News

For Eminem to RnB lovers

With Valentine’s Day just a week away, you are now in deep turmoil about what to give your adventurous and streetwear partner. Not to worry, the internet has got your back. As Gen Z or Gen Y prefers functional products to Valentine’s Day themed products, they have a much wider range of products to choose from.

Here is the range of curated-with-love products that no adventurous and hip-hop enthusiast partners can say no to.

Your partner can’t say no to this. This cotton oversized t-shirt hammers the last nail in the coffin for the flamboyant rappers and their music lovers. The soft blush colour enhanced with the multicolour graphic print is the perfect call for partners who still want to have a touch of Valentine’s Day Theme products in their gifts.

As Eminem said, ‘A normal life is boring’, add the red Daddy cap or a maroon cross-body bag with this Valentine’s Day T-shirt for a skull-homie look.

For the non-flamboyant rappers, this white and black Valentine’s Day fit will give them an uber-chic vibe. If you don't want to see tears of happiness in your partner's eyes, don't give them a matching checked t-shirt from the same colour family so that they cannot create the Travis Scott look.

If your partner is a Desi rapper or loves an Indian touch in everything, they can’t say no to the cotton black mixtape tee. Just add the black cap and our frat boyl jacket with the side logo for a shield in the sun during your day dates.

To the Sports lovers

Comfort rings the first bell when you are shopping for your sport-lover partners. Cotton or natural fibres are your first choice. Additionally, stretchable fabrics would make your day. The red cotton-polyester hoodie adds drama to your life. The polyester gives it the correct amount of stretch to show its talent.

The white cap is Valentine’s Day cap. It is a limited edition six-panel cap to add the oomph for a perfect Valentine’s Day Theme party. The 100% mustard and white tie-dye cotton tee is a must for a day-long of gully cricket. The box-fit calls for some extra swing and sweep shots.

Got your back, first-timers!

The first Valentine’s Day gift is always special. So, all the new lovers brace yourselves. But don’t break into a cold sweat while selecting the gifts. Trust me, all of us have been there. These steps were my secret mantra to select the best first Valentine’s Day gift.

Keep an eye on what they wear to meet their friends:

Let’s face it. All of us dress to impress our lovers, especially during the first initial months. Thus, judging a book then is a futile exercise. Try to get a glimpse of what they wear on their all bros date.

More than favourite colour, know their preferable colour family:

Everyone has their favourite colour. To avail that exact shade in their preferable style can be hectic. Additionally, the chances to get it wrong are high for the first-timers. When there is a preferable colour family, you can mix and match both styles and colours and only colours.

Selecting the right accessories:

Your partner might not like to wear a particular accessory. If you don’t want your Valentine’s Day gift to have an indefinite shelf life, never buy it, even if they complete the look. It is advisable to go for a complementary piece in such cases. I would love to pick a multi-purpose belt instead of a watch in a similar situation. If love-of-your-life does not like to wear caps, add sunnies to complete his street style look.

Don’t do it all: The Style tips to buy the one!

Valentine's Day gift items are always stressful. Not to forget that they do not fit easily into your budget. Here are some handy styling tips for your rescue.

Invest one-at-a-time:

If your partner is a recent street style lover, then shell out your pennies wisely. They can’t say no to oversized tie-dye T-shirts. You can give them a bomber jacket for that extra love of yours.

Choose only a single logo:

The streetwear couture has evolved on loyalty. So, it is hard to find someone wearing multiple brands in a single look. Since its evolution in the 2010s, most brands have stayed loyal to their core customers and have maintained their exclusivity. To stay safe, avoiding whimsical layering at its best.

Layering with formal clothes:

As mentioned above, Travis Scott’s look had created a buzz across the fashion world. Layering with a formal shirt is the most common option now. But the catch is -- a pair of leather pants with the box-fit oversize jersey will complement their hypebeast’s style deeply.

Let’s forget about the proportions:

Bringing sweatshirts to the high realm of fashion was the biggest win for streetwear's fashion. Gift them anything -- from Valentine Day’s T-shirt to Valentine’s Day jackets to baggy denim pants. Hypebeasts love to play with proportions to a fashionable effect.

Streetwear is all about you:

It is you and you in this particular style of dressing. Play with style and colour and discover an unexpected combination just for you.

How do you get good street style?

The first thing is to mix both high and low that lets you breathe. Sneak out a bit and draw inspiration.

What should you never do in a street style?

Never break your style. You can change colours but never break the continuity. Layering and accessorising the look should always compliment the core dressing style.

What are must for street style dressing?

A nice pair of above-the-knee pants with matching oversized sweatshirts is a must for street style dressing. Remember, this style is about comfort and style intertwined.

What are the must-haves for a beginner’s hypebeast’s wardrobe?

The must-haves are a good pair of sneakers, rad sunnies, a crossbody bag, an oversized hoodie or sweatshirt and a jacket to complete the look.

As a woman lover of street style, what kind of accessories should I buy?

They can start with investing in an oversized sweatshirt or hoodie. Since ladies' purses are a treasured item, they can buy a good backpack or a cross-body sling bag. The broad hipster belt is a must to accentuate the look.

We love celebrating Indian Street Culture and we are always on the lookout for cool new artists. Mumbai-based graffiti artist and next-door art nerd Okami - grew up spending most of his time on the Internet, creating digital and conventional art. A computer engineer by profession his art follows an object-oriented approach like software with a heavy influence from Japanese culture.

So, when we spotted Okami’s work, on a busy street corner in Mahim, we knew we had to work with him.

Tell us a bit about yourself? How did you develop your style?

Thanks to the media I consumed, I was always aware of graffiti but I had not familiarised myself with the graffiti scene in India. I always assumed that some artists from abroad came here, took some special permission from the government thanks to their reputation/portfolio, and did as they liked. So I never really gave much thought to it. Then as life went on, I focused on my other interest - technology, and eventually became a computer engineer.

The art I made always had this object-oriented approach like software. The code I wrote always had some Easter eggs in the form of ASCII-art or some obscure UI design and so does my art.

How'd you first gravitate towards graffiti and what motivated you when you began?

My experience as a Software Architect made me realize that social media is a simulacrum of the scene on the streets. I decided to document my art and start a social media art account sometime in the mid-2010s. Through that process, I discovered the Indian graffiti scene, and it all clicked.

You put your thoughts out there for the whole world to see and, in effect, leave your mark on society

- Okami

Around that time, I was working on a project abroad in a different timezone and used to leave work by 1-2 AM. Not a single soul in sight. That was the perfect time to make the streets my canvas. I bought a couple of cans and started dropping tags along my work route back home. Eventually, tags became throwies, throwies became fleshed-out pieces, and here we are!

What kept you going and how did it shape you?

There was no social media algorithm to decide my reach or any centralized system to store/monitor my art. I got to choose my walls and set in motion the butterfly effect of who my audience could be. There were only two factors at play- probability and myself.

How was the collaboration with Urban Monkey unique to you?

My collaboration with Urban Monkey has been a unique experience right from the beginning. Since I maintain a rather dystopian,conflict-centric view about the world, they tend to show up in my art, in the form of washed-out colors and expressions of conflict.

For this collection, I learned to incline myself towards positivity and celebrations of street culture, and it’s honestly been such a breath of fresh air! That and it also helped me elevate my creation to a whole new standard, where it's not just about expressing myself but at the same time, making it inherently more appealing. Which I haven't done much before.

Graffiti to me is the purest, adulteration-free means of self-expression

What was the concept / ideology behind this collaboration?

I take pride in my South-East Asian background and personally, my inclinations are anti-colonial and anti-oriental in nature with a lot of inspiration from Japanese culture. So, the theme behind the collaboration was to create a fusion of my feudal Japanese-inspired art style and iconic aspects of the hip-hop culture in India - Be it skating, dancing, or simply dressing up with swag for street cred.

What is Indian streetwear according to you?

Now I won’t pretend or claim that I am someone who has a deeper understanding of ‘Indian Streetwear’ or ‘Streetwear’ at that matter. For me, Indian Streetwear is synonymous with Indian Street Scene. It has its influences from the west, but the desi tadka is what makes it unique.

Indian Streetwear should be raw and experimental with a throwback to western hip-hop while maintaining that desi tadka

- Okami

What does the word Graffiti mean to you?

Graffiti to me is the purest, adulteration-free means of self-expression. I am not an outgoing or even moderately social person, so I put my name out there for the world to see. It wasn’t given to me by anyone, nor do I have any legal right to be called or known as Okami. I built it up from scratch and made it my identity. And for the very same reason, I respect everyone out there who did or is doing the same.

You can view more of Okami’s work and contact him via Instagram

We at Sorted, love simple ideas, executed in a direct fashion without requiring layers of comprehension.

- Studio Sorted

The EXCLUSIVE collection opens a floodgate of emotions and memories, of old, warm and familiar moments. This is our way of encapsulating a little bit of our childhood in these modern yet timeless designs.

Tell us a bit about yourself? How did you develop your style?

As students studying architecture, we realized the vastness of design pretty early on, in due course of our education. That aside, we were always curious to find things to do outside education and combine it to do something that made us happy. It started off with making posters for music events back in 2015, and were fortunate enough to build something that excited us and we just kept moving ahead.

What motivated us was to see the constant trajectory of our work getting better. Every day as a better version of our last day and every illustration/poster, a chance to create something better and new.

Being artists it’s difficult to ever feel content, and the inner urge of being the best version of yourself is what kept us going

How was the collaboration with Urban Monkey unique to you?

We believe that both UrbanMonkey and Studio Sorted holds an important place in defining the visual culture of our generation in India. We see this collaboration as a unique chance to explore the graphic possibilities with the accessible, inclusive ‘street’ status that UrbanMonkey has carved for itself in the recent past.

What was the concept / idealogy behind this collaboration?

In consideration of the pandemic situation, we conjured the idea of lending a fresh perspective to common, familiar experiences or ‘childhood lessons’. The concept opened a floodgate of nostalgia and memories which we have channeled into the collections. The series is a hopeful comment on lending a renewed look at the well-known but hardly considered philosophies. Nothing that comes out of this studio leaves without a zing of wacky and cool.

What is Indian streetwear according to you?

Indian streetwear is a statement that youngsters today are creating to challenge the ‘unshakable’ traditions of the old world. This is an attempt by our generation to carve out an identity and make a mark in the history books, an attempt to own our own narrative.

What does design mean to you?

We believe that fashion is a unique form of design that you choose to wear on yourself, it makes for a comment on who you are and what you stand for.

You can view more of Studio Sorted’s work and contact them via Instagram or their website