My ears are still ringing and my whole body hurts which must mean it was a great night. After an hour in the pit jumping around I went home exhausted. The new album from what I heared that night is brilliant. GAR played too and they were great! Here are some pics from the night.

Mao arrived from jiangxi on a bus, here is a picture of Kung Ayi holding him up in our shared courtyard.

About 3 months ago I had an idea to create some stained glass images of iconic Chinese “heroes”. I approached 5 artists to design their favourite “heroes” and here are the first results of the idea.

Mao is currently in production in Jiangxi, i met a stained glass producer and he is creating a 1 metre squared Mao for me.

Here are some pics from the factory.

We have more “heroes” being created here are three others that are also at the factory.

These two are pretty complicated and will take some time to produce, you’d be surprised how many stained glass manufacturers there are in China, and very good at what they do too.

Back in the summer of 2007 we thought we’d try pull off Beijing’s and Nan Luo Gu Xiang’s first ever Hu Tong catwalk show. It was before Nan Luo Gu Xiang had gone crazy in terms of development so it was still fairly quiet, in fact i was the only t shirt shop back in those days. 

We were told by the local police and district gov not to do it but in the end a huge success with even the police coming along and enjoying themselves.

Here is the First catwalk show video, we gave torches to everyone who came as we had no street lights then.

This is a short edited piece from that show. (takes a few seconds to start)

Plastered T shirts, 1st Hu Tong Catwalk Show from Plastered T Shirts on Vimeo.

And here is another short piece on the 2nd catwalk shoe we did in September 2007. This time the crowd got much bigger.

Plastered T shirt’s 2nd Hu Tong Catwalk Show Beijing 2007 from Plastered T Shirts on Vimeo.

And finally our 3rd and biggest show back in Nov 2008

Plastered T shirts’s 3rd Hu Tong Catwalk Show from Plastered T Shirts on Vimeo.

I recently traveled to Almaty Kazahkstan for a bit of adventure. What is discovered was one of the nicest friendliest countries I’ve been to in years. A really interesting mix of cultures, dare I say a “crossroads” or even more predictable a “melting pot” I hate that expression! But it really was. Beautiful mosques and churches. Its the first time I have experienced Eurasia. 

I also got to see England play Kazahkstan in a world cup qualifier which was actually quite disappointing. These million pound players never seem that good up close. The stadium was small, only 24 thousand people so we were quite close to the players. England won 4 nil.

One of the highlights was swimming in a mountain lake. However I thought i was going to die when i swum back to shore. I’ve never been in such cold water.

I’m not at all prepared as I not a big fan of public speaking but I’m off on tour. For those of you who might by chance read this blog and be in Wuhan, Chongqing, Guangzhou or Shenzhen then here are the date, venues and times in Chinese.

WH

CQ

GZ

SZ

Here’s another number 8 for the window. Went for a more classic Beijing look. The beach and the palm tree. I also made a giant washing up bottle!

We also added some beautiful buildings to the bottom.

I got given a great opportunity by the British Council to take the Plastered story to four cities around China as part of their Smart Talk series. From super star fashion designer Jimmy Choo to McClaren F1 designer Peter Stevens, and Nobel prize winner John Sulston, they’ve got a pretty impressive line up of speakers.

I’ll be speaking at universities in the following cities, on the following dates:

June 13th Wuhan

June 14th Chongqing

June 15th Chengdu

June 16th Shenzhen

A pretty daunting task but really looking forward to meeting tons of students and creative types, and pushing the brand out there a bit too.

Here are a couple of photos of our changing 8 in the shop window of our Nan Luo Gu Xiang store.

This one is inspired by our workers 8 design.

This 8 was inspired by our building posters.

Here are a couple more from our PL8 range of images.