The Exclusive Line is here and we kick off our series here in the Blog with Barking Irons from New York. Founded by Daniel and Michael Casarella in 2003, the brand with the pistols (barking irons is an old fashioned term for pistol) is all about bringing a touch of american mythology to fashion. They say, each of their items is based on a character or a story, most probably from the 18th or 19th century.
In our Exclusive Line you’ll find 4 products (two shirts, one hoodie and one zipper), and we also have some more background information about the Barking Irons: Check out their blog, the New York Times article on “Brand Underground”, or the video featuring the Casarella brothers. We also did a short interview and asked Michael Casarella a few questions.

What is the barking irons brand about (one sentence)?

Michael Casarella: Our brand is about remaking history into a modern image. It is a potent mixture of raw intellect and sharp attitude.

Which person (famous or not) wearing one of your products have you been the happiest about?

The rock band, Kings of Leon, has embraced our line. We would listen to their first album when we were hand-printing shirts in a dark basement in New York, and today we are huge fans.
Bruce Willis is pretty cool too.

Where do you find your inspiration, where do the cuts and ideas for a collection come from?

Most of our inspiration comes from folklore; history is very malleable as we all know and so it is fascinating to learn how different people have retold its stories throughout time. Some are wildly fictionalized but they retain a feeling. We gather inspiration from books, films, music, and handed-down stories and myths. We love the idea of American mythology. The tradition of blues music is rooted in this very thing.

How much was barking irons inspired from from movies like gangs of new york and music like the anti/folk trend?

A movie like “Gangs of New York” is a good example of someone retelling history in their own way, in an original image. It is not the root of our inspiration but it embodies it to some degree. My brother and I actually started Barking Irons before the movie was released, but in some ways it crystallized what we were doing and it made the aesthetic available to many people that did not immediately understand us. The practice of taking something “established” and reworking or subverting is perhaps as old as mankind. Anti-folk is exactly that in music; Barking Irons uses fashion as its canvas.

Fashion is not traditionally meant for customization - what do you think about this, do you see it as an „upgrade“, an improvement or rather a „matter of modern times“?

We do not see it as an upgrade or a product of the times. It is a freedom that is available to creative people. In the 1980’s, rappers used to customize their clothing with high-fashion logos, it was meant as a statement that subverted the meaning of luxury status symbol. To the luxury brands it was seen as counterfeiting, but to the rappers it was seen as empowering. Customizers can either degrade or elevate the meanings of fashion depending on how you look at it.

what kind of custom designs would you like to see on your shirts, which ones would make you cry?
*Skip*

What was your biggest success so far (personally or with barking irons)?

I am most happy when people recognize us as an authentically-inspired, grass roots brand. We are not a huge commercial brand so what we do has more of an intimate attachment to the customer. When I hear people talk about us that way or communicate that to us, it validates all the trials we have been through as an independent brand.

If you had to wear one piece of your current wardrobe for your lifetime - what would it be?
T-shirt without a doubt.

If you were a t-shirt … what would you look like?
I would be one of those t-shirts that changes color in different lighting.

More than four weeks to go to Christmas and yet, laFraise already start to put some mad decent goodies on the table to thank all designers and customers for a wicked ‘08.

For all graphic pros, they launched what is probably the t-shirt design contest with the biggets prize money ever (correct me if I´m wrong): the 15,000 - in words: fifteen thousand - Euro contest. That´s 12k GBP, folks! Deadline for submissions is December 1st. More details can be found in Jared´s art/design/fashion blog with a delicious strawberry flavour.

For all buyers, laFraise offers the following discounts in their shirt and hoodie filled online boutique:

Buy 2 T-Shirts, get 1 free with the voucher code santa2&1*
* = - 34% on all orders with 3 articles minimum.

Buy 4 T-Shirts, get 3 free with the voucher code santa4&3*
* = - 43% on all orders with 7 articles minimum.

Buy 6 T-Shirts, get 6 free with the voucher code santa6&6*
* = - 50% on all orders with 12 articles minimum.

And even though this promotion runs until the end of December, you better don´t wait too long with your order as all products are limited to editions of 500 pieces each.

Besides the dog-shirts, we added more colours for aprons and aprons for kids (in case grandma doesn’t want to have a lonesome cookie-session). Also, we are pretty sure we’ll meet them again this year: a range of people wearing (funny) christmas hats, no matter how much you try to avoid them (in Germany this fashion got a little overdone, especially on the christmas markets that traditionally take station in the city centres).

For the other end of our apparel, we have added some more special, limited items in our Exclusive Line.

The Exclusive Line is a group of 7 funny fellows that especially look good under gift wrapping or near the christmas tree: Shirts by Lilla P, Shirts and Hoodies by Barking Irons and Bags from Timbuk2. We will release them in the next days, but here is a quick preview about what to expect:

I’m sure these look great in your shop, too - but be aware: as mentioned, the articles are limited and only good as long as our stock lasts!

Our list of products has been extended, we are now offering typical Christmas accessories like the tie or the cuddly moose. Some more (and exclusive) will follow, more to be revealed soon. Moreover we have prepared special landinpage for individual christmas gifts  which points out some selected products from the marketplace. Besides there is the “Early Bird”-campaign for Shop Partners until November 20th which we traditionally use to motivate customers to order early. Not to forget a special section for Shoppartners to help you with marketing and offer material for downloads.

Especially our Photo Team was confronted with some interesting challenges: Starting with the question on where to get a tolerable Christmas tree from (simple answer: out of the wood of course!), over the choice of the models (and dogs as well) to the decoration of the scenery (what about a flokati, maybe?) there was a lot to organize.

Concerning the models, we took (as we always do) employees from different departments at Spreadshirt, except for grandma and granddad who could be “borrowed”. The flat by the way was lent by Bettina (who works in Marketing) and offered a chimney which was great for the Christmas atmosphere. The dogs came from the friendly neighbor and Stephanie brought her children. What our Graphic Team made out of the pictures you can see on our Homepage and in the Newsletter in the coming weeks, but what you actually want to see - curious as you are - you can find here because Bettina was kind enough to take some pictures.

It might feel too early to wish you a merry christmas yet, but we wish you strong nerves and endurance for the coming weeks - and hope you’ll find the perfect gifts for your beloved at spreadshirt.

One week to go, and everybody is doing his part for the presidential election race - be it action figures, artworks, prints, dance-offs, pumpkins, or simply t-shirts! Since we believe in the t-shirt thing and the game called “wisdom of the crowds”, we joined the party and gathered some completely irrelevant, but interesting figures of our database for you.

For example in terms of searches by users on our platform: Obama is leading here with a strong 84,5% over 16,5% - hmmm, maybe because his name is easier to spell .. or we should do another check for Obama vs. Palin?
Over 80% seems a little bit too much to win the “closest bet” on next tuesday, so we checked next the designs and products submitted to the marketplace and in the designer: again, very Obama .. and over all (on all platforms), he is performing a 69,4% over 30,6%. Not too bad. But also heavily influenced of the European view (ie. Europeans who flood the Spreadshirt-US marketplace), and I must admit Obama is more present on this side of the pond (and, again - easier to spell).

So I did a last check - this time, over simple, plain t-shirts: blue vs. red, from 27th of august until last friday. The result is really really surprising:

Obama has a sharp 50,01% vs. McCain 49,99% - seriously, we really have a head to head race between red and blue t-shirts going on our platform, and we didn’t notice it so far. Brilliant! Who will make the race in the last week in our little “Spreadshirt Election Campaign”, what do you think?

We finally have launched the new marketplace and we wanted to give you a quick update about the most important changes:

Products instead of Designs
Instead of designs, we are now showing off products in the marketplace. Items are organized by gender and type - men, women, babies & kids and accessories.

Search & Filter
The search and filter function is the perfect match for the departments: just look for a topic, design or product. The search function includes a filter on the results page as well as a filter for misspellings.

Simplified Commission Model
After careful consideration we’ve decided to drop the product commission - for two reasons: first, it would confuse customers and cause “jumping prices” (if you buy a “premade” product in the MP it would have a different price then if you would have personalized the same product in the designer). Also, we saw that the product commission wasn’t heavily used by designers. That’s why we decided to simplify the commission structure: as a designer, you make your cut by just adjusting the design commission.

New Homepage
Included in the makeover is a new look for our homepage. It’s more dynamic and makes it easier for us to show what Spreadshirt is about: customized apparel.

What did we keep?

The Designer - The look and feel of the designer is the same. Customers can still choose their design and apparel directly from the designer.

The old marketplace a.k.a. “Design Network” - It’s there as well - but we have moved it over to the login area. So if you are interested in grabbing a design for your Spreadshop you can select the design from the product detail page or from the login area.

Find more feedback and discussion in the forum.

Last Thursday, October 2nd, our new cafeteria and conference room in Leipzig, Germany, for one night lost their usual purpose and turned into a party place. And I must say: Not that bad change. As if the people reconstructing the building had only one thing in mind…

To explain the pictures below: Before Jana, Matthias and Michael opened the party with a speech and hence the buffet some of us used the possibility to press their own shirt during a production session. One - but not the only - advantage of having production and HQ located in the same building now. Besides really danceable music from DJ Ole as well as from Alex (yes, our IT-Alex!) and friend, good vibrations came from the drummers of Samba Pintada. Who wasn’t keen on dancing found some other distraction in playing Wii, table tennis, kicker or American Gladiator.

A special thanks should go to our IT barkeepers for sponsoring the bar and mixing 200 cocktails! And last but not least I (that´s Manuela, normally responsible for internal communications btw :-)) want to thank Anne for taking all the pictures from which you can see a little selection below. It was definitely fun partying with you!

And here´s some pictures from the brandnew offices:

September 21st is International Peace Day. Especially in regard of current developments, this seems to be a good occasion to spend some thoughts on politics. But besides worrying about old rivalries becoming new ones, there´s also a reason to celebrate - this year, the famous peace sign celebrates its 50th birthday.

That´s why Spreadshirt and laFraise join forces and launch a special shirt design competition around the topic of peace. The only requirement to take part is to incorporate the peace sign in the design. Not necessarely as the key visual, but it has to be in there somewhere.

The winner will get 1,500 EUR in cash and we´ll also give away some slots in the Spreadshirt end customer newsletter for those designers who not only submit their pieces to the European gallery of laFraise but to the Spreadshirt marketplace (please use “WorldPeaceDay08″ to tag submissions) as well.

Deadline for submissions  is September 12th. The winner will be announced on September 21st.