All City Tivoli Jam
May 22nd, 2013 by adminHeres a few snaps of work in progress at the All City Jam last Saturday in Dublin. Great pieces were on show from the likes of DMC, Rask, Danleo, Drive and loads more.
What do Alex Ferguson, Optimus Prime and Clive Barker have in common?
May 20th, 2013 by admin
They’re all name dropped by the creators of Dublin born streetwear label Project A Apparel. In anticipation of their latest collection arriving in to us this week, Counter Propaganda had a quick pow-wow with the couple behind it, Dualta and Francesca. Having recently relocated to London we wanted to find out what their at, what to expect from the new designs and find out what makes them tick.
Hi guys, what’s up?
In work, sitting down to a sambo and crisps. London ‘s great. It’s always really bustling. We’re lucky too in that we live close to Brick Lane and Shoreditch. So on weekends when we eventually have time to ourselves we can get out and see some interesting things, without having to travel too far.
So what’s the label about?
Project A Apparel is a streetwear brand that’s all about getting good quality and interesting designs out there. We started off with a desire to make clothes for mainly graffiti & street artists who in turn told their friends and it grew from there. Now we’ve been lucky enough to work with some of Ireland’s biggest street art and graffiti names like DMC, Bag and Friz. For our SS 2013 collection we snagged Morgan and Rask and couldn’t believe our luck at getting to work with these really great artists.
Your last collection had a horror movie theme mixed with travel industry iconography, what influences can we expect from the incoming range?
That Abercrombie CEO guy is a dick. Discuss
May 19th, 2013 by admin
Last week a youtube video about the clothing label Abercrombie & Fitch caught our eye. It clocked up about five million hits in a few days and is basically a dig at the CEO, and some ethical issues regarding how they don’t recycle or re-use unwanted or damaged garments. Well if you haven’t watched the video, apparently they burn their products rather than give them away to those who could use them.
There is certainly an argument that the video is exploitative of homeless people, but that aside, it reminds you of the type of people that A&F market to in their CEO’s attention grabbing sound bites. The man in question, Mike Jeffries, has a pretty focused view on the type of people he wants in their shops and wearing their product which is absolutely fair and exactly what one would expect of a good CEO. The only problem is that this CEO’s statements helps most people despise the brand even more. Example-
“Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong”
“Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they’re about to jump on a surfboard”
“Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
Of course he has since retracted some of his statements as expected, but the marketing exercise has worked, the headlines have been made and lots of people are talking about them, for good and bad reasons, including us of course.
Anyway, inspired by his overall sense of inhumanity and with our tongue in our cheeks, we ran a promotion on it over the weekend to give something to any shoppers discriminated against by A&F’s marketing approach. Our campaign got picked up on a few blogs and the reaction was certainly mixed but entertaining in places. Rather than pick and choose or edit what to relay here in our blog, this is two of the full comment threads that followed -
ON THE RED LINE
May 13th, 2013 by PeterWalking the LUAS RED LINE from our shop on Lower Liffey street down as far as Collin’s Barracks and came across some quality art.
this is just a taster. Always worth keeping your eyes peeled. Seen anything that caught your eye lately, share in the comments.
GETTIN PRESSED
May 13th, 2013 by Peter
Our latest mention: ’Their low-key, affordable but edgy designs are perfect for that effortlessly cool contempo casual look’ – Our latest mention from Hot Press Magazine ’s Best of Ireland 2013
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