A Mid Year Break

June marked the start of a mid year break for us.

I took a trip to London, then to Boston to visit the family and then finally to New York City to get some work-related stuff done.

London is a great city. The way to approach London is to avoid any formal agenda. Take it as it comes, grab something to read and head to one of the local pubs. Have an afternoon drink and wash the midweek boredom away. Trust us, the Guiness there does taste better!

Like many of the locals, I found myself firmly tucked into a pint at some of these places on the daily. The Westbourne was an interesting watering hole with a mixture of fun people. We seriously need to do a little more afternoon drinking over here like those people do.



The Tate Modern is a great structure that houses some impressive artwork from many of the contemporary greats. A must visit but to be honest, it had to be done after a few pints.


I also briefly visited a few of the stores to do some reconnaissance work. Margaret Howell's space in Marlyebone Road is amazing. Lots of natural light that illuminate the clothes and accessories on offer. One of the best by far.

On a more low-key note, Albam was a great visit. The store was tucked away nicely on Beak Street in Soho. Casual, friendly service with beautiful garments that are geared for more modest consumers. Strangely, some of the people in the neighborhood weren't even aware of the existence of this fine store. Shame.



Point to note regarding Albam: Pay attention to the little die-cut stickers on some of the glass panes that relay useful information. This was a slick display of indirect interaction with the customer. A good touch.


Another store I headed to was The Garbstore. Great space and produce but I'm not a big fan of salespeople that throw in details, sizes and colors available even when you are in the direct vicinity of a piece of clothing. Just let me know you're there to help. That always does the trick.

Moving on to food, make sure you have yourself a fry-up when in London. I'd heard about these things over and over. It is basically 2000 calories worth of every kind of breakfast food on a plate. Then wash it down with a pint nearby.




Next up was Boston to spend the 4th of July with my family and friends. Always great to be back there. The city has a real distinct vibe. It's got some sort of old world charm that you truly appreciate after spending a decent amount of time there. Very few fancy nightclubs with bottle service and the like. Everyone's just casual and in their own element. Instead of hitting downtown Boston, try the South End. It's one of the best areas around to find small bars and restaurants with a real close-knit vibe.

I then headed down to Cape Cod and Plymouth, Massachusetts for an interesting excursion with the family. Plymouth is where the Pilgrims first settled in America in 1620. It's got a great big landmark called the Plymouth Rock which marks the spot where they tied their boats to in order to dock. The city's got a small but vibrant population that relies solely on tourism. Perfect for a stop-over if ever in the tri-state area. New England culture at it's finest!

Sincerely,

Suraj

Feature in Today Newspaper

Thanks for the heads up Pei Wen

A Behind the Scenes Look at the Photo Shoot for Our First Zine Issue

A peak into the KIN zine photoshoot. Enjoy...

The man behind the graphics trying it on for size

We found him in the store like this

What's in your pockets?

Preparing a set

Behind the lens

We're about halfway through the shoot at this point

Viewfinder vantage point

Product shots

The end of a long day

Best Regards,

KIN

Sifr : essentials

sifr essentials can now be found at Tangs on Orchard. They're located on the third floor at Playlab. You can never have too many t-shirts.

Sincerely,

The sifr team

Moscot Originals

GQ has an interesting video on how to pick the perfect Moscot frame as well as some information on the brand. Enjoy.

A Flashback Production Post, Shenzhen – Guangzhou Part 2 (December 2008)

With no idea what to expect, and only a few phone calls and emails to prepare our itinerary, we launched into our first trip to China. We were excited and nervous, and prayed that something decent would come out of our work. Several months passed and we found ourselves back in bustling Shenzhen, this time to check on our production, size up facilities, finish up sampling, and meet with fabric mills

Waiting for the train to Shenzhen

Here’s a rough outline of our itinerary.
Day 1: Arrived in Guangzhou. Rested, then caught up with our friends in the city.
Day 2: Caught an early morning train to Shenzhen, where we visited several fabric companies. Had a great lunch and spent the remainder of the day viewing our main production factory. We finished off the night editing garments in the meeting room.
Day3: Back to Guangzhou, where we visited several fabric stores, and market areas.
Day4: Checked out some of the garment markets to see if there were any B-Grades, and sussed out the production opportunities.
Day5: We visited Guangzhou textile center, a complex too big to describe.
Day6: Spent the day relaxing before we returned to Singapore.

Boarding the train to Shenzhen

We woke early on our second day to catch the first train to Shenzhen, where we met with our production manager Ben, and started our first appointments with fabric mills. The meetings went well, with our conversations running smoothly in English, but I decided its time I brushed up on my Mandarin. The quality of the show rooms and offices surpassed our expectations, and there was a decent selection of stock fabric, but we ended the day mindful that our sourcing was far from complete.

In the fabric show room

After scrutinizing fabrics for hours I took a break and went to the window to look out over the city. It was an endless sprawl of factories and building complexes. As I scanned the skyline it was overwhelming to consider the volume of goods produced there and shipped around the world.

Production City Scape

This awareness of size accompanies all travel through China. Super highways, mega complexes, and skyscrapers confronted us everywhere we went. On our first trip we mistook with sensation for giddiness and excitement, but this time we were sure it was the urban sprawl that created this staggering sensation. Ben told us this massive development has only taken place within the last 10-15 years. Although the media has been quick to document this growth, nothing can accurately capture the experience of seeing the unending rows of factories that make up Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Slurping to our heart's content

After a delicious lunch of freshly made noodles, which I can still taste right now, we drove to our production facility to inspect our production and sampling lines. We were happy to find out we share the same facility with world-renowned labels that adhere to high quality standards. We toured the facility and meet some of the staff, we headed to the meeting room for a long run of sample editing.

To be continued in part 3

Madlib: Jaylib: Quasimoto: Madvillain: Jackson Conti: Beat Konducta

Someone I've been exposed to over time through friends and word of mouth, as I delve deeper and deeper into the world of hiphop, rap and into the roots that build those genres I've started to fully embrace the musical mastermind of Madlib. Yes I do feel that his work thus far grants him the title of mastermind, looking at the depth, scale of his work and people he works with I can only expect more great tracks from him in the future.

Here's an excerpt off Stonesthrow Records,

From the unlikely beach town of Oxnard, 40 miles north of Los Angeles, the multi-dimensional Madlib quickly rose to prominence as one of the most interesting figures in late-'90s hip-hop. With his childhood buddies in the Lootpack, Madlib quickly made a name for himself as a rapper, producer, and DJ. In particular, his expansive style and deft touch for composition made him one of hip-hop's most sought-after producers. An enthusiastic crate digger, with a deep reverence for jazz and soul, Madlib branched out into a number of ambitious, engaging solo projects.

Along with DJ Romes and Wild Child, Madlib formed the Lootpack in their hometown of Oxnard. The trio made their debut on tha Alkaholiks' 21 and Over in 1993. They continued doing work for tha Alkaholiks and other artists before releasing their full-length Soundpieces: Da Antidote six years later. The album earned solid reviews but went largely unnoticed. Madlib did not, however. After hooking up with Los Angeles DJ Peanut Butter Wolf, Madlib did a lot of production for Wolf's Stones Throw label. In 1999 the label released Quasimoto's astonishing The Unseen LP. Doubling as himself and his alter ego Quasimoto, Madlib handled vocals and production duties on the album, a huge critical success.

Not resting on his laurels, Madlib followed The Unseen a year later with his Yesterday's New Quintet project. Madlib played all the instruments himself, infusing his exploration of jazz with both style and substance.

While continuing on with a massive release schedule and work load, Madlib completed a remix/reinterpretation project for Blue Note, a collaboration with Jay Dee under the Jaylib alias, a collaboration with MF Doom, produced 1/2 of fellow Lootpack member Wildchild's solo record and many other remix and producer tasks all in 2003.

With each year Madlib has continued to expand his abilities beyond the core hip hop that he is known for.

MADLIB

Here's a little goodie a stonesthrow exclusive mix by Madlib,

Moscot Eyewear in Store

The Moscots are finally here. Do drop by and check them out, they are well worth the time. We promise.

Wrath Arcane

"I don't even know what the trends are," says O'Neill. "I don't care if Europe's full of color or whatever. Those trends don't translate across the country. Guys want a basic silhouette."

Take a midday break.

Have a read.

There's a good article on Wrath Arcane in case some of you would like to know more background info. Check it here

Really good insight into what they're doing and how challenging it really is to start a label.

Moscot Originals - Est. 1915

We are proud to announce that KIN will now be carrying Moscot Eyewear in store. As promised, we're always looking out for the best and most sought after products out there. We're quite particular on being ahead of the curve in offering them to you. We're pretty sure all of you are noticing our efforts thus far.

Despite being around for quite some time already, Moscot's recently been getting a lot of much-deserved publicity from customers and media alike. Their current collection is absolutely on point which means that you'll most definitely be hearing a lot more about them very soon.

The vintage-inspired MOSCOT Originals collection is a nod to the classic looks of decades past.

The newly-made frames are based on styles from the MOSCOT archives from the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's, retaining all of the authenticity of the original frame style right down to real glass lenses in their sunglasses, traditional hardware, and lens colors that precisely duplicate the true old school colors first fabricated by the company in the 1940's. The faithfully reproduced collection, is available as eyeglasses or sunglasses, with or without a prescription, in a variety of frame and lens color combinations and sizes.

Fun fact of the day: I used to live right around the corner from their 14th Street location in New York City circa 2005. I walked past their space every day and never actually walked into the store. Had I been a bit more curious, we'd have probably been able to enjoy Moscot Eyewear as early as our first day in business.

Everyone's had something to say about Moscot; Telegraph UK has an interesting insight. So does Slamxhype and Hypebeast. Selectism quotes Secret Forts in this piece.

Moscot is stocked at these fine stores:

Smith + Butler

Tauk

Colette Paris

Studiohomme Paris

10 Corso Como

Beams Harajuku

United Arrows Japan

Liberty London

Moscot will be available by next week.

Music: DJ Third Rail

Alright so were rolling around Chicago chillin real good and we meet up with some of my good friend's old buddies from high school. Sitting at their place he's throws this on: 89.30FM, Sunday Night 12:30AM, these mother fuckers are up in a radio studio spinning live on vinyls. Talk about dedicated man! So if you like some underground hip-hop, rap, beats, and everything else you can tag along with the prior, listen to the mixes below, straight fire.





I can pick out a track every once in awhile but I don't know enough to get the whole gist of the playlist in terms of whose on there and what he's mixing. Or if you have the original playlists that'd be great too.

http://www.dj3rdrail.com/

Here are the three recordings on his site:

Music

We've had a lot of inquiries regarding the music going on in store.

Thought we'd plug in a suggestion.

If you're liking The Black Keys, you're going to enjoy lead vocalist Dan Auerbach's solo effort titled 'Keep it Hid'. This was released in February of this year. It was recorded using mainly analog and vintage equipment.

It's playing in store right now.

In the meantime, enjoy some Great Singapore Sale deals; First item's regular priced, second is at 10% off.

Enjoy the weekend!

Recommended Reading

Blogs:
Fashion Nation, a fashion blog that delves into the world of independent fashion sites, blogs, magazines and forums as well as providing insight into the local Singaporean fashion scene.






Multifaceted:
Common People, a media platform that engages creatives that reside, pass through or are working on something related to the creative field in Singapore. Content is wholly video interviews, providing an interest peak into some of the creative individuals, collectives or entities that reside in Singapore.



School of Thought, a collective behind the food joint, Food for Thought and the publishing company behind " " (Quotations) the literary magazine that is slowly making its way to eyes across Singapore. Keep a lookout for these guys to shake some more things up in Singapore.

Gitman Vintage

We're proud to say that Gitman Vintage will be one of our new labels arriving at the store this summer. It's parent company(Gitman) has roots in NYC and is based out of Ashland, Virginia and has been in operation for the last 4 decades. All Gitman products are made in America. Gitman has raised an artisan craftsmanship culture around the Ashland area for quite a number of years now specializing in shirt making where it has employed families for years.

Gitman Vintage(American heritage inspired) is manufactured at the Ashland factories from scratch. Thread is developed in house and then used to manufacture the beautiful shirts, from start to finish, the whole process is handled in house with over decades of experience. The label takes cue from, "fabrics culled from late 1970s and early 1980s line-books (as well as current fabrications) and includes authentic details such as double-track stitching, chalk buttons and locker-loops. The collection is reissued with the original "Gitman Bros. Est 1978" label."

Our first order will be from their second season, FW2009

Debuting its second season, the Gitman Vintage Fall / Winter 2009 collection pays homage to Fall / Winter 1980. In addition to selecting perennial favorites, such as washed oxford and pinpoint, gingham check and small colorful plaids, we also selectively appropriated for this collection some of our favorites from the past: multi-toned flannels, snap Western shirts, one-of-a-kind university stripe oxfords, herringbone twills, beefy oxfords and a variety of chambrays. All available in our classic button-down, round or key collar.

Stocks should land in store mid August.
Stay tuned.

Gitman Vintage featured in Details

S***R Footwear A/W 2009

A feature on the up and coming AW collection from S***R Footwear came up on Selectism about 2 weeks ago. Some interesting styles coming up.

Click the shoe to view more photos.

A Flashback Production Post, Shenzhen – Guangzhou: Part 1

About to take the Guangzhou airport shuttle

The following paragraphs are being written from memory, pre active blog, before we decided it would be wise to document and share our journey of many paths.

Cross walk by the place we stayed at, Tianhe Bei Lu

The basic itinerary of the trip went like this:
Day 1: Arrive in Guangzhou, rest up and caught up with our friends in the city.
Day 2: Travel to Shenzhen by train early in the morning, we visited several fabric companies in the morning then had some great lunch. The remainder of the day was spent viewing our main production factory and then late afternoon to late at night was spent editing garments in the meeting room.
Day3: Back in Guangzhou, visited several fabric store/market areas.
Day4: Checked out some of the regular garment markets to see if there were any B-Grades around, suss out the production scope around there.
Day5: Guangzhou textile center, too big to describe, just huge, overwhelming.
Day6: Relaxing before we leave back to Singapore.

Throw some drinking and crazy cab rides in there as well then sprinkle some good eating and parties around too.

Train station at Guangzhou

Our production centers are in Shenzhen and Bangkok; Shenzhen is where our wovens get made and Bangkok is where our jersey pieces get made. Shenzhen plays a very important role with sifr since the majority of our first collection is wovens. I know a lot of people mention about the stigma that goes hand in hand with production in China but believe us we tried to find the best possible production for our garments without compromising one of our core values, accessibility. We’ve done our research on production in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, and Indonesia so far. If we went with production out of Japan or Korea we’d have to move our price points up 150 –200% at the least. With currency exchange rates and cost of labor there is a reason why companies end up charging the consumer $250 onwards for a garment that is made in Japan. Southeast Asian textile and production industry exists very much so but in terms of quality control, communication and finding solid production centers we were out of luck. We’ll continue to keep searching the region as we delve deeper into our sourcing investigation leads. As our never ending sourcing quest leads us to the production center of the world at the moment, China.

Street busker with child

To be continued in Part 2.

Slipmat Contest!

We had blogged about our man Daryl joining in on a slipmat contest called, "A Nice Set" several weeks back. A project between Plus et Plus, reed space, and idN magazine. Thanks to our combined support and his own skill and hard work Daryl has come out as the contest winner in Singapore and will have his work on tour with the other 30 or so slipmats. Daryl's work will also get published in an art book in conjunction with the contest.

Thank you for spreading the love.

Drops from S***R Footwear

Dylan 10 and 11. Black and White. Tumbled synthetic leather footwear from Swear now in store.

Twitter!

We're not trying to flood you. It just seems everyone nowadays has a twitter, we're riding the wave of change. An article in Time magazine recently cited twitter had a growth of over 1200% in monthly visits during the past year.

However the bottom line is that Oprah has a twitter, we're interested in following her. We'd like to use the term ambient awareness with our new move towards twitter, we'll know what you guys are up to and you'll know what we're up to. We've decided to take a more personal route and give our updates alongside store updates because we're just that interesting(6) (Sarcasm meter).

Here it is, the KIN Twitter!

and here is the Time article: "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live"

Pretty heavy duty if you ask us, but hey, there was friendster, myspace, facebook and I guess twitter is the next wave.

(On a personal note I was asking myself the question, "Why would anyone want another stream of information on top of facebook, email, tv, magazines, ads, ect?" I guess my question is semi-answered by the above Time article. All I'm going to say is that there's only 24 hours in a day.)

Stay tuned for some flashback production trips!

Non-no and Popeye

Here's an older issue from November 2008 of Non-no and here is a current version of Popeye from this month, June 2009. I hope you enjoy viewing the photos or reading if you can read Kanji.