We recently checked in with Leeds deisgner Dominic Al-Samarraie to talk Dom, Dick & Harry, personal fashion philosophy, the Leeds creative scene and of course the new Leeds in Barcelona project.
Why Dom
We first became aware of Dom in the build up to Leeds in Barcelona 1 last year. He seemed like a young designer with lots of potential, a strong brand and great visuals. After digging a little deeper, we realised Dom was into all kinds of creative stuff. He also worked at Blue Rinse (one of Leeds best vintage stores) and seemed to spend most of his time rolling around the Leeds underground partying with bands.
We are mega-happy to have Dom on board again for this project, he is absolutely one of our favourite people in Leeds and has great potential as a designer and general creative. We think his brand will go down a storm in Barca if the initial reaction last year is anything to go by.
The Story
During Leeds in Barcelona 1 we got to know Dom much better and we found him to be a smart, ambitious guy with an ace attitude towards the city, creativity and life in general. The Barcelona fashion crowd who visited Leeds loved Dom too. He created a really cool photo-shoot with Fie and Mayka down in Temple Works and more then anyone on the Leeds side of the project, seemed to really connect and become friends with our Barca guests.
Since that project last year Dom has stayed in contact with all the Barca fashion crowd and has been making plans to work together again. Leeds in Barcelona: A Creative Encounter gives us all that opportunity. Dom has created a new collection, with many sleepless nights ensuring it is ready in time!
In case you have not seen it yet, check out Dom in one of LeLook's trailers for the event on Saturday:
We love Oki-Ni. Indeed, hardly a week goes by where someone in the team isn't caught slacking in order to scan their online gallery / store in order to find an addition to the weekend's wardrobe.
Last week Oki-Ni released this video as a way of introducing the spring-summer 2011 collection. Stunning film work and a gorgeous slab of CFCF's new EP The River makes this, for my money, one of the best bits of video released online during 2010... not that I've seen it all!?
Oki-Ni, which Shang Ting informs me is Japanese for "with appreciation", made its name producing limited edition fashion items born from collaborations between established brands and up-and-coming designers. It all began in 2001, and since then the brand has stayed firm to a set of values that have seen it evolve into an online destination for connoisseurs of style.
This year Oki-Ni also launched the Mix Series, which has allowed the brand to collaborate with musicians and DJs, and to showcase the outcome via a free monthly podcast. They commission sleeve art for each edition, and the artwork is used for a limited edition run of t-shirts.
Last month we gave a brief introduction to the UK Observing Diary project featuring our very own Shang Ting Peng. Since our last post a lot has happened with the page including the number of fans swelling to 56,000+ and various television and newspaper appearances for Shang Ting and her UOD partner Clair Liu.
After appearing in a post on The Guardian Leeds site, the media coverage around the project has been quite unbelievable. The Asian media picked up on the story and it spread like wildfire. The story made the front page of Yahoo, was ranked no.1 in the fashion category and no.3 in the arts category. The story appeared in some of the most influencial newspapers in Taiwan including Liberty Times, NOWnews, Apple Daily, Chinese Television System and China Times.
When the Guardian post appeared the page had around 6,500 members and now as of writing this post the number stands at 56,816! The number of views on their posts has gone into the millions every month. It is a quite remarkable story that 2 friends who started a project as a hobby are now well on their way to becoming major published authors back in Asia, as a number of book deals are now in the offing.
Shang Ting has certainly been taken back at the response in her native Taiwan "It was a shock when we found out how many different news outlets had reported this story. Afterwards our UK Observing Diary email address has been full of invites to different things and proposals for new projects. It all happened so fast. We have now even been offered a book deal, and it is just so exciting."
Her partner on the page, Clair recently appeared on a TV show billed as an 'online buzz creator' something that certainly takes some getting used to " This was the first time for me to participate in a TV programe shot in the studio. I was so excited when the TV producer invited us to talk about our recent popularity on the internet. There are many interesting things on the show that I did not expect. I had so much fun there."
Clair continues, "I felt I was just like a little fan when I heard the other two famous bloggers who are going to join the panel. I used to read quite a lot of their articles. I am so glad to have had this opportunity to sit next to them and join their conversation. This was the day I found I was so proud of UK Observing Diary. Our page could be a real media connecting people who are interested in Leeds and London."
The girls are commited to their original vision for the page "We post everyday, and we try to answer fan's questions as much as we can. The relationship with them is very important to us. We don't want to change our style, which is fun and a style that people can easily relate to. We like to talk to fans as they are our friends, and perhaps one day they will become our friends for real!" says Shang Ting.
One really interesting dynamic of this project is the contrast it provides between the North and South of England, namely Leeds and London. While the capital may be high on tourist's and trend hunter's radars usually, Leeds is something of an unknown quantity in Asia. The UK Observing Diary provides an insight into the northern city and this has gone down well with a lot of the fans "Li Man Man said: This is so great~ Because most of the people know more about London, part of them don't have a clear idea about Leeds. So this observing diary is perfect~"
The content of the page is usually photos with a brief description. This could be an off-the-cuff photo of an interesting visual or it could be a photoshoot carried out at a particular event. The girls have also began to add deeper content in the form of interviews and articles which are presented more like a 'blog posts' in the page's 'notes' section.
The idea is to develop the content further with plans for more video content presented by Shang Ting and Clair currently on the agenda. It seems this is just the tip of the iceberg for this project and we should hear of more exciting developments (and 1000s more fans) over the coming months.
For around a year now I have been talking to lots of people in Leeds about the need to do something different. Something with more long-term, strategic thinking. This video encapsulates everything I have been saying / ranting / blogging about for the past 12 months since I returned from Barcelona.
My good friend Tamara of itHunter posted the video on her blog and I had to share it. It comes courtesy of the guys at R+I Creative. The video explores the culture of influencers, innovation and trends in the areas Hebe Media specialises in: Fashion, Music and Art. I had the opportunity to work / play in a number of cities before I returned to Leeds, but it is my belief that we have a 'blank piece of paper' here in which creative communities and interesting international collaborations could flourish and I wanted to be a part of that.
Behind the scenes for the past 6 months I have been meeting and speaking with people who I believe could form the nucleus of this community and the reaction has been a unanimous "Yes lets do this!" The part of the video where it talks about 'passing on knowledge' to the next generation is something we have talked about a lot also. In the next few months I will be presenting plans and ideas to the people / organisations we need to have on board to help facilitate this and hope that I can find at least a few people on our wavelength, who are in a position to support.
Please check out the video and let me know your thoughts...
Some videos are timeless. Some videos have seriously cool soundtracks. Only one video, though, has all this and a guy with a massive yellow cape. Enter Booka Shade's 2008 music video, "Charlotte".
Is this in the top ten music videos of the last ten years?
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 9:13AM 
