personally, I would like to see some punk and hardcore in the mix—it’s really just about showing people that we can go from Passion Pit to abrasive, strange music to very beautiful stuff and it all makes sense.
Strive for consistency and don’t take too much money up front because you’ll wind of spending it on bad things before you have any idea what you’re actually doing.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
