I know that the vast majority of readers won’t be able to make it to this exhibition, but I really like the way that they’ve designed the promo poster, so I’m sure you guys can at least enjoy that. Here’s the press release for those of you that live in the London area and feel like checking out some fresh pieces from some top artists from Britain and beyond:

Concrete Hermit presents its summer show ‘We Have Been Expecting You’, a group show of selected prints and affordable work by both young and established international graphic artists we have presented and collaborated with.

The exhibition will include new works and pieces which have never been exhibited before in the U.K. from well–known artists such as Jon Burgerman, Ian Stevenson, Andrew Rae, Anthony Burrill, Neasden Control Centre, Jody Barton, eBoy, Supermundane, Cody Hudson, MWM Graphics, Andrew James Jones and many others…

Prints will start from £20 - £400.

Opening Night Thursday 7th August
Press and Buyers preview from 5:30 pm
Private View 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Concrete Hermit

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Tags » Anthony Burrill • art • concrete hermit • eBoy • exhbition • london • Summer

Let’s do the polite thing and let Council Dukes introduce themselves before I give you my thoughts:

Council Dukes is a new streetwear label coming straight outta East London- it typifies all that is admirable about the gentleman thief, the geezer, the cheeky conman who’ll rob you blind with a smile on his face. With a lineage stretching from Robin Hood to the Artful Dodger and from Butch Cassidy to Terry Thomas; history and fortune have always favoured the smart as well as the brave.

To be completely honest, I don’t really see the qualities of a gentleman thief running through this new line of tees, but I do see a lot of promise. The designs, whilst almost entirely focused upon their own name, are fairly original, make decent use of gold foil (no wonder they’re gaining a following in the British hip hop world), and they seem to have the quality aspect down too. All the tees are 100% made in Britain, limited to 100 pieces in their first run, and finished with Council Dukes hem and/or sleeve tags.

Council Dukes

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Tags » council dukes • gold foil • hip hop • Label Profiles • london • music • T-shirts • UK

It’s getting told about events like this that make me wish that I lived down in ‘that London,’ (although scenery like this usually makes up for it).

Straight from their mailout:

eBoy, the innovative and seminal pixel art pioneers are exhibiting at Concrete Hermit in May. eBoy is a pixel art group founded in 1998 by Steffen Sauerteig, Svend Smital and Kai Vermehr. From their Berlin studio they create re-usable pixel objects and take them to build complex and extensible artwork. Their work makes intense use of popular culture and commercial icons, and their style is presented in three-dimensional illustrations filled with robots, cars, guns and girls. Their unique style has gained them a cult following among graphic designers worldwide, and they have worked with among others, named brands and companies such as Coca-Cola, MTV, VH1, Adidas, and Honda. They were also involved in creating the album cover for Groove Armada’s 2007 studio album Soundboy Rock.

Entire cityscapes, rich in detail have been created for London, New York, Berlin, Tokyo and this exhibition sees the latest city to get the eBoy unique visionary panoramic treatment: Los Angeles.

There will also be a chance to see the development of the Peecols – eBoy’s series of toys. These innovative toys have become highly collectable, and there will be the rare opportunity to see the Blockbob prototypes and special limited editions of the figures. Exclusive eBoy prints, t-shirts and products will be available at the exhibition.

The eBoy exhibition runs from 9th May - 30th June. Concrete Hermit Gallery, 5a Club Row, London, E1 6JX. Open 10am – 6pm Tuesday-Sunday.

Concrete Hermit
Concrete Hermit Gallery
My recent review of the gallery

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Tags » concrete hermit • eBoy • exhibition • london

I was watching a debate with the three front runners for the London Mayoral Election (Boris Johnson - Conservative, Ken Livingston - Labour, Brian Paddick - Liberal Democrat) on Sunday, and I realised that I wouldn’t really want any of them to be in charge of a city that I lived in, they were squabbling like kids. How much is it to ask that we have political figures that I can actually respect?
Since I don’t live in London it doesn’t effect me that much, but I’d imagine its a pretty confusing position for Londoners to be in, having to pick the best of a bad bunch, and I think that this latest couple of tees from Mingled highlights the situation pretty well. For those of you that don’t recognise the faces, Boris’ face is on the Vote Ken tee, and Ken’s face is on the Vote Boris tee. They’ve also made the Vote Boris tee red, which is traditionally Labour’s colour, but the Vote Ken tee is in green, which is a little odd since you’d expect them to carry on the party-switching by making it a blue tee, which would be the Conservatives traditional colour, unless they really being politically astute and recognising how David Cameron has been saying that a vote for the Conservatives is a green vote because of all his promised green initiatives….and that paragraph above provides you with an excellent example of why I don’t write about politics anymore… because it’s all incredibly confusing. Props to Mingled for taking their products shots outside of City Hall!

Costiness=$19.99 Vote Ken/Vote Boris

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Tags » Celebrities • london • mingled • political • T-shirts

Fear not gentle readers, HYA has not turned into Hide Your Ass (now there’s an idea!), but I promised these guys that I’d write something about them even if I don’t have the first clue about the world of premium jeanswear. I met two of the people behind Trousers London at the pre-party before the main event at Margin and they they were great, very concerned about the two friends I took to the party who ‘over-extended’ themselves on delicious free cocktails from the bar. In short, being nice to me will get you a feature on HYA.
Trousers London was officially launched at Margin, though the brand was born in 2007 with the intention of creating a jeanswear label that stood out from other high-end offerings. Here’s how they describe themselves:

Trousers is an experimental, ambitious, future-focused jeans label inspired by London.

From unique designs and shapes, to small but important details, Trousers stands alone among the clones of the daily jeans parade. Trousers makes jeans for the genuine modern day gentlemen, for the man who loves the thrill of the new and is always at the forefront of the avant-garde.

We at Trousers believe in ecologically friendly materials and we care that our products are not born of exploitation. Our range is crafted with patience and skill in small batches, in our Italian factory using organic premium denim.

Like I said, I know basically nothing about the premium jeans market. I do know that their jeans looked cool, and they’re making all the right noises in terms of not wanting to destroy the planet which is refreshing to hear, and I think that it would be pretty hard for you to disagree that these are fairly unique designs, you certainly won’t find anything like them on the high street. So, I do give their range a thumbs up, but unfortunately my thumbs are of little value in this instance.

At the moment it isn’t actually possible to buy these jeans. Those who are interested in the limited edition garments (just 600 pairs in the first production run) will be available to register their interest in May when the Trousers web store opens, with the jeans getting to them in June or July. If you’re a bricks and mortar kind of person, the jeans will be available in a select few retails stores around the UK and Europe around August/September.

Trousers London

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Tags » Environmental • jeans • london • margin • margin2008 • trousers london

Lazy Oaf reopened their Kingly Court store a few days ago, as you can see it looks rather swish, a definite improvement on the store I visited during my Margin trip.

If you’re a Londoner, or just in the area (Kingly Court is located on/just off Carnaby Street), check them out, tell them Andy from HYA sent ya, they’ll have no idea who you’re talking about, but still, tell ‘em.

If you’re not in the area, check out this blog post and be sad that you didn’t have a chance to get in on the beardy festivities of the re-opening.

Lazy Oaf

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Tags » lazy oaf • london • opening • retail • shop

Lazy Oaf are opening a pop-up shop (which seem to be all the rage nowadays) on Ganton Street, London, whilst they give their regular shop at Kingly Court a makeover. I visited the Kingly Court shop during my recent trip to London, but didn’t have the balls to introduce myself since they probably wouldn’t have known who I was. Which would have been awkward.

Anyway, I was very impressed with the quality level when I went, and can now wholeheartedly recommend them based upon experience rather than my usual standard of ‘it looks cool so it probably is cool’. Here’s the deets about the temporary store:

This will be no normal shop though- Oh no! This is our super dooper bargainous sale extravaganza pop-up shop where you will most certainly be overcome by cheap thrills galore!

Most of the tees will be priced at £10 or …wait for it… 3 t-shirts for a teeny tiny amount of £20. Lovely.

Sweatshirts will be reduced down to £20 and polo-shirts, £15. Mmmm, nice.

So, everything MUST go, as we need to make room for lots more yummy stuff when the brand new, fresh and spangly shop re-opens. WE CANNOT WAIT!

The sale shop opens at Number 2, Ganton Street (see map) on Saturday 8th March at 12 noon for 7 days, 11am-7pm. See you there with your purse, ready for frenzied shopping!

This is an in-store sale only, because of a recent web sale they had, which I may or may not have remembered to post about.

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Tags » • bricks and mortar • lazy oaf • london • sale • shop

Well, that was fun!

Over the weekend I managed to hit up not just Margin, but also To Be Confirmed and The Park yesterday. I met a lot of new brands, a lot of nice people, and collect enough press info that I need to buy a few acres of rainforest to ease my conscience over the amount of paper I gathered.

Taking your own photos is generally frowned upon at these kind of places (presumably due to designers fearing rip-offs of their unreleased work), most of the Margin-based posts aren’t going to look all that different, but hopefully they’ll have a different feel, since for a change I’ve actually had a chance to feel the clothes and chat with the designers.

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Tags » exhibition • london • margin • margin2008 • the park • to be confirmed

Hey guys, I’m still down in London for the Margin exhibition, so there’s no posts today, but hopefully things will be back to normal tomorrow and I can start talking about all the great new brands I’ve seen.

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Tags » exhibition • london • margin

Next weekend I’m going to be making the long trek (well, 3 hours on the train) to London for Margin, a streetwear and directional tailoring trade-show being held in central London (February 10th, 11th & 12th). Hopefully I’ll find out about a load of new and exciting brands, so get ready for an invasion of British brands on the blog over the next month or so.I’m going to be down in the big smoke for three days, and presume that I’ll only be at Margin for one day, so I’m throwing my itinerary open to the HYA masses. I’m making up a list of stores that I have to go to. including checking out Concrete Hermit’s latest show, Magma’s Covent Garden Store, the Sunday (Up)Market (note: hangover dependent), the Design Museum, and wherever Yutaka tells me via this excellent website that Virgin seem to have had a hand in.

I guess that makes it look as if I’ve got a pretty busy schedule, but I’d still like a few more tips about great stores that you think I should check out. I’m no stranger to London as my brother lived there for a few years, I know my way around fairly well and I’ve done all the tourist stuff that I want to do, so I’m after interesting off-the-beaten-path type stuff. If you leave a comment or drop me an e-mail and I go there I’ll try and take pics and do some mini-reviews of wherever I’m sent, so if you own a store this could be potentially useful for you too.

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Tags » exhibition • london • margin