Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts

As t-shirt lovers, we were excited to see a trailer for a new BBC programme on the subject, called Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, airing on 22nd April 2008! A new four episode series is starting on BBC THREE where six young fashion lovers swap shopping for the factories and backstreet workshops of India to make … Read more

British Library

I used the British Library for the first time last Thursday. An incredible building not far from the Indigo Clothing offices and near Kings Cross train station. Did you know they receive a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland and the collection includes 150 million items, in most known languages? Trying … Read more

Woody Allen sues American Apparel

The famous actor and director, Woody Allen, is suing American Apparel for more than $10m (£5m) after the US clothing company allegedly used his image on advertisements without permission. According to the Guardian newspaper: American Apparel claimed “the image of Allen dressed as a Hassidic character alongside Yiddish text was meant strictly as a social … Read more

Luxury Redefined

There is a group of people out there who share the collective aim of developing the ‘perfect t-shirt’. They have now developed a great looking website (luxuryredefined.co.uk) and, being t-shirt related, it sits in my bookmarks in the t-shirt websites category (it is a BIG category!). I do though find it’s presence there a slight irritant and hence the reason for this post. I have to get these feelings of my chest, to explain why that simple link always catches my eye and gnaws at me.

The aim of Better Thinking, the company behind the project, as I understand it, is to develop a t-shirt that is great to wear and is environmentally/socially responsible too. The project started in October 2005 and the t-shirt will be available online and from John Smedley stockists from Spring 2008 in men’s, women’s and children’s versions.

To quote from the press release (PDF):

The Luxury Redefined t-shirt is made in Derbyshire from organic, undyed, unbleached, fair trade, extra-long staple Peruvian cotton with an exceptionally low water footprint. Attention has also been paid to minimising waste, energy and packaging.

Clearly this t-shirt is being pitched at the retail market, rather than the promotional one that Indigo Clothing resides in, and looking at the prices of some of the other John Smedley t-shirts, I don’t expect this to be cheap range! All very commendable and maybe it is too early to comment having yet to see the t-shirt and the price list but I have an issue with yet another company peddling this ‘story’ for some of the reasons outlined below:

Money saving tips

If choosing screen printing as a customisation option on t-shirts, or other promotional clothing, here are some key money saving tips to keep the price per item down: Print with less colours – a one colour print costs much less than a 4 colour one! Print on just one side rather than both sides. Order … Read more

Threadless Coupons

The first five thousand people to use the coupon code ‘spring08‘ during the Threadless Spring Cleaning sale will receive $5 off their order on top of the already discounted sale price.

T-Shirts in tubes

Matt recently returned from his travels in Australia and Japan and he popped into the office to show show us a ‘t-shirt-in-a tube’ he bought from a fancy t-shirt vending machine store in Tokyo. The shop is a concept store by well know brand UNIQLO UT and as a retail idea, it is pretty fun. … Read more

Banana Republic London flagship store

[ad#Google Adsense] The countdown is on, 2 days until the American brand Banana Republic opens its first ever European flagship store. The store is opening on the 20th March on one of London’s most prestigious shopping streets – 224 Regent Street, London. Gap Inc. describes this part of the group: ‘Banana Republic is an accessible … Read more

Colour Prediction for Spring & Summer 2008

According to Vogue, one of this season’s most fashionable colours is lilac (sugary shades). Alberta Ferretti explains the appeal of lilac, ‘Lilac is a romantic colour. It is sophisticated but also populist; it lets you dare without being loud, you can be noticed without being glaring.‘ Lilac personally reminds me of childhood! Here at Indigo, … Read more

Agyness Deyn – the supermodel to watch

My name is Antoinette and I’m a multi-media textiles student from Loughborough University. I’m here with the team at Indigo on a work-shadow placement for the day, to find out how the company works! My task is to write the blog for today, so here goes!! The supermodel Agyness Deyn is the latest supermodel to … Read more

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