Monthly Archives: August 2008

Contrary to popular belief, there are other menswear boutiques in L.A. that don’t cater to the baseball cap and sneaker crowd. For instance, Douglas Fir at 8311 W. Third St:

Some gourmet wovens, button-ups, all-around finer men’s fashion.

This is John, who’s held Douglas Fir down for almost a solid decade now. His gigantic desk in the middle of the store is a nice distinction.

…Like Cameron’s razor-wielding technique.

There’s something to be said for a store with character.

Directly across the street is Douglas Fir’s offshoot shoe store (say that 3 times fast), DF Feet.

Again, offering only the cream of the crop in upscale men’s footwear. You’ll be hard pressed to find pastel colors or graphic patterns on these shoes.

That’s Trevor. Again, with that awesome vintage desk. I also admire how they don’t have any computers or credit-card machines at these stores (aside from the old-school swiper thing). It just wouldn’t make sense.

by bobbyhundreds

The return of The Alex and Thomas Show.

Alex does his best Ian Curtis impersonation. Oh Joy.

This girl was chill. She’s from Texas and working on her label HomeMadeGoods. It’s always inspiring to see how passionate upstarts can be with their line.

This is Tad with my good friends Noah and Keiji. They’re born and bred SoHo, New York. Noah’s 12 years old and already interning at NY’s hottest sneaker boutique. As a pre-adolescent, he’s cooler than most coolguys twice his age. He puts The Fonz to shame.

by michaelphelps

The first time we showed at MAGIC, several years ago, we didn’t know anything, anybody, and didn’t really care. What we did know was that between all the multi-million dollar brands on the floor and the other indie t-shirt labels around us, we were the best. Sure, we’d only been around for a year, sold a mere few t-shirts here and there, and for the most part, generally sucked.. but we couldn’t really see beyond that. We were hungry, prideful, and you know what, that’s probably why we made it through.

One afternoon, I looked up the row from our booth and saw a team of buyers scouring the tradeshow aisles.

“Is this The Hundreds?” the head dude asked, when he got to our table.

“That’s right,” I staunchly replied, head up, pompous as hell.

“Yeah...” he snickered, looking at me sidways. “I heard you guys were cocky.”

That guy turned out to be the very well-respected Mike Brown, who has run San Francisco’s TRUE for 12 years now. TRUE has been the Bay Area’s street/urbanwear anchor since the start, withstanding trends, scene changes, and every other obstacle that derails most clothing retail stores. I’d credit most of that to Mike’s discernment, and patient understanding of trends, the retail game, and the consumer perspective.

So yeah, anyways, we cabbed over to Haight and Ashbury today to stop by TRUE and say hi to Mike and Hiro. This street always reminds me of Red 5 (RIP!).

Mike treated us to a great lunch at this spot across the street that makes their own cola. It was interesting to reminisce and run down all the industry shifts within the past decade. Mike has really seen it all, but he remarked that what is going on now is completely new and unforged, which for myself, is exciting and scary at the same time.

The customers are doing their research (thanks WWW) and are usually interested in picking up single t-shirts rather than dedicating themselves to a particular brand. I guess that pattern has transferred over from the music-downloading mentality, where listeners are more attuned to radio singles rather than entire albums. Or maybe they’re just ADD. Again, thanks WWW and thanks Video Games also.

Here’s some more imagery from SF over the past couple days.

Keeping it kosher.

by bobbyhundreds

Still in San Francisco. We started off last night at Nick’s spot, which is always reminiscent of a scene straight from KIDS. Young, reckless.. drugs, girls, talking about drugs, talking about girls, girls talking about drugs, girls talking about girls. If drugs could talk about drugs, that too…

The crib’s entirely littered with art, random paintings and drawings, sketches, makeshift crude pieces. On paper, on canvas, on the wall, on the trashcan, on people’s faces.

Parking lot.

We get curbside and of course Nick flags down a beatdown 70s-style limousine outta nowhere. “Can we smoke inside?” “Sure!” $15 ride for the crew = Why not.

Our future lies in their hands.

Julian goes grocery shopping.

I usually don’t like to post photos of people when we go out because they get super bent on me the next day for all the embarassing shots. But that is precisely why I’m gonna go ahead and post some of Dorian’s finer moments.

Dorian broke the news that he’s leaving THSF to move to Humboldt and become a hippy, grow a beard, cut weed for a living (really). Bon Voyage Dorian! See you at the Phish festival.

A nice parting gift from Nick.

Nick photographed this girl who drunkenly blurted something about “handlebars”..?

Go big and go home.

by bobbyhundreds

Surprise surprise.  Tomorrow (Friday) morning at the 5TH pop-up gallery, we will be dropping some more limited, exclusive items.  Cue the drumroll.

Re-introducing Breadman.

As you may or may not know, Breadman was our veteran mascot before Adam Bomb came along.  We initially introduced Breadman on a t-shirt sample over 4 years ago. But due to lack of interest, we never ended up producing the actual tee, and that was pretty much the last we heard from B.

To celebrate the 5TH, we’ve brought him back in a classic format with primary coloration.  Even got the o.g. Cooper “thehundreds” logo to sweeten the deal.  I’m not sure when I’ll ever bring this guy out again, so Tonto, jump on it.

Yeah, that’s right.  5 for the starting 5.  Inspired by Al Hirschfeld’s renowned satirical caricatures, this one was pretty much just for us (I think we deserved it, don’t you?) A timeless piece of Americana? Hmm.

Speaking of Hirschfeld, this one’s appropriately entitled “Nina“…

And we brought back our original “Compton” snap-back cap, which was the first hat we ever made alongside our original “Team” hat 5 years ago.  Unlike “Team,” which has continued to thrive, we never made “Compton” again.  So we decided to bring this one back from the dead as well, with a more refined Old English script.

Yes, all limited exclusively to the 5TH pop-up gallery in K-town here in Los Angeles. Dropping tomorrow at noon.

by bobbyhundreds

Ben and I flew up to San Francisco today for Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30” photo shoot.  I’m not completely sure why we were chosen as two of America’s thirty “coolest, young” entrepreneurs, but perhaps it has to do with my prolific Star Wars action-figure collection? Perhaps Ben’s Morrissey-esque singing voice?

Or not.  Anyways, it was refreshing to show up to the studio and see that Inc. flew our man Kareem Black out from New York to take on the day.  Remember when I interviewed Kareem for the Chronicles 3 or 4 years ago?  He was already crushing it back then, and he’s conquered a helluva lot more since.

Talk about fish out of water.

The other guys that Inc. handpicked for this annual feature were kinda really awesome.  Like the dude who invented WordPress (if it weren’t for him, this blog wouldn’t exist.  Literally).  See that guy all the way on the right in this photo?  His company is basically solar-energizing the entire world.  If it wasn’t redundant, he’d solarize the sun as well.  The dude doing the crazy Van Damme handstand push-ups created Mint.com, which is revolutioning personal money management (I’m just impressed that he landed the domain name).  The fella behind him does some gnarly coding software stuff, but all you need to know is that he attended M.I.T. when he was 16 years old.

“Oh, us?  We make clothes.”  After a while, I kinda hated these people.

This is Dalton.  He founded imeem, which is the world’s #1 music-streaming website as well as one of the sites I use to upload my videos.  His is the 63rd most-visited website on the internet.

Ha! 63rd place! What a loser!!

*sigh*

Soundtrack provided by Girl Talk.  Kareem put us on it.

I’m surrounded by the world’s most powerful people and it looks like I’m on the toilet.

by bobbyhundreds

Deep into downtown L.A.

Tonight, we headed over to the Righteous Kill space next door to the Last Laugh and Upper Playground shops on the corner of 6th and Los Angeles St.

This was a VIP tribute event honoring film legends Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in anticipation for their upcoming film together, Righteous Kill. The entire space was decorated with Pacino’s and DeNiro’s most iconic movie memorabilia, including montages of their historic career scenes as picked by Estevan Oriol and Mr. Cartoon.

Estevan and Toons not only created the movie’s poster art, but also handled Righteous Kill‘s marketing buzz… and by the looks of tonight, I’d say they did a pretty good job of getting the word out to all the right people.

A few doors down at the Upper Playground store and gallery, Munk One was previewing some of his newest art.  His show officially opens tomorrow.  Good dude, great artist.

Not quite sure how that got out here..

Paul told me this guy was on that reality show, Project Runway.  That’s cool.

The Righteous Kill Space is open for the next month, Tuesday – Saturday, noon – 8pm at 131 East 6th Street.

by bobbyhundreds

Glen has got to be the 34th person (today) who has proposed the “Hey, you should do a Barack O-BOMB-A t-shirt!” idea.  It’ll never ever happen, but in case it does, give him all the credit.

There’s a grip of new stuff down at The Hundreds LA, The Hundreds SF, and your local The Hundreds retailer right now. And from what I’m hearing, much of it has already sold out or is on it’s way there.  Like the “Swino” tee, which is turning out to be a sleeper hit.  Yeah, a little tribute to L.A.’s most popular foodpiece.  The street dog, ghetto dog, whatever you wanna call it.  There’s nothing like the sweet smell of bacon-wrapped hot dogs sizzling on the street corner when you’re leaving the clubs at 2am.

It’s funny that a lot of cut/sew heads are finally starting to take serious notice of our more sophisticated apparel, like the wovens and more technical tops, considering we’ve been running the same game for years now.  Especially when it comes to our denim program, which is heads above the rest.  If you’ve only come to know us for our graphic tees, then you gotta try on some o’ dem jeans.  Or just ask your buddy who’s been whiskering out his unwashed selvedge pair that he picked up from us 2 years ago.

This is our basic “Classic” denim that can appease even the most finicky of fashionistas.  A straightforward 13oz. indigo ring raw, structured around our Standard Fit, with an 18″ opening.  A heavy gold JAGS whip-stitch to offset the deep blue.  Minimal metalware, instead I chose to go with bartacks to secure the pockets and seams, maintaining that timeless, modest aesthetic. Cardboard stiff at the start, eventually relaxing into a broken-in silhouette.

That missing metal in the “Classics” is compensated-for in the “Heavy Metal” jeans.  My personal favorite.  It’s hardware-overload with this distressed black Slim-Fit washed denim.  The rivets, chunky zippers, and buttons are finished with a smoky gun-metal black, and highlighted with pyramid studs that line the right seam.  This time around, I switched up the JAGS with a rubberized print.

Our “Hollywood” denim is a 13.5oz sulphur black raw selvedge with a Slim Fit 16.6″ leg opening.  Accented with red plaid flannel that lines alternating panels, and locks up with some other pieces in the Fall range.

And the “Stanwood“s also fall in at 13.5oz, which is a good weight for the latter end of the summer.  Cotton indigo raw selvedge denim with a Standard Fit.  Off-white single-stitch to hold down the back-pockets and a bright white silk-screened JAGS as the signifier.

And of course, if you’re not into denim, the slim-fit corduroys are on point.

There are some other bangers, some of which can only be found at The Hundreds retail stores.  For example, the official Victorinox Swiss Army Knife by The Hundreds.  Only 30 of each colorway (red, black, or green) available at each store.

More assssssesssories.  Bic lighters, “Custom” and “Buffalo” socks.

Metacast metal “Adam Bomb” keychains.

L.A. sportsteam color Bic pens.  Iron-on patches for your beatdown Jansport backpack.  Back to school and back to reality, kids.

Patrick’s retarded Adam Bomb antenna ball is not for sale.

Top it off with a The Hundreds snap-back.

by bobbyhundreds

Onto another ONE-SHOP STOP feature with another prime The Hundreds account somewhere in the world.  This time, we caught up with the down-to-earth folks from Cal Surf out in Minnesota:

“Cal Surf has been supporting the skateboarding, snowboarding, music and art communities of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN since April Fool’s Day of 1988.

There was a point when skateboarding was at a low that we were the “local” shop for kids from Winnipeg Canada, Iowa, North and South Dakota and Western Wisconsin.  We have maintained many relationships with skaters and snowboarders from those areas.  We have watched shops, parks and mall stores come and go, but Cal Surf has survived due to the support of the dedicated skaters and snowboarders of the Twin Cities.

We consider our team, staff and customers our family and we hope to give back more than we take from skateboarding and snowboarding.  Visit us online at www.cal-surf.com.  Better yet, stop by the shop if you are in town and say what’s up.”

Check out our first 2 ONE-SHOP STOPs on Skatepark of Tampa and Blindside.

Video by Brian Bonus for VIMBY