Capsule Culture
From Sunday to Tuesday, the Capsule show is setting up a temporary art gallery in the empty ground floor retail space of The Ludlow, a new luxury apartment building near the trade show on the Lower East Side. Open to the public and curated by BBlessing, a nearby boutique, the gallery will showcase illustrators, craftsmen and designers in the act of producing their work. Titled “Means of Production,” the event will include Mike Perry, a Brooklyn-based artist who will set up a zine-production center; a live T-shirt screen-printing facility, featuring graphics from an array of indie designers like TheCast, Kidrobot, Public School and Ryder Robison. Also, Daniel
Jackson, creative director of BBlessing, will create a large-scale sculpture on-site. In the evenings, live bands will perform in the space, also open to the public. “We wanted to create an experience that showcase the culture of progressive fashion,” said Edina Sultanik Silver, a partner in BPMW, the showroom that stages the Capsule show. In addition, Capsule has partnered with shopping Web site Superfuture.com to offer discounts at 22 Lower East Side stores this weekend. Capsule is distributing postcards promoting the stores and Budweiser is sponsoring free happy hour drinks in each of the them from Friday to Tuesday. — David lipke
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Robert Graham Brands Out
Robert Graham redefined the “going-out” shirt, but next spring the company is going to offer its guy something more relaxed. During market week, it will debut a sublabel in its showroom called Freshly Laundered Shirt
Company, whose cotton wovens are designed for more casual moments. “We’re rounding out the Robert Graham lifestyle,” said Neal Kusnetz, Robert Graham president. “This is weekend.” Stripped of some of the high-contrast details that are the brand’s signature, Freshly Laundered shirts will tend to more updated traditional styling. Robert Graham is also appealing to its customer at the opposite end of the lifestyle spectrum with another sublabel called Silk Road, which features solid and jacquard button-fronts in, you guessed it, silk. “We wanted to do silk that is more contemporary and is not ‘island’,” Kusnetz said. Both Freshly Laundered Shirt Company and Silk Road product will be cobranded with the Robert Graham logo.
— Brenner Thomas
Agave Revs Up
The relationship between denim label Agave and electric car maker Tesla Motors is gaining steam. The companies recently formed a strategic partnership under which Agave outfitted all of the car company’s dealership employees in its jeans and knit shirts, and have been showcasing the all-electric Tesla vehicles during promotional events at specialty stores. The Tesla Roadster, the company’s sports car, will be on display
at The Collective this weekend for attendees to check out, as well. Although no test drives are being given at the show — the car will be inside in the Lounge — any retailer interested in taking one for a spin can stop
by Tesla’s new Manhattan showroom that opens today at 511 W. 25th Street in Chelsea. In addition to the Roadster, Tesla’s Model S family sedan will also be on display at the store. — Jean Palmieri
Schneiders Looks Back
Belstaff isn’t the only outerwear company touting its motorcycle cred. Schneiders, which made its name in Austria after World War II as a purveyor of raincoats, has bona fide racing heritage, too, thanks to midcentury European speedway champ Fritz Dirtl who was known to favor Schneiders’ heavy rubber-cotton trench. The Salzburg-based company is giving a nod to the motorcyclist with a contemporary version of the Dirtl this season. The new Dirtl trench is lighter weight but just as weather repellent making it equally equipped for contests on Alpine speedways and city sidewalks. — B.T.
Action Shot
Mike Blabac has photographed some of the world’s greatest skaters for over the past two decades, and the best of those pictures have been compiled in a new book, called Blabac Photo: The Art of Skateboarding Photography. Published by powerhouse Books, the tome includes iconic photos like that of skater Danny Way jumping the Great Wall of China. “Mike has shot some of the most memorable photos in skateboarding, and he has played an integral part in shaping the look of DC,” said Ken Block, co-founder and chief brand officer of
skateboard brand DC that Blabac has been affiliated with for the past 10 years. “Some of Mike’s skateboarding photos for DC’s ads were so strong that we just ended up running them full bleed with almost nothing else in the ad.” Coinciding with the release of the book this month, DC has introduced the Blabac Azure midrise shoe, the first DC signature shoe that has been made for a nonprofessional DC skater. — D.L.
Thin Man
When retailers talk about going “lean” these days, it’s usually in regard to inventory. Not Ript Fusion. The business, making its Collective debut next week, is one of the handful of new players in the emerging field of men’s shapewear. Its belly-flattening shirts, which the company’s Web site describes as “a classic men’s undershirt injected with steroids,” will help a [cough] wider audience slip
into those tight-fitting suits. — B.T.