New Die Cut Woven Label made in italy? Is there such a thing as die cut woven labels?
Stay tuned…

Lots of apparel industry bloggers upload images of them having lunch with so and so at such and such and it was hella good, and big plans are in the works. Thats all good but when your girl is off work for the day and decides to cook you lunch. No cool-guy-power-lunch beats that. Today I had fresh fish tacos with carrots, cabbage, serrano chiles, scallions and a sauce made out of sriracha sauce and some other ingredients. Hella, hella bomb. Needles to say I almost fell asleep at my desk after lunch.

A while back we released the British SAS Shemagh series, hats fabricated with the actual scarves the elite British SAS soldiers wear in desert combat. The hats were received very well and were one of best selling One-Time limited releases to date. We made a small video remixing footage of SAS soldiers with model/product shots of the hat to a song mixed by DJ PSOL for the drop. The video wasn’t the best editing or quality but served it’s purpose. But it’s so crazy because we tagged it with SAS and so people searching for SAS videos also come across the vid. 169,000 views later, there is the craziest dialog going on in the comments. Every now and then I check and just laugh because some of the comments are Official fans, some military enthusiasts, some actual veterans, all battling over various issues, which military class is the most elite, who could kick who’s ass, why the hat is a disgrace, why the hat is dope. Just craze. Here is the video again and you can click through it to go to the YouTube site to read the comments.

Man, I have to give it to Nima and Chad. They need their own show and not some crappy Current pods. Like some “MTV gave us a 12 episodes,” type shit. Have a look at some recent Digital Gravel TV drops.



BBB- Bread & Butter Highlights from DigitalGravel.com on Vimeo.

Oh, we’re in this BBB video. For like 1.2 seconds (approx 40 frames) so pay attention.

BBB- Bread & Butter Highlights from DigitalGravel.com on Vimeo.



Mishka – Office & Store tour – Brooklyn, June 2008 from DigitalGravel.com on Vimeo.

Starting Friday August 1st, at 9 AM all of our premium fitteds will be on sale. If you buy 2 hats during the sale you get 1 free! All you do is reply to your order confirmation e-mail with the style/size you would like and they will all ship together, within 24 hours. It’s subject to availability so you might want to check that the 3rd hat is available. This offer lasts from August 1st-15th, and sizes sell out fast, so be ready.

The Cabesa di Giorgio and the Rosso Armani do not qualify as the free third hat.

To Hiring Manager:
I was recently laid off from my position at Arbys for stealing, sexual harassment, making racist jokes, and being allergic to overtime.

I was wondering if you guys are hiring. I have been in the fashion industry for many years I was head designer at Jordache, Cross Colors, and came up with the name FUBU people think it means “For Us By Us” but it actually means “For Ukrainians By Ukrainians”. I’m also the inventor of the doublesided corndog. I do graffiti too, my tag name is Lark Scooter because I weigh 400lbs and that’s what I cruise around on. You can see my work in any Home Town Buffet bathroom from here to Bakersfield. I have to wear mesh shirts during the summer to keep cool so please do not stare at my third nipple.
I also took an on-line course called “Bedazzle your way to millions”. This should come in handy because I notice that you guys don’t have any hats with fake jewels on them, also I don’t see any denim hats in your line either. What gives, no love for Canadians? I can only work part-time because I am quite the entrepreneur and have many business interests I do erotic foot massages on Thursday and Friday nights but my passion is kids and animals so I also breed and fight pit bulls and I have a daycare center on the same piece property. I can start A.S.A.P. that means as soon as possible. They about to lock me up again unless I get a job. Please hook a brotha up.

Our reply:
“You’re hired, We’ve reviewed your skills and qualifications and feel that you’d be a perfect fit for our Bakersfield flagship store opening this holiday. The store will feature a “left-handed” graff wall. All tags have to be thrown up using your left hand. The patent pending Official hat stretcher and super visor molder will be there. In fact we are coming out with a five panel hat that you will be the project manager for that the ends of the visor are molded so extreme that the ends actually touch each other. Total taco. Sales might be a little slow in Bakersfield for our hats at first so we will be asking you to take whatever we don’t sell during the week to the flea market and set up shop every saturday and sunday. You’ll be right next to the dude that sells Mac Dre and gangsta Popeye XXXL t-shirt dresses.
Glad to have you on the team.

We will be releasing preview images of the Fall / Holiday 08 seasonal collection until the complete lookbook is showcased when the line hits stores. Stay close…

I forgot about posting these HK photos so here we go…

Pichação x HK

Ridin’ that train…





“Their brain is not ready…”

council estate

They’re really into their vans in HK.

My hotel window.

Bright lights, neon city.

I spent the better part of the day drawing this. I can’t wait till the scarf factory in Pakistan gets it. I imagine it will be the talk of the plant…

With a few thousand hats to go through and tag we inslaved this little girl for our “Effers” drop. She worked all day, didn’t complain, and doesn’t eat that much. A good deal for us all around.





After sweating it out with the hats in the warehouse I went to the Cruz Azul vs. Monterey Tigres. Mexican soccer in 100+ heat = lots of warm cervesa.

I got a picture with these little mexican girls sitting next to me.

Official’s Will skate for Money Contest Winner Ray Maldonado was just featured on The Skateboard Mag website with the Mag Minute. Here is the YouTube version:

I had one day of rest after BBB before returning to the design/production hell that lies just ahead of a 16 hour flight back to Cali. We went to Sitges (pronounced Siches) for a beach day. Sitges is a beach town 40 minutes out of Barcelona easy to get to by train. The pace is slower than Barcie, the beach sand is way, way cleaner (and finer grain), lots more topless sunbathers and paddle boats with slides on them (which was my favorite part). If you every go to Barcelona, I highly suggest making your way to Sitges. You’ll feel washed clean of the Barcelona grit and gryme.



The boats with the slides. Heckatight.



Looking towards the center of town.



El Boracho. Not the sand sculpture, the drunk-ass that built it.

My shoes and trunks. No I haven’t switched to the “in” short-short boardshorts.

Taking it back…



Sans hat…

Eva Langoria is like the national model/spokesperson for this brand of icecream. So she’s everywhere.

Topless sunbathing is a beautiful thing.

Here is a teaser look at the Alpini Brigata collection.

1st Regiment

2nd Regiment

If you make it to the Official booth at Bread & Butter, be sure to ask for the latest Fitted Fan-Zine. This one serves as a lookbook of our Fall / Winter 08 collection too, making it the first Fitted Fan-Zine-Alogue. Peep:

The daunting task of setting up the Official booth at Bread & Butter…

Oh wait, that was easy!

Cheers to layovers in Germany…

Official will be in Barcelona from July 2-4 next week attending the Bread and Butter tradeshow. The fall/holiday 08 seasonal collection will be shown for the first time. The line includes premium fitted headwear, as well as five panels, snap backs, adjustables, beanies and ski-tops, and cut and sew tee’s. Come by the booth if you will be in Barcie for the show, Sport & Street Level 5 Booth S 5.07.3.

Don’t worry Kazuma and crew at Dreamteam, we’ll be sure to bring you some fitteds!

Manufacturing is a trip. Literally. Embarking half-way around the world to see your little vector creations that were conceptualized in a snug studio half a mile from a Trader Joe’s to the hustle and bustle of factory life in a country that’s average salary is $100 USD per month. Even so, our staff (Big ups Zhang!) is dedicated to our brand and providing you a premium quality product. Enough “brand philosophy” lets look at some pictures.



Yo, we got that 60” Fape camo you’ve been looking for… hahahhaha

Buff coming down the pipe…

China tore down all the Mao billboards and replaced them with these cute little Olympic characters. Seriously, you can’t escape these guys.



Or these Olympic construction walls.






The Effers are coming too…

Chinese Shabu Shabu. The pot had one broth that was spicy and one broth that was mellow. This was probably one of the better meals I’ve had over there.

Buildings for days. And days.

Sizing caliper.

That’s your shape cousins! Incoronare fit!

Three the hard way.

Gulliest fabric market ever.

Your hotel room becomes an office and envisioning center. When we get samples on-site we go over the details and bring them back to the hotel room, spread them out and just stare at them for hours. Its a process that combines looking for areas of improvement, envisioning them on our consumer’s heads and then typing out a list of notes on each sample.

Completely destroyed it. Don’t know what half of it was, but I killed it. Making my agent proud of me.

With four hours of nothing to do, laptop battery dead… I’m left with my digital point and shoot to give you a glimpse of my purgatory here in Hong Kong airport.



Shake ya tail feathah

Prolific “people mover” messages.

Nelson bench rip-off

Hermes goes graff at the airport mall. I didn’t even go in to see what type of supporting product they had for this campaign.

Hong Kong airport is for the kids.

And I’m out!

Seriously?

Here is a preview of an upcoming style, set for a Fall 08 delivery. The letters are black/charcoal reflective 3M applique, shown here on an autumn plaid. More colorways to come…

Official Flow Rider Chris Perkins just sent this sequence in, PEEP!

Backside Bigspin
Oakland, CA
Photo: Ryan Wagner

Our good friends Tom and Chris at Invisible Stripes, an Official stockist in San Francisco just got featured on Vimby. They have strong brands in store and are actually building their in house brand now, most notably their denim line. If you pay close attention in the feature you will get a glimpse of an Invisible Stripes X Official co:lab collection.

To celebrate the 40th issue of Format Magazine, we were asked to contribute a wallpaper design along with the other notable brands and artists they have featured. The wallpaper is available for download here. It’s also an introduction to our HDP (Houndstooth Disruptive Pattern) which will premiere in our upcoming seasonal collections in a variety of scenic colorways.

The new music video from Pennywise for The Western World track just dropped and we were surprised and definitely hyped to see the lead guitarist wearing the denim Victor Cholo Official fitted. This song and video are going to be everywhere, especially with their new album dropping. You can check it below:

The Western World Music Video

http://www.myspace.com/pennywise

Stupid Limited. Going up on our store site today. Do not sleep, your size will sell out quickly.

I found this link on Nerdcore. It’s a gallery of freeway interchanges. It’s easy for us to take engineering, architecture and aesthetic for granted as we’re having road rage and shooting each other over ill conceived lane changes. The other juxtaposition is that these photos find the beauty in something that acts as the conduit for our oil wars and disregard for mother earth.
Gallery

We do our best to keep the most open lines of communication with both our retailers and our online store customers. One online store customer has been in touch with us a lot lately and I just got curious and googled him. It turns out he is a DJ in Singapore and reps Official hard at his shows. I thought we would show him some love and return the support he shows the brand by giving you a little sound from him. You can download his podcasts here and below is a video of him scratching.

DJ Neboet

John Cardiel is an unstoppable, amazing person and those same qualities apply to his career as a skateboarder. You can check out all his interviews here and get a solid education on his accomplishments and character. Put briefly, he is an absolute beast of a skateboarder and has the personality and spirit that is inspiring to say the least. He was badly injured some time ago and has been rehabilitating since the accident. Here he is wallriding his fixie.

Get Learned!

As part of our running feature called “Top Shop” we have showcased a new premium Official stockist, Legacy. Legacy is a new storefront in Hermosa Beach from the minds of the good people at Become Fitted. Legacy incorporates a vintage BMX aesthetic with some of the most limited and exclusive fitteds and apparel available. Click the flyer below or visit http://shop.theofficialbrand.com/pages/top-shop to read the interview and check out the store photos.

The very influential Julio (trustnobody.es) rockin’ the blue shemagh out in our favorite catalan speaking city, Barcelona. Check the Trust Nobody blog, they’re locking it down as far as Euro shops go… www.trustnobody.es

The contemporary artist BLU is known for his larger than life paintings in streets worldwide, but this video I found on Wooster Collective today just blew me away. I can’t begin to imagine the time and patience it took, let alone plotting that story out in your head is pretty unbelievable. Wooster reported it took BLU months to paint, film, and edit and was all done in the streets of Buenos Aires. MUTO means “I mutate” by the way in Spanish.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

I think this story is hilarious. These kids throw up some “T”s in their prom photo and get suspened. The cop on the news knew all about the reference and was blabbin’ about Mac Dre and Thizz culture. Read the full story here. Only in Northern Cali right…
We would totally try and send these two our Thizz Face fitteds if we didn’t get a C&D and them.

“Students Suspended Over Ecstacy Pose”
http://www.kcra.com/news/16123190/detail.html?rss=sac&psp=news

Official Flow Rider Ray Maldonado was recently featured in a video by Vimby. He shows support by wearing the Victor Cholo LA fit throughout the interview. Check it out below.

Answer this question correctly and you will receive a code for a 30% discount when entered during checkout at the Official Online Store. Here is a hint, the answers in the blizog.

Question: What style Official hat is Sinden wearing in the new Kid Sister Beeper video?

Note: The code is case sensitive.

DreamTeam Clothing from Germany has launched their new website today. Besides their renowned streetwear blog, which of course still exists, they have now opened their webshop to the public.

Also look out for webspecials which will only be available online. Besides that, DreamTeam Clothing will be shipping out their first collection soon to accounts including stores from all over Europe and the United States.

These guys have some amazing designs and they are really good friends of ours, even though they told me my English is wack!

www.dreamteamclothing.com

It’s up to you now to vote for who you think had the best tricks, who was the overall winner, who was the most “Sac Wid It”, and who is most likely to succeed in this super am world of skating. Thanks to Brandon Dubose, Mike Flys, and Kmart for filming this new video, edited by Brandon. We will stop the polling in 2 weeks and announce the winners.

Here is a quick breakdown of who’s who and what they did for reference.

Andrew Dellas – (Dreads) Nollie Halfcab Crook, Nollie Heel Tailslide, Back Noseblunt…
Dwayne Galloway – (Black Hat, White Tee, Mini Dreads) Front Smith 180, Front Tail 270
JR Dias – (Tan Pants, White Longsleeve, Red/Navy hat) Front Shuv Back Nosegrind, Switch Front Shuv Back Nosegrind, Nollie Crook, Switch Front Tailslide Bigspin
Mike Pennings – (White Tee, Green Hat) Switch Backside Blunt, Noseblunt Bigspin
Phil Frost – (Black Tee, Blond Hair, Sunglasses) Ollie Table, Nollie Crook, Nollie Noseblunt…
Ryan Starks – (Red Tee, Black Hat) Front Blunt, Front Krook, Back Tail 270 Shuv
Ray Maldonado – (Black Hat, Brown Plaid) Kickflip Front Krooks, Kickflip Back Krooks, Back 180 Nosegrind Revert…
Rob Maso – (Red Hat, Black Wifebeater) Back Nosegrind 180, Noseblunt…

Also you can check out the video in the previous post with name titles and see if the video here on Transworld has more or less tricks for each person.

VOTE NOW!

The “So Sac Wid It” award is for the homie that repped Sacto the hardest. If you don’t know about Doey Rock’s anthem, you can get learned here.

The much anticipated footage from the Will Skate for Money contest is beginning to pop up. Alan Hannon filmed and edited a video of the contest and you can view it here on the Transworld Skateboarding website. Also Jack Mansfield filmed and edited the video below, look for this to be up on Slap Magazine’s website any day now. Many thanks to Jack and Alan for coming through and taking the time to film and put the videos together.

We will have another video done shortly and it will be uploaded here with polling features for you to vote on.

The lead guitarist for Pennywise was caught crowned in Official during an episode of Fuel TV’s Daily Habit. It’s such an honor to see punk heroes repping the brand. Given we start our days with Bro Hymn, it was only natural.

Bro Hymn

Sepehr Zamani shot these sequences at the Will Skate for Money contest. The first one is second place winner JR Diaz with a front shuv back nosegrind, he also got that switch. The other is winner Ray Maldonado with a back 180 nosegrind revert. Sequences via 48Blocks.com

Another gallery will be up any day, but also stay locked for the full video with chances for you to vote for different “Skaters Choice” awards.

Congratulations to the winners of the Official’s Will Skate for Money Contest:

First Place – Ray Maldonado
Tricks – Kickflip Crooks, Backside 180 Nosegrind Revert…

Second Place – JR Diaz
Tricks – Switch Front Shuvit Back Nosegrind, Switch Frontside Tail Bigspin…

Third Place – Andrew Dellas
Tricks – Nollie Heelflip Tailslide, Nollie Half-Cab Switch Crooks…

The videos will be ready this week so keep checking the Official Blizog to see all the tricks that went down and have a chance to vote on who you think had the best tricks. Thanks to Wes Davis for shooting the photos and sequences.

Here is the first installment of images from Official’s Will Skate for Money contest held on April 6th.



Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Official’s Will Skate for Money Contest jumped off yesterday at Southside Park in Sacramento. Some dope tricks went down and overall it was a really great time. We will be releasing photo galleries, sequences, and video clips all week long so be sure to keep checking the Official Blizog for all the entire contest coverage. We will have all the footage edited and ready mid week and it will be uploaded for you to vote on who you think had the best tricks. Thanks to Mike at Nike SB, Matt at Expedition, Justin & Greg from Force/Empire, Eddy & Gabe at FTC SAC, and Ben from PLA for their support.

This is just the beginning for the Official Will Skate for Money Contest. We will be hitting up major cities worldwide keeping the integrity of a real spot, best trick concept.

Official is featured in the April issue of Format Magazine. The feature
includes an interview and photos detailing Official’s directives and
inspirations. Official takes the opportunity to drop quotes like, “It’s
just taking something that is socially obstructive and celebrating it.
Everybody is a fucker but only a few are bold enough to admit it. And even
fewer are bold enough to advertise it!” making for an entertaining and
insightful little read. You can read the article here.

Official’s Will Skate for Money contest presented by Nike SB, FTC SAC, Expedition, and Force Trucks will be tomorrow at 3 o’clock at Southside Park, 7th & T street, downtown at the mural stage.

See you there!