This is like a progress report or like a barometer to scale how things are going currently. As well as my venting space where I post my thoughts on things. I feel pretty tired but I'll sleep when I'm dead so in the mean time I've been printing a lot of stuff for a nice group of skateshops. It's been very steady so far and I'm proud to be printing gear for skateshops that take notice to a small fish like me. I admire the small business mentality so heavily and Skateshop are literally the coolest types of store. They have a nice lore to them from an outside point of view. Enchanted really!
I like the ability to make exclusive color ways and graphics for each skateshop because it keeps the shirts personal and totally one of their own. I would be dying to see more exclusive stuff in skateshops but I know why there isn't. Most skate brands are pretty commercial and I don't even know what you would call stunt I guess a skate "brand" (ehh fuck that word) Screen printed goods is a better term. ANYWAY! I wonder what happens if/ when stunt gets bigger? I would want to make custom prints for each shop but I know that it wouldn't work out as good as i'd think. I figure thats why bigger brands can't personalize things for shops. takes too much time.
I've listened to podcasts and sitch that interview brand owners and stuff and hearing what they say about "summer catalogs" and manufacturing shit it all just seems too much. Is that what I have to do in order to continue what i'm doing? why can't everything be as simple as a t-shirt. Also who the fuck is buying shit like a Coors x Brixton collab button up collar shirt. it is so unnecessary. I look at big collabs and am unimpressed at what they put out and hearing that it was a 2 year process to outsource materials and get it ready for the fall/winter drop date. it's such bullshit. Who is the person looking on the shelf of a ValSurf and saying to themselves "damn this Pabst Blue Ribbon x thrasher x Huf longsleeve is siiickkkk" (thrasher and huf and pbr is sick im not talking shit) but you know what I mean? It's always such a lame graphic too.
These garbage clothes and graphics and collabs will never go away and I understand their purpose as a necessary evil. I see what they put out as so unimaginative and lacklustered that the bar is set so low. Like all I have to do is put a fucking palm tree on a left chest of a t-shirt and I'll sellout like rip'n'dip. I admire every underground printer doing their thing producing homemade graphics that are genuine and sincere. People are becoming more conscious of what they are wearing and it especially matters in skate culture. Wearing something that is newer or "up next" is a flex and you can hold it over your friends head. like "yeahhhh just copped that new supreme drip" you feel accomplished cuz its not what the next person is wearing. Except literally everyone has supreme in their closet now. So now small screen printers are the new level of exclusivity. It's so fucking punk! I'm glad to witness this surgent expanse of screen printers that skate and feel proud to be apart of it.
real recognize real.
-image of fear
swag