Cool Hunting

IRAK
Abercrombie & Fitch, Ralph Lauren, J Crew, Banana Republic, etc. are selling a fabricated-fantasy lifestyle, but IRAK lives the life that they are selling. In 1997 Earsnot started IRAK, a tightly knit shoplifting graffiti crew with about 50 members. Today some of the members include many of downtown New York's art elite. Last December Earsnot launched a website where the crew, “expresses their 2...

Von Totebags and T-Shirts
Award-winning London based illustrator Von has long been a CH favorite so when he decided to launch a range of tees and totes we grabbed the chance to find out more. Why did you decide to brand into fashion now? As much as t-shirts have been done a million times before I still get excited when I come across a really nice design printed...

Kate Moross Tees
Barely into her 20s, designer/illustrator Kate Moross has a client list as long as some established design firms. You might recognize her distinctive work from Vice and Nylon magazines or U.K. bands like Klaxons and the Maccabees. She cut her teeth designing flyers for London shows three years ago with a penchant for throwback psychedelic graphics and lettering. Her more recent work favors a...

Wild Style: DVD and Book Giveaway
Wooden acting and choppy production quality aside (we think it's part of its charm), when "Wild Style" was produced in 1982 the movie-going public was barely aware of the burgeoning hip hop scene sprouting up in the decaying urban centers that had been abandoned by the comfortable classes in the previous decade. “Nothing else comes close to capturing the atmosphere of the early days...

Street World
The new project from Roger Gastman, Caleb Neelon and Anthony Smyrski, Street World: Urban Art and Culture from Five Continents, clocks in at nearly 400 pages of full-color images of all the street culture we knew we loved (graffiti, fashion, skateboarding, and so on) with plenty of more esoteric global happenings. Think pigeon keeping, protests, activism, drum lines, urban exploration, signage and plenty of...

the-affair
Out of East London, the-affair is not just another t-shirt label interested in fashion. They do a good job blending social commentary and design to create a statement that goes deeper than the typical tee. Exploring themes like the futility of religious intolerance, Muslim Jesus (above left) just looks like another image of Jesus, but take a closer look and you'll notice that Islamic...