Photo by Dirigentens

I’m taking my girlfriend to Gothenburg, Sweden, for a long weekend, so obviously work will be the last thing on my mind, but I have written up a few posts to keep things rolling here that will hopefully keep you guys happy whilst I’m in the land of blonde people eating cinnamon laced cakes and pastries. If you send in a pitch or question between now and Monday please do not expect a reply before then, and it might take me a while to get back in the swing of things after I get back from the holiday.

I’d love to take some of these down to the Post Office today, so pick up a red HYA tee in the HYA store over the next half hour and get it for just £10, and it will be dispatched today, you could even be wearing it tomorrow!

After a few years being hosted by a Big Cartel storefront I have brought the HYA shop in-house and it is now a sub-domain over at shop.hideyourarms.com built on the same platform as my camera accessories venture Rigu. I feel it gives more of a professional look and feel compared to the Big Cartel store (largely because I was using a stock theme, some amazing things can be done with Big Cartel), and gives more scope for expansion in the future. I do have more plans for the store in the future, hopefully branching out beyond the logo-based merchandise to offering a marketplace featuring items from HYA bloggers. That should be happening in the near future but does need the kinks working out as it is quite a lot of work compared to me running this shop.

There are also going to be four new items added to the shop in the next couple of weeks too, which is pretty exciting. I love white print on red so it was a no-brainer for me to have a print run of them done, discharge printed onto red American Apparel tees in sizes ranging from XS-XXL. The lapis blue tees are regular plastisol print so not quite as soft as the red shirts, but still a really nice classic colour choice and they will feel good too. I have done very, very short print runs of the vests, a few of my friends wanted them printed since they like vests, and thought I might as well get some extras done for you guys so you can still wear HYA with pride on those hot summer days. These items should be in the store within a couple of weeks, you can sign up for e-mail notifications on the product pages to be the first to know when they have been added to the store (and once you’ve been notified about the release, your address will be deleted, no repeat notifications and no spam).

As you’d expect, I would love you get feedback and comments from you all regarding what you like and don’t like. I know it isn’t perfect and that there are still things to be done, but this is an exciting development for HYA and I really want to push it on.

Regular Hide Your Arms readers will have spotted our recent posts highlighting a few of the brands exhibiting at Margin London on the 10th & 11th February.

With just six days to go until the show opens to buyers and press, here’s a preview of some more of the labels making their tradeshow debut at the exhibition.

We thought we’d better not post any more in-depth profiles otherwise the Hide Your Arms crew wouldn’t have any exclusives to report on when they visit the show!

Here are some images to whet the appetite and look forward to the Hide Your Arms reports after the show.

For information about exhibiting at or visiting Margin, get in touch via the website.

LATIN LOVER, a new t-shirt label from Columbia for men & women, with great illustrations & graphics:

EVIL, the first-season from this new menswear range will be debuted at Margin. The collection features a whole range of clothing (shirting, trousers, chinos, denim) and printed tees & sweatshirts:

SLANG, a new men’s and women’s t-shirt brand from Portugal, drawing influences from art, music, and skate, and making their debut at Margin:

NETTY RATTI, adorable cross-stitched designs in this range of ethical women’s tops and tees:

OUT OF PRINT first made their debut at Margin in August 2011 and have exhibited at every edition since. They’re back again in February 2013 to unveil their latest tees featuring artwork from classic books:

Honesty time. The traffic to Hide Your Arms has been dropping over the past year and it’s getting to a worrying point for me. I know that splitting my time between HYA and Rigu is partly to blame for the fall in traffic, but I’m putting out as many posts as ever so I feel that there has to be something else that is the problem.

After seven years I’d like to think things would be steady but clearly the internet is changing and Hide Your Arms needs to change with it.

With that in mind I am asking a question that I’ve asked before: What do you want from Hide Your Arms

If you read this blog but you’ve never left a comment, now is the time, I read loads of blogs that I never comment on, so I know how easy it is to just lurk, but if there’s anything you’ve wanted to say about the direction of the site then please do leave a comment or send a message via the comment form.

There’s no need to worry, I have no intention to close the site, I’m just wanting feedback and ideas for how we can move forward and bring the site back to where it was a couple of years ago.

I thought I’d finish the week of regular posting (there may well be a couple of hands-on reviews coming up over the weekend) by reminding you guys about a few boring things with the site. Firstly, the HYA Facebook page crossed the 5,000 likes barrier earlier this week, I think that’s pretty huge and I’m proud to have that many people supporting the site. If you haven’t liked the page yet please do, I don’t post too often and it’s a great way to discuss posts from the site.

You can also follow @hideyourarms on Twitter. Since Hide Your Arms is tied so closely with my personality this is my personal account as well as serving up the professional side of things like new post announcements and messages trying to get you to buy advertising space. That means it has a bit of a different tone to Facebook, much more conversational, and you hear a lot about what I ate that day.

Lastly, I’d like to put out my regular call to remind people that I’m always looking for people to join the team as writers. It’s all very casual and I’m told that I’m a nice boss, well that’s what I tell them to say (see? see all the zany fun we’d have if HYA had an office?). You can write about what you want when you want and occasional you’ll get free clothes for review, and it can be used on your CV and good work experience. Get in contact if you would like to be part of #TeamHYA.

Have a great weekend everyone! Buy stuff from Rigu!

HYA bloggers Doug and Leah sent over some pictures of them modeling their shirts from the HYA store. I’ve struggled to sell tees to women in the past, I’m not sure if that’s because you ladies don’t trust the sizing or perhaps there just aren’t many of you reading the site, but hopefully the above pics will prove to you that HYA shirts do fit women (Leah is shown wearing size small, Doug is in a large).

These three shirts actually went up in the HYA store on Friday afternoon, but between getting the photos taken, it being me and my girlfriend’s 3rd anniversary, and the Olympics opening ceremony in the evening I didn’t get a chance to write up a post letting you guys know that I took the plunge once again and had some more HYA logo t-shirts printed.

Since I started Rigu last November I’ve really been enjoying packing orders and sending them around the world, and with the HYA store being a bit empty with various sizes of items sold out I decided it was time to get back in the game, and more importantly, I wanted to wear a HYA tee with gold foil on it, and the classic white print too. I won’t print anything that I won’t wear, there’s no point in me investing in stock of tees that I see every day if I’m not going to enjoy seeing them, and I am really, really happy with how these latest tees have come out.

White print on black is a classic colourway and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get around to having them printed. They’re white discharge ink on black American Apparel 2001 t-shirts, so we all know it’s a good quality t-shirt and with that discharge print it’s started out soft and it’s only going to get softer over time resulting in a really nice vintage feel. Limited quantities of the shirt are available now for £14.99 + shipping.

When I put in the order for the gold foil shirts I did wonder if they were a little bit silly. I’m not exactly a ‘bling’ person, I don’t even like the word bling and I never wear jewelry, but something about gold foil tees has always intrigued me, especially when you’re using a black blank, and I had a feeling that the HYA logo would look good in gold. I hadn’t even considered that there was something of an Olympic tie-in with the gold foil, but as I watched Team GB walk around the track during the opening ceremony on Friday I realised I may have missed a trick with marketing there. The gold is pretty shiny, but it isn’t thick so doesn’t feel heavy on the shirt or feel like it will flake off. A brand (who I suppose should remain nameless) that I like use the same printer and shirt for their gold foil tees and sent me one of them a few year, and whilst it isn’t very gold now it did take many years of washing for that to happen, so I do feel that this shirt has a long life in it if cared for correctly. The shirts are from Continental Clothing, who make very nice shirts with a size chart that is very similar to American Apparel, who are members of the Fair Wear Foundation and go the extra distance when it comes to ensuring that their products are made in fair and ethical conditions. The gold foil tee costs £15.99 + shipping and is available now.

Lastly, I have restocked the grey print on grey AA tri-blend tees since they sold out in medium and large a while ago. The grey print this time is slightly lighter (Pantone 7540C) to reflect the true colour of HYA grey. Please note that in XL and XXL the darker grey print remains as I only restocked the M & L sizes, but the dark grey print looks cool so it’s all good. You can pick up this American Apparel tri-blend shirt for £15.99 plus shipping in the HYA store.

I do have it in mind to add to the store over time and slowly build what we have on offer, likely more logo-based stuff, but it’s possible that we’ll be branching out in the future, likely with a couple of cool posters a local artist-friend of mine, and we’ll see how it goes from there. If there’s anything that you’d like to see the HYA logo on let me know and I’ll see if it’s possible.

Andy,

Thanks for adding me as a contributor to your site.
I look forward to saying things about things I may have not had a chance to say about those things other wise. AND, I promise to use spell check every chance I get.
Also, go to Face Book for my latest adventures.

Again, Thanks!
Meanie

Andy: Nice idea for a new contributor to introduce themselves this way, though I would have thought they’d do it by testing out the regular post system rather than the submission form!

This post was submitted by Meanie.

Back in the early days of HYA the thought of letting other people write on HYA scared me, I didn’t want to lose control of what was being put on the site, and heaven forbid something was posted that wasn’t on the schedule! These days I’ve become more relaxed about the situation and realised that for the site to grow and appeal to more people it’s important to have more than just my viewpoint on the site, and to provide all your readers with a wider range of t-shirts and clothing.

I’ve been slowly adding to the writing team over the past few months and I really like it, it feels good to have lots of people dropping in with something they’ve found or to cover the latest news, it feels like HYA isn’t just about me anymore and I like that, I want it to be a bigger part of the t-shirt community and become something that can be a real force to help and support t-shirt brands grow.

To show that Hide Your Arms is no longer a one-man operation (sure, I do most of the heavy lifting, but the load is getting lighter) I have put together a contributors page to recognise the people that make up the HYA writing team. Each writer has a little bio and a couple of links showing you where you can find them around the web, their posts on HYA, and also a picture so that we can put a face to the name that you seen in the byline on each post (like this one, but you guys probably know who I am already).

If you would like to join the team and write on HYA then I am always looking to take people on who have a passion for clothing of any kind (it doesn’t have to just be tees, this site started out being about hoodies, remember?). Please get in touch via the contact form or send me an e-mail (info@hideyourarms.com) letting me know who you are, what brands and kinds of clothes you like, and anywhere I can find your writing online if possible. Experience blogging is definitely not a requirement, though it would be useful.