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This week Julian Chow gives HK Magazine a grand tour of the Zixag Commune as one of Hong Kong's best creative spaces. We're so glad we get to work there! Big thanks to Hana Alberts for the feature. See the whole magazine here: http://www.asia-city.com/pdf/HKMagazine_911.pdf
Also featured:
The Laundromatte Noughts and Exes Ecols Untitled Limited Shanghai Street Studios
It's always nice and surprising to see what uses people find for their bags. TC Chow from Zixag sent us a photo of himself with our Kevin Messenger Bag in front of all these riot police down in Central- Thanks TC.
We were at the Spread opening (lol) last night. Spread is a new premium bicycle store in Tsim Sha Tsui, which was opened by our friends Philip, Joey and Ray over at G.U.M. We designed a folding bike with these guys back in July- remember? Check that out here.
Other Collaborators were
Ascot Chang CreativeKids flwrider Graphic Airlines HK Honey Start From Zero
Here it is, Joe in the Nike video talking about Handsome! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TZw-EfgwZw&feature=player_embedded
and the print ad is here:
Justin and Lincoln from Ascot Chang matched our red Taxi watch with a suit from their recent fashion show in the Landmark- thanks guys! And thanks to Ben, the editor over at Mr.
The G.O.D. in Causeway Bay has just become Handsome.
The limited edition Handsome Taxi Stridas just got in from Taiwan- there are 30 of them at the K11 Design Store and they cost HKD5,500.
The Zixag Commune has a 4 page spread in Faces' Ketchup Magazine. Our 'Clutch' features as well- actually it's the Joyce Book Bag.
Yesterday was our super intern, Athena's, last day at the studio. She's off to do great new things in her last year at RISD and we're looking forward to seeing what she gets up to- don't forget us, Athena! Best of luck.
I met this guy at the Threadless meet up last Thursday. Thought he was very nice and didn't know who he was until about half an hour later- turns out he was Jake Nickell, founder of Threadless!. He saw my Joyce Book Bag and he proposed a trade. My Joyce Book Bag for an original Jake Nickell signed drawing which is, in fact, an unreleased design for Threadless. The deal was sealed when he found that the Joyce fits his 15"Mac Book Air like a glove!
A pleasure doing business with you, Jake, and you were a really good sport for giving that bag up to Connie over there. There will be a Handsome shirt to add to your T-shirt collection coming in the mail.
We've really been encouraged recently to see two very different and interesting people rocking our bags. Each has his own style and each puts the bag to their own unique uses. Both seem to favour the Melanie Zip Tote. One is Hong Kong trail running legend and Fireman, KK Chan and the other is Tony Chang, head of Hong Kong's very own Ascot Chang, who make some of the best bespoke shirts (all made in Hung Hom). Thank you both for supporting Hong Kong design.
Joe is still at the wheel of the Handsome Taxi over in Berlin and he's just been flagged down to exhibit at the Creative Ecologies Exhibition. We're parked right next to Freeman Lau, Alan Chan, Michael Young, Danny Fang and G.O.D. The Creative Ecologies exhibition will be open to the general public from 25 March till 9 December, 2011, at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Berlin, at Jägerstrasse 33 (entrance at Oberwallstrasse), in Berlin-Mitte.
Enquiries about the exhibition can be made by calling +49 (0) 30 22 66 77 228.
We had our opening party at the Zixag Commune on Saturday- it was great to see some of you there. Favourite part of the day was the audience's sigh of relief when I switched from English back into Canto for the presentation :D (Kent's idea to start off in English). Other highlights include HK trail running legend KK Chan buying a Melanie Messenger bag- now Handsome will be all the rage on the mountains. Also had a good conversation with Luisa Mok re what constitutes environmentally friendly design. Thanks to Jeff and Kit for helping to get everything together and to Jess, Athena, Yat, Davey, Eudora, Joey, Keting and Andey for coming to support. Big thanks to Julian, TC and Kent for making this possible- we're really going to enjoy our time working here.
Had the great pleasure of being invited to Hong Kong Design Institute to lecture on the business of design and local production. Slightly hampered by lecturing in a 3rd language (had to switch to English to explain 'Production Possibility Frontier') but on the whole it went well.
Thought we'd take this opportunity to introduce HNDSME CO-OP, the next level to Handsome Bag Co. We've gone to some amazing places with Handsome this past year and we've met many great people with a similar vision of bringing light industry and craft back to Hong Kong- this is why we formed HNDSME CO-OP. After existing for a month, HNDSME has its first full page feature article. Click the url for the article. http://www.singtao.com/yesterday/sup/0511mo01.html
and visit www.hndsmeco-op.com for more info on HNDSME CO-OP
A sneak preview of the TVB interview we gave at our new 'Handsome Headquarters', the Commune- more on this soon and opening party on the 28th! Photo Credits to Kent Wong
Last night we accepted our Perspective Magazine 40 Under 40 award, which goes to the top 40 designers under 40 years old. We're amazed and delighted- we can't believe we did this in just under 1 year and we have all of our supporters to thank- THANK YOU!
