The streetwear industry is all about the hype at the moment, with new brands launching, re-launching, ‘evolving’, ‘going back to basics’ and a host of other rubbish terms used in order to maximise sales. With new labels being ten to a euro cent, its getting harder and harder to get excited about the ‘the illest set of tees you’ve ever seen’, without a strange feeling of disappointed déjà vu. However, tucked away in a little box off Bond Street in good old London town, lies the creative masterminds of Twelvebar, London’s latest edition to the streetwear scene. Nick and Damien (of Twelvebar) have been quietly going about their business this side of the pond, carving out a label that has a little bit more thought and a lot less gold writing and dollar signs to it. I dragged my sorry arse up what felt like 18 flights of stairs to Twelvebar HQ to get the run-down of what’s been going on.
TH: Hey fellas, how’s things?
Damien:Me? I’m absolutely knackered, I’ve been all over the place the last 4 weeks, Japan, Hong-Kong, Brisbane, and a nice little island in the Pacific that I can’t quite remember how to pronounce, so I’m pretty dead.
Nick:Yeah, we’ve both been pretty busy over the past month, sorting things out with our suppliers, and doing a lot of smooshing for smooshing’s sake, but apart from that we’re good.
TH: Nice one. Right then, taking you way back, how did Twelvebar come about?
Nick:Damien and myself had been friends for some time, we’ve actually worked together previously, and we’re huge fans of streetwear, music, skating and all that and I’ve always had an idea of wanting to start my own brand. A few years ago we were talking and Damien seemed to really like the ‘twelvebar’ concept as it seemed an obvious name, as so much of what we loved has emerged out of black music. So I put the idea to him and whether and he thought it would be a good idea, and to do this we need to actually sit down and focus [I know Bobby will really like this]. So that’s what we decided about 18months ago, and we started by working on it evenings and weekends, thinking about the concept and so on. I was working at Maharishi at the time, and Damien was doing a lot of work for Nike, he was the creative director for a lot of their European digital projects [Damien nods in approval], so it was at that point it was just something we were doing on a part-time basis. At the end of 2004 it kinda dawned on us that if we wanted this thing to work, we’ve got to make it a full-time thing, so that’s what we did! We started off by doing a simple line of tees, we did about 12 tees, took it over to the states where we wanted to launch the brand, did like a crazy road trip in 10 days – Boston, Phily, New York, L.A., San Francisco. People responded well to it and then we came back to London and started setting things up over here, and that’s really the origins of Twelvebar.
TH: You mentioned the logo of twelvebar earlier, the heart-shape, care to elaborate on that?
Nick:Its sort of funny because, basically we were sitting down talking about everything that we’re into and what the brand represents. So we were like yeah, we love hip-hop, yeah we love jazz, Damien used to ride BMX a lot, and lost most of his teeth doing it [Damien gives a tooth-capped grin]. So one day we were talking to a Japanese friend of ours, who takes pictures of Japanese girls [naked, but tasteful of course!], and we were like, what actually is this all about? We love music, we love cute girls, we love skating, we love New York, we love London, and then we kind of decided that this all about everything that we love. So we thought, how are we going to represent that, and we racked our brains and eventually we came up with this concept of a heart, which represents everything that we love. We didn’t want to ever express it in a cheesy, Valentines Day kind of way, as I’m sure you can understand [mental image of a giant heart with teddy bear attached]. So we played around with it a lot, worked with it, tweaked it, thought about the colours – you’re unlikely to ever see it in red. And really that’s how we came up with it. Now, some people actually think it’s a V, they think its one of the letters from Twelvebar [that’ll be the letter V then]. And obviously, the twelvebar rhythm pattern has a line it as well. So, you know, people can interpret that how they want, but essentially, it’s meant to represent everything that we love, and that’s why everything we do is part of that.
MH : All about the love then. How have the inspirations behind twelvebar transpired into what we can see in the clothing you produce?
Nick:I think the answer to that is really a question of a lot of people today are inspired by the same stuff and I think that group of people is growing and growing in size, but for us it’s really what we’re trying to [without trying to sound too pretentious in anyway] is I think for example the Ray Charles tee we did illustrates this. Anyone can stick a picture of Ray Charles on a T-shirt, You can just scan one in from a book and stick it on a Tee. But really what we’re trying to do is explore things in a different way in terms of the things we’re interested in – in a more interesting way. So the Ray Charles tee idea we had [we didn’t know the film was coming out at that time], was just a pair of sunglasses with the dates of when he was alive, and its one of those things where you either get it or you don’t, and we’re really happy that people like what we’re doing. But I think its one of those things, that without trying to be too clever, we really think about our executions, and about using our influences and inspirations and putting the twelvebar stamp on it, rather than putting things out there that aren’t related to what we do.
MH : So, the thinking man’s brand then?
Nick :Yeah, I mean without trying to over intellectualize it, it’s about making stuff our own and making it work – drawing from the influences and inspirations but putting out something that is particularly twelvebar, rather than just putting things out there.
MH: I see. So as far as the UK’s concerned, in terms of streetwear, its a bit-part player, how did you overcome that, with all the competition from the states and Japan?
Nick:For us, I think myself and Damien have spent a lot of time in the states growing up, both had a lot of family there (Nick in California, Damien on the East Coast), and I think in our generation, a lot of the English kids are heavily influenced by US street, sports and music cultures. So for us, streetwear is kind of an American thing, which is why we went to the US to start the brand. I think its more niche in England and Europe, but you can see the interest is growing. For us, I think there are great things to having grown up in London, and we see twelvebar as a slightly European take on the US art form - that sounds so pretentious!
Damien:Let’s cut that out, Bobby will annihilate us for that!
Nick:You can edit all this can’t you?
MH: I’d like to maintain my journalistic integrity – giving the people the truth and all that jazz!
Nick:Yeah ok, ok you win.
MH: Anyway’s, who’s behind the creative side of the brand?
Nick:The creative team at the moment consists of me and Damien. I can’t use Photoshop to save my life, so Damien does most of that and all the pixel pushing, and actually gets the job done. In terms of creative ideas, they come from both of us, along with a team of other people, one of which works in London, one’s based in Japan, one’s based in New York and they all contribute ideas.
MH: Bit of an international thing going on then?
Nick:Yeah definitely, it’s very much a group effort and fortunately a lot of people relate to what we’re doing so they come to us with ideas, and we’re like yeah, perfect.
Damien: We knew it was about making the effort, and getting people who fundamentally know how to design clothes, which we tended to find all over the place. You know, people with a fashion background that know how to take a brand forward rather than just at the same level.
Nick:Yeah, that brings me onto the second point I wanted to make, about the cut and sew aspects, and making proper clothes. We have a design team who really understands that process, and has great credentials in that.
MH: Yeah I think you can definitely see that in the stuff that you produce. So what’s the new line got in store for the masses?
Nick:Basically, as Damien was saying, we started out just doing tees and sweats, because we wanted to communicate what the brand was all about, but we’re now moving forwards and our first collections coming out soon, it’s going to be 16 pieces incorporating a couple of pieces of outer wear, trousers, we’re really into cino’s at the moment.
MH: You’re bringing the cino’s back?!
Nick:Yeah we’re bringing the cino’s back, and I’m looking forward to it!! So we’re working on some pants, a couple of shirts, polo-shirts, but everything is being designed from us, and we’re making our own blocks. Qualities obviously paramount, so having your own cut is vital to that, and not just copying other people to be credible. As far as the feel goes, I think the theme is that we wanted to make really functional, quality clothing that extends the Twelvebar brand to what you’ve seen already. So it’s going to be taking that musical influence and style and fashion of black music. Its not going to be oversize garments, its going to be more fitted, not going to be specific to any sort of demographic, but we feel the style is moving towards less overly baggy, still comfortable, but a little more fitted and something that all different sorts of people can get into.
MH: Yeah I think people are a little ‘fatigued’ (literally) with having to carry about 10kg of excess clothing.
Nick:Yeah keeps you fit though.
MH: Finally then fellas, where can you find Twelvebar stateside that is?
Nick:It’s in Union - New York, Fred Segal – Santa Monica, In4mation in Honolulu, Ubiq in Philadelphia, Premium goods in Houston, MIA in Miami, and obviously on our website, and soon more venues soon.
Damien:Yeah, don’t worry it’s all going to be in dollars, and it’s all shipped to the US, AND you can pay with your credit cards on the website, its all secure, fear not shoppers!!!
