Bobbin and Katy's STORY mfg.

[can-]

make me a barkcloth Hawaiian shirt and a quilted souvenir jacket with a kenzo tiger on the back

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

[bels]

Strongly fiending after those round story spex

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

I think they're going to look really really really nice. With the spex the way production is at the mo if you can wait about 5 weeks you can custom a colour and maybe a couple of other things too.

Pretty sure I have the hookup on the best lens prices in the UK too. I'm a real penny pincher when it comes to lenses.

[bels]

you're going to sell them glazed then? Better get my eye test done. Need that interpupilary distance.

[Syeknom]

Ask out your optician

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

We aren't but we can easily (unless you need bifocals then youd need to meet the glazer).

[katy katazome]

Yesterday we had an incredibly inspiring development meeting for the buttons that will go on our Time jackets. Thought you might like to see a cheeky sneak peak of the material we'll be making them out of. Bet you cant guess what it is.

Edit: colours TBC

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Little name check to care-tags

[katy katazome]

This is my 91 year old Grandad 'Gee'. He's a poet, a huge Story fan and a total legend. I didnt even tell him to pop his collar.

He has a slim frame, wears a 38" chest size and a 14.5 in shirt sizes. The Time jacket fits him perfect, enough for him to be able to wear a shirt and a chunky cardy underneath. He has placed an order for one in Dirt Road Red ("put my name on the list will yer Katy?")

[sknss]

Just read about the pocket bags. You guys are blowing my mind. The wait was worth it. Love the temporary aspect and the awesome patterns

[can-]

can you explain to me how it's temporary? does it wash to white? sorry I'm not clear on this

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

The Cyanotypes will not like it if they're put in the wash with detergents containing phosphates, bleach, or sodium. In some cases they'll vanish and in others they'll change colour. Insley and Nash did a few experiments in the washing machine and in most cases the print vanished - though there is always going to be exceptions. I'm curious to see what might happen as the cyanotype leaves and indigo from the man body enters the ecru fabric in the wash. I have a feeling we'll end up with a reverse-print of the original.

A mild soap wash might keep them fixed, and water shouldn't remove them - but it's all a bit of an experiment. A decadent art experiment where the amount of time sunk into the pocketbags is not rewarded with longevity.

Should note actually, as I don't think it's in the article that it's just one printed pocketbag, the other is for marking and stamping. I don't know if you remember what you asked me to put on yours ben when you told me about Pizza delivery requests - but that's where it'll go.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Beer and cigar were in order yesterday as production began on the TIME jackets. River Denim Jeans are breaking in nicely too - here's a pic from their first hour of wear (with a jacket proto).

[JewTurk]

I got the belt upgrade, very excited (as Bobbin has heard a million times now).

I'm excited to see how the green jacket fades, will be a constant wear once fall rolls around for me.

[oucho]

love the ascii sewing machine on the labels, who is making your labels? are they based in britain?

[JewTurk]

[balloons]

would be interesting to see you guys do droopy hawaiians (not sure if ben was joking or not) or otherwise floral shirts in viscose/rayon/silk/etc

beechwood buttons, do you feel??

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

ben wasn't joking and I'd love to. Barkcloth, bamboo or something really interesting. We are getting some info on shirting weights of a fabric we really like next week.

Right now we are focusing on coveralls, sneakers and a different jacket style. Then again we have so many other little things that just need a small window of opportunity to jump way ahead.

[JewTurk]

Don't know if anyone else got the belt upgrade, if mine was the only one I'd love to see how you/katy would wear it!

Ecstatic for it to arrive when it ships!

[thatbiglake]

nn

[JewTurk]

The Hefner upgrade.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

[can-]

what is the pricing like on the glasses?

did you hear about the optician who fell into his lens grinder?



he made a spectacle of himself.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

They are RRP £230 with either clear lenses or sunglass lenses and I'm just about to put them up on the webshop. We can make them in black or tortoise - with our special custom dyed 'petri dish pink' being our fav.

We have a black and a pink pair to being finished and will be ready to send out the end of next week/start of the week after - though I think the black might be sold. We plan to try and keep one in stock whenever we can but current wait time is 6 weeks (unless you want pink, in which cast 2 weeks).

Of course, they come with a super amazing, limited and numbered letterpress print too.

Also working on upgrades. Lanyards and clip-on sunnies are in dev.

Personal fav. touch below the spoiler.


N.B. I think the 3 fits I've seen in the time jacket look (objectively) fucking great and I'm (subjectively) so fucking happy.

OH! Also! We can put lenses in reaaaaaaaally cheap. If you spend a fortune on prescriptions you'll be so surprised (and we dont mark up the prices).

Single vision hardcoated - £15
Single vision hardcoated and anti reflection - £27
Transitions - Around £50
And tints are around £15 on top of normal lenses.

I don't think we can do bifocals.

[JewTurk]

Damn those look good.

The river denim colorway for the time jacket looks great, too.

Also, in your logo/storydings that cats cradle is amazing. Any significance behind all of the images?

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Do you mean Hank 2? Gosh I hope I haven't written River Denim anywhere!

Yep they all have significance - the R and Y are a cats cradle which is essentially a loom construction without the warp and shuttle. Other characters in the alphabet all mean something - with some in the title being secret signs of future products. Some are taken directly from parts of the production and others are future signs.

[can-]

Hi Bobbin, we spoke briefly about this in London, can you elaborate a little on the make and construction of spectacles-- filaments, pins, acetate etc? I know you know quite a bit about this and would love to learn more.

there is a palpable difference between cheap and expensive glasses, id love to know a bit more about that.

I am also really impressed with the rate for putting in optical / prescription lenses. would it be more to correct for my insane astigmatism?

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Don't know how insane your astigmatism is but I have what I'm told is a bad one and it's fine. As far as I'm aware all they do for an astigmatism is change the location of the curve relative to the pupil and cut the lens position accordingly but I might be wrong.

Katy and I are going to put up a post about this over the weekend but there is quite a large difference in make just like any garment really.

Firstly all we are doing is acetate. Wire formed frames are another story entirely.

Acetate, which is what most nice spex are made of and what they where all made of traditionally, is actually made from cotton pulp. This is a good video on it:

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/80471038[/vimeo]

Mazzuchelli are the best and that's kind of it. There are some nice Chinese and Indian acetate companies that make really nice plain acetates but absolutely no one can make complex patterns like tortoiseshell as far as Im concerned (and many others). They invented the material - so it kind of figures. They've actually invented a kinder and cool acetate called 'bio acetate' which I think we'll use in the future but it's much kinder right now and cooler to use up almost extinct and vintage stock.

The sheets then have to essentially be carved out of the acetate like a carpenter would tool wood. Some people cut the frame by eye, some make a stencil and use a copy router, and more recently others use a cnc machine. In any case this only gives the roughest of basic shapes and every single frame has to be cut down, sanded with several grains and polished. Plus they have to have ridges cut for the lenses, the front needs to be heated and bent and in our case (and many others) the nose has to be 'bumped' out.

One of the trickiest parts is shooting the arm. When you look at a pair of spex you can see that wire shot through which gives it strength and helps it keep whatever shape its bent into. A special machine is used for that (I'm told there are a handful in the UK only) which has to go through a complicated process of heating the arm, cooling the outside and shooting a metal rod through.

THEN if they're pinned they need to have each hole drilled out and tidied (perfectly in place) and pins hammered in. This is a much stronger frame - though nothing seems to withstand me sitting on them or rolling over them in my sleep. I was told by another frame maker that it takes just as long to pin a pair of spex as it does to make the whole frame.

What I really really like about hand made spex is that they're all ever so slightly different. I was shown a drawer full of vintage NHS glasses that were all the same model but they were all ever so slightly different.

I suppose the larger point is that acetate just feels softer and nicer. When you pick up shitty drugstore reading glasses you know they feel shitty but you don't know why - its because they're made from plastic. They're pumped into a mould and made in a couple of seconds. I'm not entirely against that kind of manufacture but it's not right for me when I wear glasses almost all day long.

I have so much more to say too. Ugh.

EDIT: Possibly the most important point is that it takes a person around a day to make a frame for us, but in fact with everything it takes a lot longer. SLOW MADE.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Also - suggested make-up for the spex for optimum style awareness is a petri pink frame with lenses in them with a graduated tint from grey to clear from top to bottom.