Rotherham is the new Berlin t-shirts dropped today. Hurry, there are only a few left! Get ‘em here.

Photo by Tim Morris

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Here is a selection of this issue’s book reviews.

Faile: Prints and Originals 1999-2009

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At long last, Issue 0 is up on the web reader

Last weekend saw the Drifter photo shoot for issue 1 take place in the industrial nether region between Sheffield and Rotherham, the humorously named Brightside. Focusing largely on workwear and warm clothing the shoot stems from the issue’s theme Drift: an allusion to hitch-hiking and hobo-ing, being a drifter.

After cruising in the van for thirty minutes, we settled on shooting on Stevenson Road. An industrial back street which provided a suitably run down industrial vibe. We figured at 10am on a Saturday it would be a good quiet spot. This proved not to be the case. Cars constantly whizzed past, usually aiming at our photographer, Jodie Blackburn, snapping from the road, and bemused looking locals carried plastic bags full of god knows what as they walked god knows where.

Clothes for this shoot included Carhartt, Acne, Libertine Libertine, Penfield, and women’s designer Harriet Gould. The models were the Heebie Jeebies and Sophie Bailey. Photography was by Jodie Blackburn. Assistance and documentation Anna Westerman. Clothes courtesy of Ideology and Carhartt. Issue 1, the Drift issue, will be out in mid October.

Jodie Blackburn just graduated from the University of Salford after studying Fashion Styling and Image making. Right now we are working with Jodie on our Drifter shoot for the upcoming issue. You can read her blog here.

Features and  interviews in our coming issue look at how copying informs the work of artists and designers, how it can be a compliment, how it can be the best solution, how originality and reaction aren’t always the best responses. One section of the issue is dedicated to interviews with designers, artists and musicians about their relationship the often derided practice. This interview is with Stephen Banks, head designer of Norsea Industries, a British clothing label that takes as a starting point the workwear of the Northern England

In this issue, we are thinking about the use of copying in a creative process - perhaps because being original, reactive, subversive is not appropriate. Do you find copying useful as a way of finding a solution in design?

I don’t think as a designer copying alone is ever a good solution to a brief. Systems of how to work are something you can copy and learn from but creativity needs real inspiration as a starting point. A designer doesn’t want to be told to simply copy something. The reference sample or picture you start off with is only the beginning of the process, intangible things like wisdom, vision, vigour and craft need to be applied before you have a finished product.

Given that there’s a historical awareness to your designs, is there a difference to you in the types of influences you have? How does the researched, historical piece of clothing compare to the continuous stream of images you might see on a daily basis?

The best advice I can give is not to go on the net for too much research. Look outside in your own environment and find something more personal you can get passionate about.

Our brand Norsea came out of our move back to the Yorkshire coast. It was not something we planned but after a while the surroundings and influences came together and a clear direction and aesthetic appeared. Our references are rooted in the everyday all around us, fishing boats, yacht rigging or debris left on the shoreline. You could never get the same feeling of immersion by hitting your keyboard a couple of hours a day while sitting at your desk in an office somewhere.

There’s an idea that the clearer a clothing company’s influences, the more successful it will be. There’s definitely a trend for this now, as seen in workwear and heritage, historical brands. Do you find this need important, either commercially or artistically?

Whether your brand is workwear or sportswear the clearer your message the better. Like people brands have identities, consumers get to know them over time. You align yourself with the brands you feel speak to you. If a brand suddenly changes direction the consumer can end up confused and alienated.

Could you pinpoint one piece of work that you’ve deliberately done as a copy?

I’ve tried to recreate the old Teddyboy jackets that the local fishermen used to wear in places like Hull 1950’s. My Dad has still got one of the originals, it’s hand tailored and fits like a glove.

Is there something you would like to copy / anything that absolutely shouldn’t be copied?

I’d like to copy the longevity of someone like Oscar Niemeyer the Brazilian architect and still be enjoying my work when I’m ninety nine.

Have you been copied?

I get to see inside the design rooms of quite a few leading brands when I do the odd bit of consultancy. I have noticed quite a few Norsea images appearing on mood boards. It’s great that another designer has found inspiration in what we are doing. But in the end their copy of our one of our pieces only ends up further away from the original concept, like a photo-copy, much of the detail is lost.

Universal is the allure of smashing one’s face (or any other body part for that matter) against the cold glass of a photocopier. So wIth the upcoming issue’s theme being ‘Copying’, it seemed only natural to give in.

This issue’s fashion was conducted using only a photocopier. The idea was pretty simple, make a copy of a model in clothes, and then copy the copy, and copy the copy, ad nauseam, until the images were reduced to a grey nothingness. Nothing has been edited, just lovingly scanned in to the computer by Kate.

It was bizarre, because, each original took the same number of copies to reach the same ugly grey. Usually the second and third copies look the best.

But you can judge for yourself. Expect to see the full sets in the issue.

When you were small, did you ever get assigned to write a story about being trapped in a shopping centre overnight? After you finished the one about being shrunk to the size of a fingernail, or washed up on a desert island, it was all set to be your runaway bestseller.

In spidery Berol letters you set forth the horror of the urban shopping centre by sundown. ‘Nightmares In The Shopping Centre!!’ was the proposed title, and it was sure to reel in all the “Good Try” stickers from your teacher’s desk.

Back then, maybe, the English shopping centre was the stuff of nightmares. Good honest nightmares that didn’t pretend to be anything else. A windowless, airless hall of mirrored escalators, where fried food outlets encircled shoppers like vultures, discoloured tiles stuck fast to the surfaces on which they had long been laid, and an overhead hanging bulb or two tarred the whole scene with a nasty yellow light. Read more ⇒