The Chateau Roux team were kind enough to send over one of their fine hoodies to keep me warm during winter, and whilst it is a warm hoodie, I was still pretty chilly when I dashed outside into the -9C air to take these photos, but then again, I think it would be pretty chilly whatever I was wearing when it’s that cold.
The hoodie is a size XL; when I’m wearing an American Apparel XL hoodie it’s pretty baggy, but as you can probably tell from the photos, this hoodie is a bit of a slim fit on me. It’s pretty thick and I don’t think that it’s too tight (I actually think it’s quite slimming), but it’s definitely a fashion fit and should be purchased as such, so if you want to wear something that’s a little roomy then order a size up.
Every aspect of this hoodie screams quality, I’m very, very impressed with it. Chateau Roux aren’t a bargain-basement kind of a brand, yes, it is possible to get a cheaper hoodie elsewhere, but I doubt that you’ll be able to get a hoodie of similar quality without paying quite a lot more, and with this design being on sale at the moment it really is excellent value.
Costiness=£42 Buy it at Chateau Roux
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It’s not often that you’ll see the word ‘cool’ and ‘crochet’ within a few miles of each other, but this is definitely one of those times. I can’t lie, I was pretty skeptical that I would like these hats when BMC Handmade offered to send a few hats to my way, and my policy is that I never accept a sample if I don’t think I’ll like it, but I took them up on their offer because I was curious, and because I like hats. Beanies from BMC range from $18.50 for the snug fit to $20.50 for the large slouch, which seems extremely reasonable for a handmade hat…. but it’s actually better than you think; for every hat you purchase, BMC will make another one, and donate it to a child that has suffered from hair loss due to chemotherapy. A very worthy cause I’m sure you’ll agree, making your purchase all that more meaningful, and warming your heart as well as your head.
![DSCF9339 Medium 480x360 Cool Crochet Beanies from BMC Handmade [Review]](http://hideyourarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSCF9339_Medium-480x360.jpg "DSCF9339_Medium")
As you can probably tell from the photo above, I thought I’d do something a little different and do the photoshoot for the hats out in the snow. It was cold, damn cold, to the point where it wasn’t particularly pleasant operating the camera, and yet, neither my head nor my brother’s got chilly during our time out in the cold. I confirmed this later during a walk around a nearby forest, I was out in about -5C-ish temperatures for about 40 minutes and at no point did I get cold, which surprised me since as these hats are crocheted, by their nature there are rather a lot of holes in them. I’d assume that their hole-y look is a positive in summer, ensuring that they won’t get as hot as a traditional beanie, so it’s a win-win as far as I can tell in that regard. The designs (patterns?) that BMC offer range from flat single colours to a few more colourful options for people that want to stand out a bit more. Personally, I’m happier wearing a single colour beanie like the black or blue ones that they sent, so as far as the designs go, it’s entirely subjective, but even the more colourful options aren’t too crazy, so I can’t imagine anyone hating them.
![DSCF9332 Medium 480x360 Cool Crochet Beanies from BMC Handmade [Review]](http://hideyourarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSCF9332_Medium-480x360.jpg "DSCF9332_Medium")
I’ve never owned a ’slouch’ style beanie before, I do like to wear beanies but I’d never been particularly attracted to them, they seemed like clothing that comes with an attitude attached to it, if you know what I mean, but having spent some time wearing the large slouch style that BMC offers, I now get that it’s just a comfy beanie that doesn’t hug your head quite for tightly, and I’d assume that the ladies (and quite a lot of guys too) would be happy to wear a hat that doesn’t necessarily give you a hefty case of hat hair. Long story short, I’m now a convert to slouch beanies. So again, much like with the designs, it’s entirely up to you, snug fit, medium slouch, large slouch, they’re all high quality beanies, you just have to pick one.
BMC Handmade
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Arka Clothing are a pretty new company (at least I think they are), but they’re really hustling to get themselves out there. They’ve been mentioned on pretty much every t-shirt blog you can think of (and quite a lot you can’t), appeared at a couple of Thread Shows, as well as Focus and last weekend were hanging out at Agenda, I’m sure I read something on Twitter about a print magazine interview too, they’re everywhere at the moment!
I often question whether there is any value in me discussing whether I like a design or now when doing these hands-on review, because like all the tees I show you, you’re either going to like it or not, what I say isn’t really going to make much of a difference, I’m pretty sure I don’t have that much influence on you guys… yet. For what it’s worth, I like the concept and enjoy the style employed, though I can understand the reaction of my girlfriend and brother, who both said that it looked a bit too much like it was drawn by a kid when they saw it in my office/man cave. It’s certainly wearable though, by which I mean I think it would look good framed by a zip-up hoodie, or one of button-up cardigans that seem to be popular at the moment (a trend that I haven’t quite caught up with yet).
Arka clearly know how to put together a good t-shirt. It feels nice and soft, I’m almost tempted to say that it’s softer than an American Apparel tee (before either have been washed), but it’s so subjective that it’s hard to tell either way, especially with my hands being rather chilly due to the arctic conditions that Britain. The print feels good too, Arka are pretty proud of the use of non-toxic inks in their printing process, here’s a quick quote from their FAQ regarding their printing:
We are one of the only apparel companies in the world that use non-toxic (non-formaldehyde) ink for all of our products. Regular toxic inks are harmful to the environment and cause cancer. It is not a popular choice of printing by other apparel companies due to its high cost.
Here’s the thing, that simply isn’t true, there’s a lot of brands out there that use non-toxic ink, and I’m struggling to turn up good evidence supporting the idea that regular inks cause cancer. I’m not saying they don’t, but surely if the ink used on the majority of t-shirts out there was a significant cancer risk there would be millions of people getting cancer due to wearing t-shirts, and presumably those inks would be banned. That’s probably just me being pedantic, and I don’t expect them to be linking to medical papers about cancer, but it struck me as an odd thing for them to include in their FAQ.
All that aside, the print is nice, you can tell it’s there but it isn’t too heavy, and considering the large size of the print that’s admirable, there’s no way you could complain about it feeling bulletproof.
Costiness=$34.99 Available from Arka Clothing
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I
first wrote about this tee a bit over a month ago, so you guys know that I’m already a bit of a fan of the design, and receiving the tee in the mail has not changed my opinion of it one bit. I still think that it looks like some creey dude hanging out in a forest rather than a sasquatch, but as I’ve never seen a sasquatch (and I doubt the
Badd Habit team thave either) I don’t really think that I’m in a position to be judging whether an intentionally mysterious silhouette is a mythical beast or not.
When I check out a clothing company and say “hey, that tee is cool” I only really take a superficial look at the site and just focus on the shirts. I’ll always maintain that the clothes are the most important part of any brand, any of the ‘extras’ are just a bonus, and should never be a replacement for good design. However, I do have a soft spot for clothing companies that attempt to give something back beyond just selling tees, and whilst I was checking them out in greater depth for this review I found out something cool, they give the majority of their profits to a charity called the 4806 Foundation that help young people recover from substance abuse and addiction. Beyond that, some of the people that work for Badd Habit are young men from the Gray Wolf Ranch, which is a place dedicated to getting people sober, and working at Badd Habit is part of that recovery process. It’s very admirable, and it makes me like them more as a brand because it truly means that buying a t-shirt can make a real difference.
The design is a real winner for me. The large print really helps to reinforce the appearance of it being more like art on a t-shirt rather than a design that is just placed onto the shirt. The fact that the tee colour
itself.looks a lot like canvas probably has something to do with me forming that opinion, but even if that was just an unintentional side-effect of the color palette I think that it works really well. Something I like about this design is that taken on their own, most of these elements don’t look like the things they’re meant to look like (come on, does that
really look like a tree on the left?), but taken as a whole the scene really comes together, even if it does have that slight ambiguity that I mentioned earlier.
In my first post about the tee I said it was a black and white colour palette, but in reality the shirt is actually creme with a brown print, both colourways would work in my opinion, but creme/brown is good for evoking a vintage photo look. The tee itself is from the American Apparel organic range, so I assume that just about everyone reading this will know that fit, the organic shirts fit the same as the regular Earth-hating ones in my experience. Print quality is top notch too, soft and thin so that even though there’s a lot of print area, it isn’t at all heavy.
Costiness=$24.95 Squatch is available from Badd Habit
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![DSCF9339 Medium 480x360 Cool Crochet Beanies from BMC Handmade [Review]](http://hideyourarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSCF9339_Medium.jpg "DSCF9339_Medium")
![DSCF9332 Medium 480x360 Cool Crochet Beanies from BMC Handmade [Review]](http://hideyourarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSCF9332_Medium.jpg "DSCF9332_Medium")
