Beijing's Original T-shirt Brand

I’m not that proud of this entry, a bit of a rock and roll moment to be honest. It turns out the only picture of all the winners of the awards with Prince Andrew was this one. Me flicking a V and looking very aggressive. Now the reason for this was I’d been waiting a while for the picture to be taken so in the end I flicked the V and that was the moment that got caught. So a bit of a dilemma for the organisers when sticking the picture in the paper.

So look at what happened now, here is a scan of the China daily article. Me with new head and I lost an arm. My face was taken from another photo and I look a little brighter than the others. Silly me, but something by the time the first grand child is born that I’ll be proud of, right now, still feel a little silly.

And just to make the last two weeks even more ridiculous, I got a letter in the post from Buckingham Palace, something my mother has been dreaming of since I was born. Really nice and personal letter and I’ve never seen such fancy paper, now I need a good frame and a proper place in the toilet for it.

Here is a video I made with a good mate Martin from Hao Bu Hao. Simple idea was to show how an idea can drop from the heavens and end up being a really popular selling design. We made two “one off” t shirts during this video which you can win by sending an email toplastered.limited@gmail.com.

I am never going to apply for an award ever again. For those of you first tuning in to this blog, Plastered T-shirts made it into the finalists for the 2008 British Business Awards. This was a great honour but pure hell for the past two weeks… in the lead up to an awards ceremony one can’t help but wonder – have you won or not? Awards are funny things. I’m not quite sure why I got so stressed – I guess a lot of it is a fear of disappointing those around you – your family and friends. In my case, my mother had flown over from the UK to attend, and Prince Andrew was attending, and 400 additional guests. That might be it.

The night started poorly. I took my mother to the VIP reception to meet Prince Andrew and when we got introduced he walked off and said he needed to “get on”. I put my hand out to shake his hand and he shook it quickly, however in the same swift motion, he exited the room without acknowledging my mother, or even saying hello. Needless to say, my mother and I were a tad disappointed. Up next – the Gala Dinner, and the first award.

The first award to be announced was Young Ice Breaker which I thought was our biggest chance for a win but to the disappointment of all the friends and family at the table, we did not get it. From that moment on I started to get a bit depressed, not only getting “dissed” by the prince but also worrying that I had let down all my mates and mother. We were up for one more which was Entrepreneur of the Year, and to be really honest I had given up any hope of winning that one as the competition was too good.

The BP representative got up and read out the winner and meanwhile our table was busy eating and not really paying attention as we were sure it wasn’t going to happen. What happened then was the biggest surprise of my life as we heard “Dominic Johnson-Hill” and before he even said Plastered T-shirts I heard screams from the people around me. I spat out the disgusting risotto I was eating and went up to receive my award.

It was very surreal and I just managed a quick poke at Prince Andrew during my speech after which he came up to me and sort of apologized. That was nice. All in all, an amazing evening. I gave Prince Andrew some Plastered T-shirts (one for himself, and two for his daughters) and got so bloody plastered myself that I have no idea how I got home.

Thanks to all of you who voted for us online.

This week sees my first ever brush with British Royalty.

I have been nominated for two British business awards this year: Entrepreneur of the Year, and Young Ice Breaker. In a lead up to the awards ceremony which is on Thursday, November 6th, I’ve been invited by the great people of Pearl Media to attend a VIP round table discussion with HRH Prince Andrew, Sir David Tang (of Shanghai Tang fame), and an array of other interesting folk to discuss British business in China. Pretty daunting to be honest. I went out and bought a new suit last week for this particular occasion… The first suit I’ve bought in eight years and cost a bloody fortune, but how many times in a lifetime do you sit down with the Duke of York?

The awards are the following night, previous to which I had to do two panel interviews with five very smart “business types” to talk about why I deserve to win each award. To be frank, the competition looks too good to beat. I’ve met a few of them and must say they are all really good, smart, focused people and I truly feel quite amazed and honoured to be in their company.

I’ve designed a special t-shirt to wear to the awards in keeping with our theme at Plastered. My mother seems quite excited about attending the ceremony … she’s always had a thing for Prince Andrew.

This year saw our biggest ever turn out for a Hu Tong Catwalk Show. Thank you so much to all of you who came out to watch the show!

It’s our third time doing such a show so we’ve got a bit of experience in dealing with the logistics of making it happen. Representatives from the local government and residence committee were in attendance and gave us a lot of logistical support.

The show coincided with the Nan Luo Gu Xiang festival and it was, in the words of many in attendance, “the highlight of the festival,” which this year took on a more traditional feel compared with last year’s.

The local government had given us ten minutes to carry out the show so timing was of the essence. The crowds were huge, the biggest turn out for any show over the three-day long festival so crowd control was quite a challenge. As you can see from this picture once the show was over the area in front of the store turned into a huge mass of people.

We featured our new Autumn and Winter clothing and designs in the show and the models were brilliant and really got the crowd excited. The sunshine literally shed new light on our the show – this was the first time we had done such a show during the daylight hours.

All in all, it was a great success and I’m really proud to be an important part of this year’s festival. Plans are afoot for more festivals next year hopefully next time without the numerous cancellations and rescheduling! We will of course continue to push things creatively and continue to bring you our new designs street level with next year’s Hu Tong Catwalk shows.

Pulling off a hutong catwalk show is a lot harder than you might think….. BUT WE DID IT with the help of a great team, including all the Plastered staff, and my sis*. Plastered’s hutong catwalk show was the only major outdoor event by a shop owner on Nanluoguxiang during this weekend’s Street Festival, and it was great that a record number of people showed up to catch the new designs featured on our models.

We will post the pics from the show later this week once they’ve all been gathered from the different photographers who were there but in the meantime, here are some shots of the models rehearsing up Heizhi Ma hutong (just off Nanluoguxiang).

CCTV was there filming the show in high definition too and that will be shown on TV early next year as part of a year long documentary about Beijing and Plastered, filmed by award winning documentary maker Chen Zhen.

*Muffet, my sister, has a lot of experience bossing models about (she is an incredible catwalk choreographer), and Judy’s creative flare enhanced every movement (read: hair, makeup, accessories courtesy of Judy P). Lise and Caroline (the two missing members of the catwalk dream team), were there in spirit.

UPDATE, October 16: Word now is that the festival has been rescheduled for Friday (local organizers seem to think that festival goers don’t have jobs) and Saturday, October 24th and 25th. Plastered’s plan with this rescheduling is to not plan anything and then throw something totally random together at the last minute IF it happens. Should be interesting.

Nanluoguxiang Street Festival is on! Dates are confirmed (properly confirmed, in fact I am just back from a meeting with the local government who have supposedly told every local newspaper and TV station in town) and we’re expecting tons of people on Nanluoguxiang. As is in order for such a celebration, we’ll be doing our signature hutong catwalk show. Time is 14:30 on Saturday, October 25th. The festival runs from Friday, October 24th – Sunday, October 26th (inclusive) from 10am – 5pm daily. Check out the photos from the last festival, and see you on the street.

Breaking news has it that the festival has been canceled once again. This time I’ve been informed that its been put off till the end of October so it probably more likely to resemble a cold Christmas fair than last years hot summer fair. As soon as I hear a date I shall post it here. In the meantime here are some pics from last years festival to whet your appetite.

Now I’m not one to jump to conclusions, but the local government here at Nan Luo Gu Xiang called me and told me the festival is on for the weekend of October 11th and 12th. Having said that, I organized last year’s festival with King Tai from the Korean restaurant Saveurs de Coree, Yan from Salud Bar, and the lads at Imart, and had put in hours and hours of work only to be canceled time and time again. This year however I’ve nothing to do with the organization, which will all done by the local government, City Pictorial magazine, and Imart. Mind you, they had one ready for April this year that got canceled, so let’s wait and see.

I reckon it’s going to happen, and have put in an application to have a fashion show. We pulled off the first ever Hutong catwalk show back in June 2006, and then another in September 2007, and all were great fun.

We hope to use this year’s one to launch yet more designs – about 8 in total along with our winter clobber and accessories. We will send out an email once all the time and details are confirmed. We might tie it in with an afterparty somewhere on the hutong too, so it’s not to be missed.