Urban Hand got in touch to introduce themselves, and in the process they gave me a very nice overview of what the brand is all about:

we are a new clothing company based in Dublin, Ireland. We started trading at the end of last year and our original collection included t-shirts and hoodies for men. We concentrated mainly on logo placement designs to try and get the brand established. We expanded the range to include hats and caps as well as a range of t-shirts, hoodies and bags for women. We are now taking the next step along the road and are incorporating designs by young, up and coming Irish designers. After doing some research into the cotton and printing industries we have decided that all our t-shirts are now going to be fully organic offerings ie a 100% organic cotton t-shirt, printed organically using water based inks by a company which is certified by the soil association so we’re doing our bit for the environment. Priced at €19.99 with free standard delivery to Ireland & the UK we hope it’ll be a success.

When I see all those ecologically sound terms being thrown around I worry, because it tends to mean that there’s going to be a high price tag attached to the shirt, so it’s really refreshing to find a brand creating tees are guilt-free without having a premium price. I have my usual quibbles about brands that focus heavily on their name and logo in their initial releases, but that’s a personal choice and these guys have a pretty cool logo so that does make things a bit better.

Here’s another nice one-colour design from Pier-Luk Bouthillier, I like the way that it creates the connection between our choices and actions (using a bike instead of driving, in this case) to the wider world, and that it isn’t particularly preachy about it.

Costiness=$27 Mens / Womens

Feel free to substitute ‘eco-concious bikers’ for ‘smug and preachy’, because if you know meet someone that bikes to work instead of driving you will learn about that within 5 minutes of making their acquaintance. Intersesting to see TweetTees over at RedBubble, I thought they found their home at MySoti.

Costiness=£16.67 Buy it at RedBubble

If you’re wondering who Mighty Screen Printing are, they used to be called Klaus Industries… now if only I knew who Klaus Industries were. I wish I had been checking them out in the past though, I like the style of their designs.

Costiness=$25 Buy it at Might Screen Printing

I think it’s fair to say that this is one of the least expected collaborations of the year!

Whilst it is certainly surprising the Britain’s foremost weather service has teamed up with an eco-concious clothing label, I’m glad it happened because the shirts are rather cool, and since us Brits are obsessed with the weather it makes perfect sense that we’d want to wear shirts about the weather too. Clearly quite a few of the designs are based upon the symbols that we’re all used to seeing being pointed at by weather men and women, sometimes with a bit of a twist, but I think my favourite might be the exploded weather vane graphic. They’re all available at Rapanui Clothing now.

I’ve included the press release after the jump.

The Met Office team with Rapanui to launch range of weather related eco clothing

The Met Office has released a new range of weather related eco clothing made by leading UK eco fashion brand Rapanui.

The collection features a range of bold weather related designs inspired by the imagery, science and history of the Met Office and is made using eco fabrics in a wind powered factory.

Mart Drake-Knight co-founder and designer at Rapanui said:

“The Met Office is the international authority on climate change research, as well as being our national weather service that provides weather forecasts that we can trust and rely on.”

“At Rapanui we think that it’s not that people don’t care about climate and the environment, it’s just that they don’t know where to start when it comes to organic, ethical or low carbon alternatives. Our brand is about making eco fashion cool and accessible. We were delighted when we were invited to design these Met Office t-shirts. I think as well as being a nod to the Met Office’s heritage and expertise, we managed to add a bit of ‘Britishness’ and humour to capture the spirit of ‘the weather’ as a subject.”

The collaboration builds on the successes of the first range of t-shirts launched in May 2011.

Luke Green from the Met Office said:

“Weather fascinates everybody and this clothing provide a fun way of reaching new audiences about the work the Met Office does. We are delighted to be working with Rapanui again to design and produce this new collection which is the first step in developing new collaborations to promote our brand.”

T-shirts are available online via the Rapanui website www.rapanuiclothing.com/metoffice

I’m writing this on a Saturday night, as I’m sure you’d imagine I’m not that inclined to be writing about clothes; I was just going to give you guys the press release and leave it, but that would be doing Sutsu a disservice because this latest collection really is very impressive. Still, I’ve got to pad this post out somehow so here’s the press release anyway.

Sutsu was born from a single basic ideal…to create a Naturally Inspired streetwear brand which has a positive commitment to all that it touches.
With the new Sutsu Winter Eleven Collection we took inspiration from the power of nature. A re-interpretation of the Formation from last season,
a re-appearance from best selling Bear tee and a host of new graphics including Captain Wolf, The Eagle, and the Geometrical Mountain Ranges.

The range features the bright colour and bold graphic combo that Sutsu is becoming renowned for. Keeping in trend this season the key colours
for Sutsu are Burgundy and Steel Grey alongside our classics.

It’s cool to see the dedication that Sutsu put into minimising their environmental impact too.

60% of all Cotton garments are Organic. If not Organic then they are Fairtrade and Oeko-Tex farm Standard 100. No surplus paper products used in
production such as hang tags or brochures. All products delivered in recycled boxes. Sutsu aims to be accountable for all aspects of the business
& protective of the environment we use. Skatedecks are Bamboo / Maple Ply. Only UK brand.

Clearly, that’s not greenwashing and I respect them for that, the extra steps they’ve taken suggest that they actually give a damn rather than just going with a trend.

When it comes to the designs, I’m pretty impressed, the real standout for me is the mountain shirt/hoodie, it’s beautifully simple.

Goodfibres have been sitting in my inbox for far longer than they deserve, they’re a newish British label from Shoreditch (aka the cool part of London) that have a fairly sizable catalogue of tees despite their youth. One tee that caught my eye can be seen above but they are many others in the store that I think will suit the attitudes of many HYA readers. All the shirts are made with organic cotton* and bear the mark of the Fair Wear Foundation, so you know someone hasn’t been chained to a sewing machine for 30 hours a day to ensure that you can wear a cool looking shirt. They also make an in-kind donation with every purchase, so if you buy a t-shirt, they will give a t-shirt to someone that needs one (kind of like Toms, but with tees). All of this goodness does push the price up a bit to £25 per shirt, but at least your conscience is clear and you have helped someone less fortunate than you. Oh, and it’s a design contest too, with artists receiving 10% of all sales of their shirts.

Costiness=£25 Buy it at Goodfibres

*I’ve now been told that only 3 shirts in the collection are made with organic cotton, though they do intend to release more in the future.

Greenwashing, now there’s a tricky subject. I can’t remember the specifics of it, but you know how supermarkets always bug you about needing a carrier bag for your groceries because it’s bad for there to be lots of plastic bags on the planet? Well, they’re right, there’s no point wasting energy and raw materials when people already have lots of bags, but the amount of energy that goes into one plastic bag is equivalent to running my car for a couple of hundred yards, and I live 8 miles from a supermarket. Basically, don’t give me attitude when I need a bag because there are much bigger issues to worry about.

Quite a cool t-shirt from T-Post for their subscribers this month (it was made in collaboration with Threadless), if you subscribe to their service this month I think you will receive the shirt (I’m fairly sure that’s how they work, but it might be the case that you can no longer get the shirt and have to wait for the next mystery shirt to arrive at your door).

This week Treacle Clothing launched their Bristol series of tshirts with designs from Bristol graffiti artists and graphic designers 45RPM, SPZERO76, Loch Ness and Iain Sellar.

45RPM

Loch Ness

SPZERO76

Iain Sellar

All of the tshirts are limited to 1 of 50, made from 100% ethically sourced, carbon neutral Turkish cotton and they are screen printed and hand finished in the U.K, they come in a screen printed pizza box with a cute little certificate.

They are £25.00 on the web store inc free P&P

Okay, that title doesn’t quite tell the whole story, but it is quite accurate. Apparently it’s Earth Day sometime this week, so Threadless are going to be giving $1 from every order to PlantaBillion.org . Just $1 will allow them to plant a tree, which will help us slow down the rate at which we destroy the planet. I’m fairly sure that buying stuff in aid of Earth Day is a bit of an oxymoron, but since we’re all going to buy stuff anyway it’s pretty cool that at least a little bit of good comes from it.

They’ve also got the usual crop of new t-shirts, including the hideous one you can see above (all the others are pretty cool though, click through to see them!).