the-affair / blog

Look mom! We’re (a teeny tiny bit) famous!

Zoltan — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:55:05 +0000

Dangerous Dave gets interviewed for a Computer Arts article on making money on the side during the recession. Ha! If only it was that easy! Everyone in their right mind knows that you don’t get into t-shirts for the money. We do it for the love baby :) Anyway, they have some very nice words to [...]

saaaaaaale! everything only 19 GBP!

Zoltan — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:37:33 +0000

while stocks last, ends tuesday the 5th January 2010! happy sales shopping

The inside means as much as the outside

Zoltan — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:51:53 +0000

A few reports have trickled in recently that some buy our shirts unaware of the story behind each design. Although this is not a problem per se, we pride ourselves on the literary angle behind each design and thought it a shame that some of you may have been missing the best part of your [...]

2 new designs dropping next week

Zoltan — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:39:35 +0000

We spent Sunday shooting the 2 new designs we’re calling Batch.05. They’re currently being shipped off to the digital elves to work some magic, but in the meantime we thought you might be interested in the story behind each. Have a read, leave a comment, and if you’re in the UK grab one in time [...]

Tees: The Art of the T-Shirt

Dave — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:47:42 +0000

We were recently excited to be published in a new book called Tees: The Art of the T-Shirt. It’s 336 pages of cutting edge t-shirty goodness, and was put together by design studio Maki out of The Netherlands. Pick up a copy at their shop or at Laurence King Publishing.

The Bloop

Dave — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:20:08 +0000

OK so I’ve been too lazy to post this before now, but check it out. It was partly what inspired our Strange Aeons design. Known in cryptozoologist circles as ‘the bloop’, it was recorded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, around 50°S 100°W in the Pacific Ocean, in 1997. Source unknown. It’s kinda creepy [...]

Help us get Tee of the Day over at emptees!

Zoltan — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:37:45 +0000

Big favour to ask – we wanna be the Tee of the Day over on our favourite tee design blog-thing, emptees. We’re on the front page already, but there’s some stiff competition and we need some serious help! So please go over there and ‘heart’ our Strange Aeons design and help us make our mommas proud! [...]

Batch.04 Live

Zoltan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:59:38 +0000

We’re thrilled to finally drop Batch.04 / Obscurity, just in time for summer. As always, if you’ve got any feedback whatsoever we’d love to hear from you. Email us or hit us up on twitter, @the_affair. Strange Aeons (left) is based on H.P Lovecraft’s very particular form of cosmic-horror in The Call of Cthulu. Whilst We (right) [...]

Corto’s SS colourway

Zoltan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:57:37 +0000

We updated Corto’s Crash with a fresh new colourway for summer. These aqua beauties definitely won’t last, and will never be repeated. So be sure to get yours now! Big shout out to Tom for those “come hither” eyes!

L’Enfer re-stock

Zoltan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:55:59 +0000

If you’ve been cursing your own existential indecisiveness, we’ve also re-printed the J.P. Sartre inspired L’Enfer c’est les autres.

£2 more please

Zoltan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:49:19 +0000

Even though the world is falling apart at the economic seams and inflation is officially falling, the unfortunate reality for us is that costs are rising. Both American Apparel and our screen-printer have increased their prices by around 10% this year. In the two years we’ve been making tees, we’ve always been considerably cheaper than the [...]

Batch.04 / Teaser Trailer

Zoltan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:22:56 +0000

Those of you following us on Twitter got a blow-by-blow account of the Batch.04 photoshoot that took place last Sunday, including some rare never before seen production/process shots that we twitpic’d at the time. Follow us and find out more. For everyone else, here’s what a teaser trailer in the t-shirt industry looks like :) All comments [...]

Chasing the rainbow

Zoltan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:32:05 +0000

Now if we had all the money in the world the marketing budget of H&M, the-affair website v2.0 would probably look a bit like this – of course on black not off-white, and without the abstract red shapes and weird particle effects. As you can see from the Perfect Fools’ case study, they’ve taken our core [...]

Twitter sale / 40% Off!

Zoltan — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:06:46 +0000

The sun’s coming out more regularly this side of the pond (let’s hope it lasts) and we’re gearing up to drop a load of fresh new designs in time for summer proper. As a result we’ve decided to try a little experiment via twitter to help clear out the stock-room. All you have to do is [...]

Where do you come from?

Zoltan — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:37:46 +0000

Stalks and Cranes aside, we thought it would be an interesting exercise to see where you – our customers – actually come from. Unsurprisingly, the great majority of you are in the UK (47%) and USA (19%). Interestingly, the rest of you are to be found in Australia (9%), Sweden (6%), Germany (5%) and Canada (3%). [...]

Batch.04 / Obscurity, dropping very soon

Zoltan — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:08:51 +0000

They’ve been far longer in the making than necessary, and if you’re lucky they’ll be available before the summer wanes – but Batch.04 / Obscurity, is finally at the printers! If you’re into unsung novels then you’re in for a treat – we delve into Lovecraft’s peculiar brand of cosmic-tentacled-horror, and explore one potential outcome of [...]

OMG we finally made Tcritic

Zoltan — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:20:30 +0000

Its been a long while since we’ve been religiously checking our site stats, wondering who might be looking at our site and which blogs had picked us up, or not… One blog that we never seemed to get traction with was Tcritic. Written by the esteemed Karl Long, and with an RSS readership above 5000 it [...]

iCatching

Zoltan — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:34:37 +0000

About a year ago, the lovely Melody contacted us to see if we’d like to be a part a book they were putting together on e-commerce experiences. We said “Hell yes!”, and then promptly forgot about it until the other day when we got our copy through the mail. Entitled iCatching, its just been released by [...]

Guilty Secrets

Zoltan — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:08:11 +0000

Great read over on the Guardian about the books we (collectively) most lie about reading. And guess what, Orwell’s 1984 comes top of the list! “Asked if they had ever claimed to read a book when they had not, 65% of respondents said yes and 42% said they had falsely claimed to have read Orwell’s classic [...]

Out-age

Zoltan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:20:19 +0000

Apologies if you’ve been trying to access the site over the last 3 days. MediaTemple (who are normally rock-solid) had some major upgrade-fuck-up which seems to be finally fixed.

Lost in translation

Zoltan — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:36:58 +0000

blog post about the translation issuesomething about the Far East, travelling to both HK and Tokyomeeting peopletalking about the brandand the problem of translationthe strength in our brand position is a focus on Western literaturethe power of the shirt/graphic is the bigger idea that it references rather than the graphic itselftake away this reference point, and a good deal (but not all) of the 'power' of the graphic is lostand this is exactly what happened in the interestingly the jesus one seemed to go down best, as its an idea that doesn't rely on another idea (i.e. there is no book / author / bigger idea there).did get a massive sense though that we're gonna have to get our stories translated into japanese/chinese/whatever to really make this brand fly.... swingtags are also a biggie - again sixpaxk have a seriously cool one that folds up into their logo, origami-styles, and obv this has a lot of traction in japan.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – v2

Zoltan — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:06:38 +0000

There's a very fine line between inspiration and all-out robbery. In this case we're more than happy to have been the inspiration, its only a shame that the end result is a poor approximation.

3 wishes for Xmas

Zoltan — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:44:49 +0000

Not only is it a bargain, but you'll be able to brag about having done your part to avert global financial meltdown as well.Its our way of saying thanks for being with us on the journey during our first year in business. We're warming up for the year ahead, so keep your eyes and ears open as we drop new designs, announce some colabs and other big initiatives to grow the brand.So go on, treat yourself.

New Stockist = Delay No Mall, Hong Kong

Zoltan — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 01:32:55 +0000

Anyone who's been to HK recently would've been to Causeway Bay - the centre of HK island's streetwear/fashion scene and its answer to Kowloon's TST. and the centre of the streetwear/fashion scene.

The stories make the difference

Zoltan — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:29:07 +0000

We’ve been making shirts for just over a year now. And each time, we make them the best possible shirts we can, both from a product and a brand perspective. With the release of batch.03, we’ve got a handle on the product side of things but we’re still working hard on creating meaning within the brand. [...]

NEW – inside neck prints

Zoltan — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:54:38 +0000

Batch.03 sees the introduction of a new feature across our range, inside neck-prints. Previously we only had a quote from Orwell on the inside neck of Miniluv. It added so much to the experience and symbolism of the shirt that we decided it just made sense to apply it to every shirt we produce. So [...]

Batch.03 drops!

Zoltan — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:28:51 +0000

It’s been a few weeks now but I just realised that some of you may not have seen them the 2 new designs we just launched. This time around, we’ve brought one of Sartre’s existentialist dilemmas to life in a design called “L’Enfer c’est les autres” (right). And we’ve issued a call to arms to [...]

How would you describe our digital strategy?

Zoltan — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:33:44 +0000

Well according to Andy Howard of Lost At E-Minor that is, who’s just written about our online strategy driving our offline business. He notes “The brand becomes an experience for customers, a strategy that certainly ties in with the user experience of the-affair’s website – which features simple yet realistic modelling.” Read everything Andy had [...]

Batch.03 drops this week

Zoltan — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:30:37 +0000

This is the week we’ve been waiting for here at the-affair hq! After several months of being out of stock in most sizes, we’re finally back with a massive re-stock and 2 fresh designs. They’re at the printers as we speak and we should have them this coming Friday. And no, its not some post-modern irony [...]

A competitor to Threadless? We’re Contagious!

Zoltan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:14:22 +0000

Well, at least according to the latest issue (#15) of the creative world’s bible Contagious we are! The nice people there go on to describe us thus: “A competitor to Threadless? Superfly T-shirts on a superfly website. Welcome to the-affair.” Welcome indeed. We only hope you get involved…

Finished is not in our vocabulary…

Zoltan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:49:24 +0000

Here at the-affair, we’re never truly happy. Although we sell the best quality product we can source, we’re constantly looking for ways to improve it. It doesn’t make the previous t-shirts inferior, it just makes the new ones we’re about to drop that much closer to the ideal we’ve got in our heads. We’ve just changed [...]

Brand Questionnaire

Zoltan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:52:43 +0000

As some of you know, we recently ran a short questionnaire. Why? Quite simply because we’re relatively new at this. And like in any partnership, we have our differences. Very democratically we decided to let you – our previous customers – decide for us. So, if you spent your precious time helping us out, many many [...]

Out of stock (temporarily)

Zoltan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:36:18 +0000

You might have noticed that we’re out of stock in most sizes at the moment. We’re really sorry about that, and we’re working as hard as we can to re-stock as soon as is humanly possible. Please bear with us, it won’t be more than a few weeks…