Bricks & Mortar

The Blind Tiger Collective is a really cool project spearheaded by Dualta Jones of Project A Apparel that is bringing together ten of Ireland’s finest indie brands to open a pop-up shop in Dublin in the run up to Christmas. They’ve written a really good press release, and it’s Saturday night, so I’m feeling lazy enough to just copy/paste that:

Hot on the tail of the collapse of the Celtic Tiger comes 10 Irish Designers as Blind Tiger Collective

The Blind Tiger Collective, a collection of 10 Irish clothing brands, are launching their pop-up shop on the 20th of December in the distinctive Dublin North Inner City.The pop-up will be open for 4 days until the 24th and will give customers a chance buy Irish this Christmas from independent designers.The collective consists of over 10 brands aiming to give the Irish shopper an opportunity to support their local designers and young businesses this Christmas and to do so with distinctive style and swagrrr.

The Blind Tiger Collective will spring to life on the 20th of December until the 24th at Little Green Gallery on Green Street and the temporary space will be retailing exclusive Irish Streetwear and accessories. In the run up to the launch, Dualta Jones, organiser of the event and co-owner of Project A Apparel decided he was tired of large foreign companies opening pop up stores to promote brands that were already saturating the market. He said “I decided that small Irish brands like my own need to come to together and help promote each other in a joint effort a stake a claim on our territory.”

There will be a wide variety of brands at the Blind Tiger Collective pop up like Turtlehead, Swallows and Daggers and LadyUmbrella, ranging from tattoo inspired hand drawn designs, skate apparel, street art and graffiti inspired work, showcasing the diversity of Irish design talent. A lot of the brands in the Blind Tiger Collective work on very limited print runs, some as low as 25 pieces, and when a design is finished its finished for good which guarantees exclusivity.

To celebrate the launch night and make the Blind Tiger pop up a bit more special, Galway based screen printer killertees.ie will be screen printing a unique “Blind Tiger Collective” tee. All good collectives need some good music and there will be a DJ for the launch as well as a range of free drinks to get the launch started. With a big push to buy Irish this Christmas and campaigns like “Irish Indie Xmas” getting a lot of attention maybe it’s time to forget the Celtic Tiger and listen to the roar of the Blind Tiger Collective.

“forget the Celtic Tiger and check out the swagrrr of the Blind Tiger Collective.” Follow the ambush at

Facebook : www.facebook.com/blindtigercollective
Twitter : twitter.com/weareblindtiger
Email : blindtigercollective@gmail.com

As you would imagine, I’m all for a project like this, and looking at the people that they’ve got involved it should be a big success as long as they can get enough people through the door. In the past I’ve made it clear that I have issues with the term pop-up shop, and I still do, but at least this seems to be a be an actual pop-up shop, as in a shop that will only be around for a couple of days, rather than when some fancy brand takes a corner of a hotel and calls it a pop-up shop.

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