And so begins #10.
2007 marks the 10th Anniversary of Staple Design. We’re now shipping the first deliveries of the Spring 2007 collection. Reed Space has been closed the last few days in order to spruce itself up for the release. (Thanks to Suzette for the great paint job.)
Over 25 arists, creatives, organizations, and agencies have contributed to the Staple 10th Anniversary collection. I personally assigned each person an ANAGRAM (a word or phrase formed from another by rearranging its letters) to use as the basis for the inspiration for their design. I purposely assigned certain anagrams to specific people..something that I thought would really get their creative juices flowing…or something that just made perfect sense for them. The outcome is truly phenomenal. FIND THEM ALL! COLLECT THEM ALL!
Let’s start with the banger. We worked with New Era on the infamous Black Pigeon Cap a few months ago. Now feast your eyes on the Grayscale Pigeon New Era. For the 129 people out there with a Pigeon Dunk, now you can rock this to match them perfectly. For the 40 million others who didn’t get it, you can now live vicariously thru this bad boy. At Reed Space 2/22.
Sarah and the gang at Colette have literally reinvented what the word “retail” means. They set the bar, and continue to demolish it by setting the standard ever higher. Its stores like Colette that allow stores like Reed Space to exist. When Staple was picked up by Colette a few years ago, it was like a dream come true.
Anagram: COLETTE/TO ELECT…Vote for your favorite store in Paris! Colette!
When I was an intern at PNB Nation (pre-Nick Cannon) back in 1994, Zulu asked me to run a disk over to their silkscreener. The person I dropped that disk off to was a man working the press named STASH. My…How times have changed! One of the most inspirational people in this world…Both from an artistic standpoint and a business one.
Anagram: SKILLS/KILLS…In the graf AND the real world, only one thing matters: SKILLS. Stash does a self portrait design with himself spraying paint out of a semi-automatic rifle. The detail in this design is dope.
Back in 1999, when I was art directing The Fader Magazine, I did a story on “Collections” and interviewed a man named Paul Mittleman. He had his own company called 1972 where he did design and marketing for brands like Gravis, Burton and Stussy. One of the companies got wise and took him in house and now you know Paul M as the Creative Director of Stussy Worldwide. I’m glad thru this strange world, our paths keep crossing somehow and we manage to stay close.
Anagram: TRASHED/THREADS…Fashion can be a nasty, dirty game. And I knew Paul would know that first hand.
I don’t mean to get all soft on y’all, but if I could create a dream woman in my mind, with no restrictions, that woman would be Deanne Cheuk. Talented, Hard Working, Creativity flowing everywhere, LES dweller, Aussie born, Perfect mommy to a perfect baby. What more can one person ask for? I think I first met D from The Fader days as well. But we got closer when she was the art director for Tokion Magazine and turned publishing design upside down. Then she went and did the same with fashion with her line Liness. She’s one of those people that can do everything perfectly. Its just a matter of when she gets around to it.
Anagram: PRAISED/DESPAIR…One thing that Deanne is bad at, is accepting praise. She is just way too humble.
Another magazine that we did art direction for was Sportswear International. This is back in 2000 or something. I was always looking for illustrators to do work for the mag and I stumbled upon a guy named Kimou Meyer aka Grotesk. He was currently working at the design studio, BASE. Imagine a graf head that spent his life in typography class. That’s Kimou. Swiss trained graphic designer…but listened to one too many Public Enemy songs growing up. (“Fight The Kerning!) We’ve been mad close every since and he’s one of the coolest dudes in the industry. You can currently find him as the Creative Director of Zoo York.
Anagram: Nameless/Salesmen…In “certain” circles of fashion, design isn’t king. Product isn’t king. SALES is king. And that’s wack. Kimou did a hilarious rendition of what might happen in a parallel universe of streetwear.
But you know what? Sometimes, you want to just get your grown man on you know? You don’t ALWAYS need some ironic, funny graphic on your chest. So I made these. Great fitting undershirts with a tone on tone one color front print: “A STAPLE UNDERSHIRT.” A staple in your waredrobe.
All the tees are packaged in this dope silver ziplock bag. Be on the look out for it and always support the authnetic shit.
So that’s the first six. All available at Reed Space and other select shops TOMORROW! Many, many more to come as 2007 continues on. As you can see, this ain’t some cold callin’…”Yo, do this collab with me!” type project. Each and every one of these is from the heart. These people mean the world to me and if it weren’t for them, in some small way, Staple wouldn’t be what you know it as today. Stay tuned….
That is some hot shit you got dropping! I will be checking Reed Space:Tokyo to grab me some of that. Keep it coming…
Hold tight.
Congrats on the 10 year’s Jeff.
Vince