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

I got a chance to meet up with EIO at Margin back in February, and it was really great to get hands on with their whole range after reviewing a sample back in October last year.So, with that knowledge in mind, I can tell you with no uncertainty that this latest S/S range is damn fine. The hoodies were soft and the designs were sharp, and they’ve even started selling some rather nifty looking belts that have their logo stamped onto them. Click on through to see all the new goodies that they’ve got on offer.

Props to EIO for seeming like a great bunch of people, having spoken to them I can really understand the level of passion that they put into what they do, and I think that shows through in this latest collection.

EIO Clothing

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Tags » • eio clothing • margin • margin2008 • release • spring

Andy: “Ummmm, why have you put those badges into takeaway cartons?”YCMIH: “One day we were making our onion-design badges and we noticed that they were… y’know, onion… badges…“(Queue bemused look from the devilishly handsome blogger)

Andy: “……..”

YCMIH: “Onion Bhajis!”

Andy: “Ahhhhh! Now I get it”

And with that, I was thoroughly smitten with the ladies behind You Can Make It Happen, a small Manchester-based company set up by Jo Finlay in 2003. There was a fantastic quirky-Britishness about them, their designs, and entire brand philosophy that was really endearing. The often doodle-like hand drawn illustration style is a staple of their (usually food-inspired) designs, something which goes hand-in-hand with the hand-printed, limited edition nature of all their pieces.

Fittingly, considering the food-theme that seems to run through their range, YCMIH are getting healthy and eating their greens. That rather strained metaphor (analogy?) means that they’re sourcing all their products from manufacturers that employ fair, ethically and environmentally conscious working practices.

They had quite a few products at Margin that I can’t spot on their typically whimsical, hand drawn website, such as a new ‘eat your greens’ range, and a guilt-free eco-bag, a product that is really big in the UK at the moment, so it might be a case of it taking a while for them to get to the site, but it’s entirely possible that they’ll have the latest stuff at Manchester’s Fashion Market every Saturday 10am-5pm on Tib Street (near Debenhams, if you know Manc. you’ll probably know where that is).

You Can Make It Happen

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Tags » food • manchester • margin • margin2008 • T-shirts • YCMIH

Just a month (and a week) after the event actually occurred, I’m finally treating you to some reports on brands that I found at Margin. As most of the vendors at Margin didn’t want photos being taken of their goods (and a few at The Park were pretty rude over the whole photo situation), and I can understand why, the clothes world can be pretty cut throat, I won’t be using any personally taken photos of the brands I met, but I think that I was able to get a much better insight into what all the brands were about, so there should be a bit more authority to these posts than my regular ‘hey, that looks cool’ offerings.


Terratag were the first brand I chatted too, so I thought it would be appropriate that I profiled them first. It’s hardly surprising that Terratag made a big impression on me, they love robots, perhaps even more than I do (they’re putting together a book with more than 200 robot t-shirts in it), and the way that their designs seamlessly mix British and Japanese pop culture really pushes my buttons (in a good way). They employ lots of strong images, often inspired by the extremely popular Gundam series, which helps to explain why Japan is one of their biggest sources of international orders. They also have no fear in using metallic inks, something that I’m happy to see. But to make it seem as if Terratag are robot obsesses is pretty unfair, their designs run a fairly wide gamut of subject matter, they like to dabble in graffiti style and vivid, neon colourways (some of which actually glow under UV light!) that are bound to get a lot of attention.

Overall, a very impressive line, who had a friendly guy working their booth that didn’t appear to mind answering my annoying newbie-journo questions.

Terratag links: Main Site/MySpace/Photos on Flickr

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Tags » Day Glo • graffiti • japan • Japanese • margin2008 • marginreports • robot • robots • street art • t-shirt • terratag • UV

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