News/Events
'COOL' - LABORATIONS WITH TC
23 August 2015 by Sancho Murphy
This year with the shop moving from a pop-up location to new permanent digs, amongst the juggling act of it all we sat back for one hot minute to reflect on the highs and lows of running a small independent business. It hasn’t been all peachy goodness, some days the struggle is real but we can testify that the successes we’ve had come down to the support and enthusiasm from the community and brands we stock. It’s as simple as supporting those who support you and Dirty Laundry would be nothing but!
At the start of this year we made the decision to really focus more on independent upstart labels. Shopping independent is great, the products are from an ethical supply chain, the designers are more engaged creating from the heart, pieces are exclusive and limited and the consumer does not fall victim to the noise of advertising and paid endorsements.
Cut from this cloth is Sydney based label TC (formerly Tuff-Crew). We had stocked them prior to the re-brand in the pop-up days and have seen the organic growth, we talked to Charlie Nivision (Silly Pear) one half of the brand.
What / Who is TC Clothing? When did you come up with the idea for TC Clothing?
TC a limited edition streetwear label based in Sydney featuring art from some seriously talented emerging and established Australian artists. Our main focus is on the art and the artists behind it.
TC is run by Charlie Nivison (Silly Pear) and Michael Conroy, together we handle everything from the books to hand printing each TC garment along with everything in between.
It was originally called Tuff-Crew and had a skate and surf influence but after doing a few collabs with local artists we soon realised we wanted to represent this eclectic bunch without pigeonholing their individual styles. So in early 2015 we rebranded and relaunched as TC and since then have been overwhelmed with the local and international support.
What was the inspiration & motivation? How has the line developed since you first launched?
The initial inspiration was a passion for surf tees and screen printing, soon after studying in Canberra, sights were set on becoming an illustrator for skate and streetwear labels, so the best resume is showing what you can do… The brand is also influenced by a few years spent living and designing in Montreal - they have a strong skate culture and the people behind the labels are open to fresh and different ideas.
Give us a sneaky peek into your process, how do you approach artists for collabs? Why is collaboration important?
We usually put together a brief over a few emails and beers, something we think the artist can work with, but we’re pretty chill - it's on them really. We then make a list of artists we like and think would fit the theme and complement each others' styles. Then we hit them up and cross our fingers they are down.
We love seeing what the artist can produce and want to see more good art on tees, so we’re offering a platform for rad artists to get their art out there and make a wicked tee without killing the art with branding. The variety of different styles is essential in defining TC as a platform for artists to express themselves in a format other than street art or canvas.
How is TC Clothing different from other independent brands? Describe the TC Clothing style.
What's setting us apart at the moment is vibe. We’re all about the art, we’re not about trying to be ‘trendy’ - we want to create the best tees we possibly can collaborating with talented local artists. All our runs are strictly limited edition and each tee is individually numbered and hand printed in house, because the tees are works of art themselves.
What are some of your favourite designers / labels / brands? And why?
BANDIT-1$M, Hot Tuna, Mambo and BoyWolf.
Have to say 123Klan are the raddest - had the pleasure of having a beer and the funniest meat raffle at the RSL with them when they were in town and their art is the biggest inspiration!
Hot Tuna is awesome and was the initial label along with Mambo which got me into tees back in the day.
Boywolf is sick, they have great concepts and products!!
How do you balance creativity with commerce?
Hahahaha ahh yeah its fun!
What has been the most difficult aspect of getting your brand off the ground? Do you have any advice for upcoming grassroots labels?
The most difficult aspect was probably getting started. After that it all just seemed to flow, and because we love it, it's was never a chore. I’d say try and be organised and do your research, sounds lame but it helps. Also you’ve gotta hustle, sitting on your ass smoking weed talking about how rad your brand is etc, isn’t going to do shit, you’ve got to be proactive and passionate, even when it feels like it’s going nowhere.
Do you have any grand plans for your brand in the future? Any future ideas or exclusives you can share?
Oh yeah big plans, in the new year we want to host events on the east coast and do some more live printing. It's such a good vibe seeing the artist and the customer connect with the printing process, picking your size and your artwork and watching the magic happen!
As well as new items, what we're most looking forward to is just good old fashion limited edition collabs with new local artists as well as some old favourites.
I like to finish all interviews with a novelty question, just for lols. What’s the most money you’ve ever drunkenly spent at McDonalds? What did you order? Did you regret it?
For what I can remember it was 3 x Jr Burgers (don’t dig the cheese) a large fries (for the burgers), Sweet and Sour Sauce (they never remembered it but it cost 50c), a Mc Chicken burger and a large Chocolate Sundae, think round $15.50. Regrets? Haha shit no!!
Really rad dudes with product to match #supportsmallbusiness! You can purchase select TC tees from the Sancho's Dirty Laundry web-store.
