Speaking of Collaborations

Please have a gander at a guest blog post over at my friend Sara Fosmo's blog, Fosmopolitan. I told a little story about buying some nice denim.

Collaborations gone too far?

One of the most popular ways to add an edge to your clothing line is introduce a limited run of product that was created in collaboration with another brand or an outside designer with some prestige. This can work really well and refresh the brand a bit and the results can be exciting.

Some examples that come to mind are Ransom x Adidas and Maiden Noir x Porter. Even Tim Burton x Moleskin was kind of cool. There are about a million others that have come out in the past couple of years alone.

But this trend may have gone to far with the announcement that Hanes collaborated with Stussy on some plain white t-shirts. I will tread lightly because I like that guys that run the Stussy store in DC and I have picked a couple of things there since they opened a couple of years ago. However, it's still a funny idea. Hanes makes cheap and plain t-shirts and doesn't charge much. Stussy makes cheap t-shirts with a little bit of print and charges a lot. Someone decided they were ripe for a collaboration. What is the value add? A small Stussy logo on the front and no tag on the neck. Awesome, no tag on the neck. We can only hope that these creative genius behind these brands will continue to bestow us with such innovative gems of design.

You can check for these in your local Stussy shop. Via Hypebeast.

Wieden drops stunning visuals and an empty message

It's hard to imagine a advertisement that can inspire conflicting emotions quite like this offering from Wieden + Kennedy as part of the Levi's go forth campaign.

On one hand, the ad is absolutely stunning to look at and listen to. The clothes look great and one might even be able to find a small shred of inspiration from the young male voice whispering sweet nothings about pioneers in the rust belt. This is America. The home of- pioneers, coal miners, big ten football and, of course, Levi's. Any second now, American craftsmanship (manufacturing) will be back!

On the other hand, the ad is kind of vague. Welcome back to Braddock, PA? So what is Levi's doing for Braddock, PA besides getting some kids to plant a garden? Maybe these sweet nothings really are just sweet nothings. The kind that undergrad girls may fall prey to at their freshman orientation. Hmmm, I think I'll take a bath now.

The Levi's website states that the company is supporting a community center and a community garden. Awesome!! A huge clothing empire wants to help but sending some charity to Pennsylvania. That is not really the ideal method of corporate responsibility and Ed Freeman would agree with me.

Here's another idea, labor in the U.S. is expensive but people still like to pay a lot of money for denim. Don't pay Wieden any more money. The Levi's brand is already strong enough. Send over some shuttle looms to Pennsylvania (if you still have any or buy them back from the Japan) then put out a line of high end dry denim. The product would hit a demographic that is not currently wearing Levi's and it would be willing to shell out $300 bucks a pop. This is not exactly gear for working people in Braddock, PA but these are rust belt folks. They want jobs not charity.

We are back with a little summertime jam

I’m back after a long vacation to Europe so please put the blog and updates back on your radar screen.

I found this video in my inbox upon my return home (thanks Ellen and Fool’s Gold.) It features Kid Cudi, Rostam Batmanglij and Bethany Cosentino and was brought to you by the good folks at Converse.



There are a couple of reasons to be excited about this. First off, Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend should be given as much love as possible. He’s a local DC kid that done good (he grew up in Georgetown) and is super cool as well as crazy talented. Secondly, Converse’s new ad campaign is behind all this. You can never be mad at a brand that gives us gifts of good summertime jams. This is especially the case when said brand encourages quirky collaborations with artists that are so hot right now.

It is efforts like this that allow the Converse brand to create shelf space at Barney’s Coop while having a strong presence at discount retailers like Target and even Marshalls. Few other brands, if any, are successful at straddling distribution channels that are this disparate. To do so successfully is an amazing feat. Converse isn’t just successful in the U.S. market either, the brand is all over Europe right now.