NOSYSTEMS ihtgw T Shirts June 2010

I've been printing t shirts since 2003, it was not planned, I just fell in to doing this. And it turned out to almost take over most of my life for the past few years. I really do love print and designing t shirt, but I felt I needed to put a hold to it, work in other avenues and go back to developing my womenswear design work, which I did do. I told Janice at Lik + Neon I was going to print more new t shirts, but that day just didn't seem to happen for a while. In the past week, finally I made a new line of t shirts and I was glad I did, it was a good creative release. Especially after being on a break for almost three months! What I did in break, umm not much mainly reflected on what I did in past few years, burnt hours on facebook, twitter and even wrote blogs. New line of t shirts called NOSYSTEMS,

NOSYSTEMS; we're surrounded in environments, with many type of systems: culture, traditio

nal, political, consumer, jobs etc. All these systems take over soul purpose of our existence, and ultimate question is how important are these systems for our survival, or are these systems here to destroy us. T shirt line is based on breaking free from: rhetorical and mediocre systems. I continued story of geometric shapes and structures, putting together different angles, to represent unbalanced energies and collision of various energies. Continued colour story that always reflects physiological disruption.

That country that has no precise location, but all rich elitist have a passport to it: RICHLAND

In video below author Arundhati Roy goes through a few informative and constructive facts. We live in a time when people from various sects of society exist together, weather they're from: US, UK, India, Japan, etc. Labeling people from one country in a box doesn't make sense; poor people in a country have no connection with rich. Rich are connected together just through their elite status no matter where their from, they have their own country: the richland

Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, this exhibition ended last month...

...but I've been meaning talk about this for a while

At some point in January when this exhibition opened, I went up to Whitechapel, still getting use to it's new, bigger look. I had a quick skim, there were lots of photos to see, great images, and photography. But one thing that strike me, I was in an exhibition full of pictures of South Asian people, and exhibition was packed on a Saturday afternoon with; mainly middle class Europeans. Whitechapel gallery located in middle of a high populated Bangladeshi area of London. There was hardly a Bangladeshi person in the audience, this could be due to reason that, they were not interested seeing photography about their own country of origin, or maybe because the tickets were £8.50, or some other reason. But the question at back of my head was, most of these middle class Europeans looking at photos with so much admiration and interest. Would they sincerely want to converse, see them as their own equal and be friends if they met these South Asian people in photos in real life.

Fashion bastardise: culture and people

Going back to 2002, I was at Winchester art school, in third year my teachers said I should apply for MA Womenswear Fashion at Central St Martins. This was unexpected, as the year before I was failing the course. I applied. I went for an interview with Louise Wilson, MA Fashion Course director at Central St Martins. She's responsible for most comtemporary fashion designers in London. At 21 I found Louise, one of the most grounded people I'd met, I was slightly intimidated by her energy. Anyone thats met her will agree that her aura is over powering, but not for the negative. Still love her even after all the grief she put me through. Not to ever forget that she's one of those people who told me, I'm capable of doing anything I want.

Interview ended by Louise saying 'the whole point of fashion is to bastardise and debase culture'. I left this interview overwhelmed, dripping with anger and inspiration. Louise's last line running around my head, and I was analaysing evrery angle of that sentence. So much so, that on train back I missed my train stop to Winchester, and ended up in some other town in south of England full off green woods, and with no human in sight.

I wrote a letter to Louise, I dont remeber every word I wrote, but the main gist of letter was. I disagreed, and opposed her thoughts about fashion bastardising and debasing culture. Fashion provides clothes for people, clothes are an essential need of people's lives. I strongly think fashions objective should be to improve and simplify human standards, rather than do the opposite. As a person/ designer, I'm not out there to debase, lower state of human life or culture. I've always thought clothes are meant to enhance people, and not to make them look like idiots. Another reason I thought this statement was so disappointing and depressing, thinking that this is what my life, profession is meant to be about, to degrade culture.

I can point out examples of how commercial, and general fashion has defected mass populations minds. One example, use of cheap labour in fashion (although this was not what I was thinking about when I was 21). Cheap fashion that is manufactured for pennies, and sold for pounds. Cheap labour has not improved, living standards of people who make these clothes, and some of the makers don't get paid! This also has created mass confusion, and wastage in western society. Another example: high end fashion, that comes up with excellent crafted garments, but it's main job is to cater for the rich and project the elitist image. These are just a couple of examples of how fashion has bastardised culture.

I have more to say about this, I think it will make sense to elaborate this in the next issue of Overload.

LIK + Neon open again

I was at Lik + Neon's opening for a while, took some pics, it's looking good

LEARN TO SHARE, ihtgw presentation for Blow Off Schedule, London Fashion Week February 2010

I did fashion week presentation outside, Houses of Parliament in London. If you google, what people do in Houses of Parliament, this is what comes up:

'What MPs do. The UK public elects Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent their interests and concerns in the House of Commons. ... This gives MPs further insight and context into issues they may discuss when they return to Westminster'

I don't think MP's represent my general: concerns, and interests. Thats another issue, but it did connect with my presentation. UK is well known country for colonisation, taking over people's land in other countries, and slave trade. All this originates from the problem of greed, and selfishness. When man is use to taking whatever they want, when ever they want. It doesn't matter who they have to walk all over, as long as they get what they want. That leaves us in state we are today: mass level of unfairness, and inequality. Only because we have forgotten simple human values, such as sharing and being good to people.

Below me talking about the presentation, pictures of protest boards opposite houeses of parliament and pictures of presentation.

Lik + Neon, Bricklane

Lik + Neon refurbished finally, and there's an event on 24th Feb, you can see invite above. I thought I'd take this chance to talk about Lik + Neon, at some other point I'll go into more detail. But for now I'll talk about a few brief points.

In 2002 Lik + Neon opened as a retail space on Sclater Street, just off Bricklane. At this time Brickline was still a dead end, there was some other shops, events and stuff. But it wasn't half of what it is now, and sometimes these days, when I'm in Bricklane. I can't help but think Bricklane is doomed to be the next Camden. Lets hope not, if everyone keeps their socks pulled up.

Janice who started Lik + Neon, has strong focus on showcasing work of originality, and quality. In shop, you also can find: collectables, rare 70's, 80's deadstock, sport and surfwear.

Check out Lik + Neon's event next Wednesday