UK: October Textiles Ltd and Chateau Roux Collaborate o Produce New Urban

After two years of steadily increasing success in the UK, with over 40 choice retail accounts and the recent opening of their store on Newburgh Street Soho, a trip to Barcelona to promote European sales was an obvious progression for the London based brand.

The Shotguns in Soho range on show featured a mix of solvent and water based prints of simple graphics, that all contain a sense of contradiction and tension.

These underlying messages were then further enhanced by using garments that are literally shot with a shot gun. They continue to be very popular in domestic sales, but as a new idea for Continental buyers were received with a degree of surprise and almost disbelief. Any questions were answered by the video made of the shooting process which can be seen at the October Urban Clothing Review site.

This technique, attempted by October when asked for a random distress particularly on heavier garments, is authenticated by including in the sale the actual shotgun cartridge used to distress the garment.

The success and extensive press coverage of this initial range could have proved a problem when launching the second collection - again relevant graphics would be required and an innovative print technique.

October and Chateau Roux answered this challenge with the 'Self Harm' range -- again, thought provoking imagery but using much larger areas of block print, and for a reason. Each garment is printed with a solid expanse of heavy water based ink, often lights onto darks, at a level that can then be personalised by distressing it with the sand paper swing ticket supplied. The buyer can choose and change the level of distress that they feel best fits their mood.

The graphic and the Print Techniques are also made more substantial of course by a third element, that of drawing attention to the serious issue of self harm -- we can't say that these are just T-shirts.

Not surprising then that fashion buyers from across Europe, the US and Japan have shown extensive interest in both of these ranges, placing firm orders for next season and keeping the art of innovative screen printing alive at October.

This has enabled Chateau Roux to make the inevitable leap from a T-shirt brand to a rounded fashion label, with their new denim ranges, jackets, jewellery and footwear projects, viewable at Chateau Roux.

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