Pharrell Williams gets on the ethical fashion tip.

Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes is redefining hip hop's involvement in fashion. He is working with ethical textile company, Bionic Yarn, to produce fabrics made from recycled plastic bottles.

Pharrell, has been involved in luxury fashion for years. In 2005 he began his clothing line Billionaire Boys Club / Ice Cream, luxury street wear brands that he co-owns with Nigo, the Japanese D.J., fashion designer and founder of the clothing line A Bathing Ape.

"I have to think about the future of this planet," said Pharrell, adding that he plans to use the ethical fabric in his own clothing lines, although there are not yet any designs in the works. "I love quality," he said, "And quality with environmental benefits is the cherry on top."

N*E*R*D to headline NASS 2009

N*E*R*D are confirmed as Friday night headliners of NASS 2009. N*E*R*D, who consist of Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and Shae Hayley will be bringing their blend of booming hip-hop beats and roller coaster rock riffs, rumbling crunk rhythms and scintillating soul music to the Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallett for what will likely be the best live music act in the South West of 2009.

At present this is the only UK date N*E*R*D will be playing so for any N*E*R*D fan the NASS is a must attend event. As well as the massive hits such as Rock Star, She Want to Move and Lapdance, N*E*R*D will be performing tracks from their latest album Seeing Sound that includes the track Everybody Nose.

While N*E*R*D headline the main stage Friday NASS also features two other live music stages including featuring the best in drum and bass, hip hop, dance, and classic rock. NASS Festival will take place from 10-12th July 2009 at The Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallet in Somerset. The event features the best in action sports including skateboarding, BMX, freestyle moto-x and inline skating as well as a world class music bill over the three days.

sNOOk

Ice Cream and BBC launch in the UK

Clothing can be big business we all know this Justin Timberlake has just launched William Rast in Europe. The Sean John label has provided a significant chunk of P Diddy's $300 million fortune since its launch in 1999. Jay-Z recently sold his Rocawear clothing brand for $204 million in cash and $35 million in stock and we have just seen Pharrell Williams in the UK promoting his brands BBC and Ice Cream.

From next month Pharrell Williams’s BBC and Ice Cream clothing brands will be available in 11 stores across the UK until now they have only be available in the UK in ONE store (we’d love to stock it but maybe we aint perceived as cool enough). Pharrell Williams gives his definition of the brands ‘Billionaire Boys Club is a classic spin on Ralph Lauren. Then Ice Cream is more like couture skate.' If you want more of an overview of next seasons range there's an anorak in 'real space camouflage', which is drawings of rockets, space stations and (oh yes) doughnuts floating on a starry sky. A 'robot' balaclava. Leather travel bags, with a strap underneath so you can attach your skateboard. Hoodies featuring the image of a clock from a 1950s diner and a glow-in-the-dark trim. There's a blue cagoule made of Gore-Tex. The label on the inside of the collar says, 'Wealth is of the heart and mind. Not the pocket.' This cagoule costs £650.

Pharrell, works on his labels with Reebok and Nigo, the cult Japanese designer behind skate/street label A Bathing Ape and answered a few question about the brands to the Telegraph recently.

What is the concept behind the new collection?
'I was just inspired by some of the 1980s winter coats in New York. Kinda Dapper Dan. That's it.'

There seems to be an American 1950s college vibe going on too.
'Logo-wise, yeah, 1950s.'

And 1950s sci-fi.
'Absolutely.'

Link to the full and original article in the Telegraph

Skurban or is it Emo Hip Hop?

We keep an eye on fashion here and what’s happening in the world and it’s also interesting to see what the media comes up with, with it’s compulsion to categorise, pigeonhole and compartmentalise everything around them.

With the above in mind the crude and come up with ”emo hip hop” that’s hip hop heads in tight jeans for us in the know but there’s a new word on the block for those not content with emo hip hop or mash the word is a combination of skate and urban and so we have “Skurban”. The genius that came up with this obviously had to justify this new word and here come the explanation. The new fashion of Skurban was popularised by hip hop superstars such as Lupe Fiasco and Pharrell Williams or were both ex-skaters and have both dabbled with fashion. Pharrell must be know for his connection with Bape and later founding Ice Cream and BBC (not the TV channel).

So what typifies Skurban well as far as we can see it’s pretty much just the development of clothing but lets humour them, so it’s now all about tighter fitting clothing ie jeans not so baggy and tops hat fit instead of XXXL the other really important thing is colourful prints and we’d like to add all over prints.

So that all said at The urban Shop we have noticed jeans getting tighter for about 4 season that 2 years but they still aint tight unless you go for that killer emo look and we don’t really have any of them our jeans have now gone from phat or relaxed to trim fit and there as been a definite move form XL to people buying their size with emo a size smaller. A design feature that we have been rocking for a while though has to be all over and colourful prints and you will see more coming in for spring/summer.


Brands to try if your looking for that Skurban look jeans, Mada, Insight, Atticus and RVCA (arriving any day) tops Schwipe, Insight and King Apparel

Here'sa n interview with Pharrel for CBS news it was working at time of publishing Ice Cream Skate Interview