Spiral Stairs on a Red/Yellow Cap Sleeved Raglan

front2 (4), originally uploaded by zeebeekyoo.

Spiral Stairs on a medium red/yellow capsleeved raglan.
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Yety tan/brown cap sleeved raglan

front2 (4), originally uploaded by zeebeekyoo.

Yety by Vallois Loic on a M tan/brown cap sleeved raglan.
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"What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been"

So yeah. A year. Actually, over a year. Since I last put anything on this web site, that is. Well, I could give you a song and dance about why Zero Boutique has been in limbo for such a long time, but the long and the short of it is this: I basically lost interest in running a t-shirt company. Pretty much. Oh, I didn't lose interest in printing or designing or working with amazing talented artists or screen printing, I didn't stop having more ideas than I knew what to do with, I didn't even stop liking t-shirts (in fact I'm still quite fond of them). I did, however, lose interest in being one of thousands of t-shirt companies out there all basically doing the exact same thing, in a kind of race to the bottom. I was feeling lost in a sea of sameness, and I knew Zero Boutique didn't fit into that world, and that it was destined for more than that.

The answer, I decided a couple of years ago, was to actually move in the direction of following an even older dream, a dream I had abandoned in my younger years as impractical: that of making my own clothing. But not just a bit of cut and sew. I really wanted to do it with much bigger prints, using lots of different, softer inks and techniques than I was used to. Once I got my print shop moved out into my garage last year, I started slowly moving in that direction. It took a long time to build up some new skills and acquire the different machinery and materials I would need in order to do the things I wanted to do, and that's still an ongoing (probably endless) process. But I feel like I've finally reached the first of hopefully many more stages towards bringing the clothing I see in my mind to life. And that's exciting.

These 21 shirts I have posted today represent the first results of these early experiments. I hope you like them as much as I do. Not only are the styles new, much of the art is new as well. There's a new piece from our old friend James Kirkpatrick (Thesis). 2 new amazing pieces from a French artist named Vallois Loic. Tons of eye candy from resident screwball Thom Phoenix. A classic collage piece by Steven Charles Schmidt. And a lot more! I'm also very excited because with these new shirts I have implemented another old dream: the individual numbering of each and every shirt, with permanent serial codes printed under the collar on the inside. Each Zero Boutique shirt will henceforth be much like a numbered print, with its production information traceable online.*

So it might be hard to tell, but I'm pretty amped up right about now. This is the beginning of a new day for Zero Boutique. There are already many more shirts where these came from, and I will be posting more in the days and weeks ahead. I would like to acknowledge Mary Hoopey, the seamstress who put these shirts together for me, for her amazing talent and skill. She is incredible and I hope to work with her for many years to come.

For now, please enjoy the show. I will post some pics soon. Cheerio!

*not live yet, but will be soon

zbq m.i.a.?

hello peoples of earth. i realize it has been many, many moons since i last made any contact with the outside world, at least through this site. i know some of you are still out there, because i get a handful of new twitter followers every month, and there are some signs of life (someone bought a shirt today!) so i just thought maybe i should say hello, not dead, and haven't forgotten about the ZB. in fact, far from it. i am busy at work on some very big ideas, ideas which have taken a long time to incubate due to the fact that i am trying a lot of different techniques, ink and equipment i've never used before. i have printed some stuff already, but i've always been a fan of the big splash, so i'm holding out until i can do it right and proper. this may actually take another month or 2, maybe even 3. but i'll try to start posting in here a bit more to give you some tantalizing morsels that will hopefully whet your appetite for what's to come. you can actually see some of these morsels if you join the ZBQ Fan Club on facebook. for now, my laptop battery is about to die, so i will bid you adieu. au prochaine.......