I stopped by Reed Annex today (at Matt’s behest) to check out Umbro’s US launch of their newly designed England Kit.

They’ve completely redone the space to reflect the entire process and journey that Umbro took to redesign the uniform the exact specifications of each player. I especially liked all the little trinkets and details that made the buildout such a special experience.

I loved these sketches underneath the countertop.

Here’s the jersey that Umbro designed for Reed Space. They’re raffling off 50 of these throughout the week.

The exhibit is there until Wednesday (4/1/09) – stop by and check it out at 151 Orchard Street in the LES.

…or, things that caught my eye while walking to get lunch.

When visiting Rickey at the 944 office in LA, we saw a great sketch on his wall – it was a self portrait by a friend of his, Richard Haines. Richard’s background is in menswear design; last year, he started a website documenting outfits that he sees throughout his day via sketches. It’s grown quickly and has garnered a loyal following of readers from around the world that enjoy his illustration style well as the details he tends to highlight in the outfits he draws. We got in touch and started chatting about possibilities for working together, and I’m excited to announce that we’ve got some things in the works with him that will be released this summer. Yesterday, BPMW was kind enough to open up their office to us for our live sketch session with Richard – our photographer Dan Chen was on hand to photograph it.

One of the best parts of running 3sixteen is getting to see the product in places we wouldn’t expect, but are places that completely make sense for the brand. A year or two ago, I had seen a wallet with a unique debossed woodgrain pattern somewhere on the internet – it was made by a company called Hlaska. At our most recent tradeshow (Project Las Vegas), we were chatting with two people that were interested in bringing our line into their San Francisco store. I complimented the guy on the bag he was holding, and he said “thanks – we make it!” Upon closer inspection I realized it was made by that very same company. It turns out that they had opened up a flagship store recently and were looking for one or two menswear brands to complement their bag and accessory line. We were happy to oblige.

Being that the brand is heavily science-inspired, they decided to build out the shop with fixtures reminiscent of a science lab, complete with specimen drawers, laboratory type lighting, and a copper periodic table mounted on the wall. Be sure to stop by their flagship store to check out some of our outerwear pieces in person:

Hlaska
2033 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94115

(By the way, this was the bag I was admiring. I really like the hardware they used on it.)