Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire & The Peel Off Crew

Venus X

Danny Brown

The Мишка Spring 2012 Lookbook

Cease your lamentations and begin the celebration, because the Spring 2012 Lookbook is finally here and it’s bringing a bunch of new clothes with it. I know we’ve been building the anticipation pretty hard, what with the individual previews, the tantalizing tweets, the Lookbook video: but the day is finally here! See your favorite rappers wearing a veritable motherlode of great clothes, and rest easy knowing that you can purchase these threads right now in stores and online!

As you saw some weeks ago, we recruited quite the team of (mostly) New York rappers and producers to show off our Spring 2012 collection, and we couldn’t be happier with the way the Lookbook turned out. Just look at Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire and the rest of the Peel Off Crew (Goldie Glo, Dallas Tha Kid, Heron, & DJ SicksentZ) up there and try not to smile – not to mention be jealous of their outifts. Or look at Dapwell of Das Racist looking dapper in the Lamour MA-1 Jacket, a great spring layer complete with a bunch of snazzy detailing, and Children Of The Night with the Lamour Bomber.

Children of the Night

Party Supplies

Das Racist & Lakutis

Danny Brown is showing off another of our favorite numbers, the Ferris Cardigan, which sports a colored leopard print we featured a whole bunch this season. Speaking of patterns, you can see Party Supplies with our world travellin’ Postal Poplin, and Greedhead’s Lakutis with the totally prehistoric Jurassic Twill. Ghe20 G0th1k headmistress Venus X is showing off one of my personal favorites, the D.E.A.T.H.® Hoodie, a design which you can also cop on a shirt AND a snapback.

Inside the Lookbook you’ll also see artists like Gita, the rappin’ chef Action Bronson, world renowned DJ Shiftee, the rising Left Leberra and the rest of the AREB Crew, and young firebrand Perrion, all shot wonderfully by our in house photographer Tara Chacón. There’s so many more clothes in there, from new tee graphics to old favorites, snapbacks and fitteds, button ups like the bleached out Love Buzz Poplin, Spring jackets like the two-tone Hog’s Breath Denim or the sleek Class Cutter Canvas, plus jeans, pants, sweaters, accessories and more. All of the first Spring delivery is ready for you now, and the whole collection will be available in mid-March. Have fun, and stay fresh!

Photographer: Tara Chacón
Lookbook Video: Matthew Caron
Producer: Michael Cohn

Мишка
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Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
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Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA
213-536-4234

Punxsutawney Phil must’ve lost that precognitive magic, because despite what he says the Мишка spring is boutta get sprung. Like the buds of so many deciduous flora, our garments are sensing the impending equinox and are blooming in full effect. Whereas pollen clings to the legs of bees, the natural habitat of our products is, where else, on rappers! As always, to get everyone extra excited for the Lookbook and the collection, we’ve prepared a teaser video to give you a look behind the scenes.

Enlisting the help of a bevy of up-and-coming or on top of their game New York rappers, we travelled all over this dirty pretty city with clothes over our arms, 808s in our ears, and freshness in our hearts, making sure all you fans out there could see the new stuff we’ve worked so hard on in the best settings possible. We’ve enjoyed shooting these videos around the country and even the world, but for Spring 2012, nothing felt better than getting back to NYC.

Children of the Night

Heems of Das Racist

Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire

You’ll see the fun-loving Queens rap trio Children of The Night traipsing through the borough’s most iconic monument. There’s Ghe20 Goth1k mastermind Venus X, swagging out in the L’amour MA-1, followed by Left Leberra and the AREB Crew (not to mention the second appearance of the much loved Keep Watch Leggings). Next up to the plate is the Greedhead posse, featuring recent Мишка mixtaper Lakutis as well as the one, the only, Das Racist, all showing off some ill new patterns, snapbacks, and denim jackets.

Young firestarter Perrion hung out in the middle of the street in his 420th Squadron Crewneck to let everyone know exactly what he’s about, and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire brought the whole Peel Off Crew – Goldie Glo, Dallas Tha Kid, and Heron – to help him show off painter’s caps, button ups, and some crazy new t-shirt designs. Out on loan from Detroit, the expertly coiffed Danny Brown sported the new Ferris Poplin shirt and Class Cutter Jacket, while Bay Area transplant Gita threw some punches in the L’amour Bomber. DJ Shiftee felt pretty old school in his snapback, and MPC remix machine Party Supplies was real patriotic. Finally Action Bronson himself stopped by our office to play with official Мишка pooch and look dope doing it.

Danny Brown

Party Supplies

So get ready, because this thing is dropping soon. Like, real soon, both online and in all our stores.* Nothing better than Springtime.

*Actually some of Spring-1 is available now online and in-store. All of it real, real soon though.

The video was captured, directed and edited by Matthew Caron and produced by our own Michael Cohn. The Lookbook — which will be out in a couple of weeks — was shot by our own in house photog Tara Chacón.

Have you listened to Ten$ion? Better yet, have you hopped on the T by Alexander Wang bandwagon? In a weird collusion of cultural mishmash, Ninja and Yo-Landi have been quietly introduced as the faces of T‘s S/S line. Which is funny because I am willing to bet that Die Antwoord‘s audience is composed half of people that wear the brand, and half of people who would wear the brand if they knew about it/could afford it.

Double down on zefness too – I doubt Alexander Wang would consider his line of fashion anything near “zef”, yet that is exactly what it is: trashy not cool made cool by cultural conventions. Which makes the mismatch fornicate itself in heaven: in your face self-referencing meets in your face self-referencing for a transcendental showdown of made-up authenticity that makes me a little bit queasy inside. On the upside though, because I do like a fine package (nh): it makes the band even less South African, and even more 2.0. A glorification of short memory and the suspension of disbelief: who cares if we won’t remember DA or wear T by AW in 3 years: right now it’s all that matters.

Whether it be on tumblr, dump.fm, in The Whitney, or MoMA PS1, internet art has really made it to the big time now. Which is why, obviously, it has to be commoditized. Who’s ready for some tee shirts with exorbitant price tags? You are, you little #seapunk you. Aww c’mon, don’t hate me internet, I was just kidding. I love you and your ever-repeating geocities style of artistic expression. Never leave me.

What’s that? Oh right, the shirts. Yeah, so internet artist Sterling Crispin commissioned some of his favorite frendz including Pictureplane, Ryder Ripps, and Laura Brothers to create these krazy kewl all over print shirts. They’re on sale now here, but act fast and furious because they’re limited to ten each! Oh yeah, and they’re $147. Buy yourself a place in internet art history! Hack the planet!

Formed six years ago by designer/musician/writer TJ Cowgill, clothing label Actual Pain has breached the clogged world of always-borrowed, nostalgic-heavy tee shirt designs to establish itself as a nimble, yet forceful player headed forward not only because of their aesthetically pleasing, symbol-heavy creations, but with their sought-after smattering of religious, philosophical and occult imagery into something simple and powerful enough you can don daily with just a pair of black jeans. But your probably all know this given Мишка’s relationship with the label that spans many years.

Ran now with a small, but driven staff that includes TJ’s wife, an jack-of-all trades employee, an intern and a lazy black labrador named Pagan, the entire company is run from a mahogany-colored wood-floored warehouse space in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. During a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest, I accepted an friendly invitation from Cowgill to visit the space, meet the crew and take some photos.

Marked by but a small painted black triangle on the door, the modest space serves as storage, an office, a showroom and a sometimes-recording space for Cowgill’s musical endeavors. During my visit, Actual Pain HQ housed the entire current line — including new jewelry, outerwear and leather goods — and many past or small-run pieces- acid-washed denim vest anyone?! Piles of books, records and tapes and a pair of King Dude-branded candelabras (Cowgill’s musical project which currently releases for Dias Records) decorated the space.

The current Actual Pain line is available for purchase now. I suggest you click through and support one of our favorite brands. Their blog also features loads of event information and free curated mixtapes that you should download and crank while reading this.

For more photos from my visit please visit my blog.

I was recently perusing GQ’s best menswear moments of 2011 when I stumbled upon a particularly humorous curiosity. It had to do with their choice for the “Best Dressed Real Dude of the Year,” AKA a supposedly random gentleman on the block.

While admiring the gentleman’s swagger I realized he was no real dude at all, but was in fact, completely unbeknownst to the GQ crew, super-drummer Roofeeo, he formerly of The Death Set and currently of TV On The Radio. Roofeeo you sly street style dog you. Congrats on having one writer’s “favorite look of the year.”

Action Bronson himself recently sat down with menswear purveyor Boylston Trading Co to give a hilarious and unsurprisingly charming video where he breaks down his own fashion history, not to mention his thoughts on the trends of today.

I sure would’ve liked to see the rhyme-spittin Chef back in the days he was rocking the emerald green pastel Kandi shorts and denim oversized combo with the Polo sweater on the shoulders (not to mention the fact that he was prolly wearing that when he met Mr. Lauren AKA “Ralphie”).

And if that wasn’t enough Bronson for you, AB dropped a brand new video from Well-Done today as well. If you wanna hear more or catch more of Bronson’s look, pause, go see him and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire on Tuesday night!

It was not so long ago that I was musing about Jimmy Darmody’s collegiate wear and coily wished to see him wearing Мишка. Considering the care that Boardwalk Empire’s producers are putting in their wardrobe choices (and Michael Pitt’s general heartthrobbery), I am not exactly surprised that someone beat me to the punch; but I am somewhat bummed that it was Prada who did.

Miuccia is an excellent women’s designer but her looks are hard to translate to a male audience, especially outside of Italy where you can’t exactly wear grotesque prints and get away with it. Plus David Sims is taking the pictures and it’s just as good as having Kodachrome. The result is Jimmy Darmody wearing floral silk pants and old timey scarves, looking quite ready to shoot a porno with Stuart Falcon. Some looks like the one I posted above are good though, Pitt makes a great two-tone rudeboy and I like the cross-striped blazer thing.’Neverwear’ is my fashion column. Be good.

Selectism have more pics of the campaign for your enjoyment.

Look at us, getting all fancy in photoshoots. Range, homie, that shizz is important. Some of our hats were recently scooped up for a photoshoot by the Sweden based high fashion magazine Contributor. One beautiful lady was lucky enough to wear some of our hats from seasons past and present along with some torn-up future athleticism utilitarian boho chic outfits. I mean, that’s what that is… right?

Sidenote: I did find myself having to confirm with our design team that the “Shit Sucks” tee she is sporting is not from some season before my arrival, and on their assurance that it is not, I am now petitioning that we make said shirt. I would also accept “Life is Bullshit” or “Wang Nimbus,” though that’s neither here nor there.

Photographer: Linnéa Sjöberg, Styling: Christopher Insulander

During the time I was in LA for our sample sale, I remembered that Fuct had put up a 20 year retrospective going on at Union LA. I texted Erik and he came over and met me in his new Dyna. The show was a retrospective of original art, concept drawings and prints of Fuct’s 20 year stint in this streetwear game. Y’know, the one that he had a huge part in creating.

There is original concept art that was never used including skateboard deck art from both Pushead and Mr. Cartoon. There are also some familiar APE drawings on the wall that were made WAY before that other Ape-in-a-bathtub brand. The show is up now, and not sure when they are taking it down, but if you are in LA be sure to check it out! Fuct is also available in our online store, including the 20th Anniversary t-shirts!

Full gallery after the jump!

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