Love seeing what we create out in the world on all of you. Thank you for supporting the brand.
This project has been a long time in the making. But we are excited to share episode 1 of ExtraSpicyPlease featuring the Rolex Rasathy
We collaborated with Kolkata Chai and PopShift on this video series featuring artist from the global diaspora. Lately you’ve known HYFN as a clothing brand but our mission statement is clear on the fact that we are also a storytelling platform. We will use photography and video content to highlight stories from within our culture and highlight people doing incredible things. This project is a perfect representation of that.
HYFN art directed and produced all the visuals for this series and we are so excited to be sharing this with you.
One of our favorite things to do is collaborate with our friends and when Raghu and @Ani came to us with their vision, we were all in.
Featuring: @rolexrasathy “I LOVE THE WAY”
Presented by @popshift @kolkatachaico
Executive Produced by: @toobaditsrags @anihustles
Directed by: @Atif
Video Produced by: @HYFN
Audio Recording: @inhousedesignny
Show Music: @sanjoyd
Media Partners: @bollyshake
After our first 'Brown Kids with Big Imaginations' product drop we received an overwhelming amount of requests from parents to create this design in kids sizes. You spoke and we listened.
Introducing HYFN KIDS, apparel for children in sizes ranging from 6 months to Youth XL available today in our Shop.
The youth growing up today are going to be wildly creative and have more tools, resources and opportunities than we did. Their imaginations can run wild in a way that many of us could only dream of. That's what happens with each new generation, and we can't wait to see all the crazy things they will accomplish.
So to all the young Brown Kids with Big Imaginations, this collection is for you too.
Deciding to manufacture a product in the middle of the pandemic turned out to be a nightmare.
The biggest hurdle was sourcing the fabric. Because of supply chain delays and disruptions, the fabric we had sampled for our prototype became unavailable, causing a massive delay in production. This was a problem because we had already started selling the mask on our site and people were anxious to receive orders. Our manufacturer told us that it could be months before they were able to complete our order.
So you have to make a decision: wait and just have orders go out late or to figure out a solution that would minimized this delay. Obviously we chose the later and our only options was to find fabric in NYC and ship it to our manufacturer.
We made a trip to New York's garment district and started going door to door looking for the perfect fabric.
This ended up being a lot more difficult than we had thought. The right fabric not only needed to look good but also needed to feel good against your face. Several times we found fabric that we liked but they did not have enough yardage to cut the amount of masks we were making or it was too expensive and drove the mask cost up significantly.
But after 2 days of searching and hitting up several stores we finally found the perfect fabric and were able to ship it out the same day.
It was a pain the the ass but we enjoyed every minute of it because we were learning something that was completely foreign to us. It gave use visibility into a new space and how to operate within it. This is exactly what HYFN is about for us: personal growth and ventures into the unknown.
The Garment District is full of amazing fabric shops. Here are two great NYC fabric super stores to check out:
B & J Fabrics
Fashion Center Building
525 7th Ave
New York, NY 10018
Mood Fabrics
225 W 37th St
3rd floor
New York, NY 10018
Yesterday we announced to you that we are launching HYFN as a clothing brand. And today we introduce our first drop, titled "Statement of Arrival". This is our introduction to the world. "Brown Kids With Big Imaginations", this is who we are and this is who we are creating for.
This is the making of a brand, in real time. It’s a series of trial and errors which will reveal our design philosophy and aesthetic voice. This season will feel like the clutter on a desk in a mad scientist’s laboratory. A chaotic explosion of creative ideas slowly making sense together. This is about enjoying the process of touching and feeling fabrics, exploring colors or lack thereof, working with new materials, cutting patterns, heat pressing, screen printing, embroidering and so much more.
We will work through this process of design, prototyping, creating, destroying, creating again and will share the end products in our online shop. We will not limit ourselves to apparel, but will also include unique specialty items that highlight different aspects of our lifestyles.
This collection is a creative challenge we are giving ourselves.
We're skipping over Phase 1, which is Ideation, but we'll come back to that in a later post. For now let's dive into the process:
The HYFN Mask was designed by NAM, the designer of Coat of Arms, and we prototyped the first version of it at our studio here in Brooklyn.
This is our favorite part of the process. It's the first moment in which an idea that lives in your head starts to take shape IRL right in front of you. This phase is full of trail and error, challenges and aha moments. It's like thinking out loud with physical objects and materials. There are no bad ideas during prototyping, it's when we allow our imaginations to run free.
During this process it's important that you don't get too attached and are able to understand if an idea or design isn't working. In that case you must move on to the next. This exploration is what helps us grow and be better at the work that we do. Ideas are like muscles and need to be exercised constantly in order to be strong. Strokes of genius are far and few between. Most great ideas happen because you work on them.
With our primary business, HAPPYMONDAY, we work with the intangible and what we create lives only in the digital world. It's a completely different experience to be able to touch and feel what we are creating. These objects have texture and smell. We can wear them on our bodies. It's incredibly satisfying to create a new type of tactile connection with our audience. Opening the door into a new creative space is thrilling and it's part of what keeps us going.
THIS IS WHAT WENT DOWN AT SUMMER STAGE
After a 20 year run the legendary Basement Bhangra party that DJ Rekha curates and puts on comes to an end. To give it a proper farewell she threw a banger in Central Park with an insane line up of artists including Punjabi mc, Apache Indian, Madame Gandhi, Anik Khan, Horsepowar, Dj Shilpa. DJ Petra, Sikh Knowledge, Jaz Dhami & Malinder Tooray.
You know we love the homie Anik Khan and were super stoked to see him perform at his first ever solo show (which sold out) earlier this week at Rough Trade. If you've seen him perform, you know he's gonna be a star. Here's some photos from that day... video coming soon. =)
