JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE & BARKING IRONS

BARKING IRONS is very proud to announce our latest collaboration with Nashville guitar-picking man, Justin Townes Earle. Kin to the legendary Steve Earle, Justin will make believers out of every audience he encounters with his exceptionally crafted early country-blues sound. JTE is extremely well-versed in American music and folklore; he is a student of American roots and it shows brilliantly in his ability to craft original songs that sound like they were penned in 1919.

Upon our first meeting, Barking Irons was smitten with this strange character and his funny-sounding guitar as we chewed the fat over Civil War stories and the tales of American infamy.
It wasn't long before we decided that our respective minds would collaborate on something bound-to-be-great.

Barking Irons created this super-soft, vintage quality tee for JTE's Nov-Dec tour with Dan Auerbach. It is titled, "Holdin' Smoke" which came from old bluesman slang for someone whose stylings just cannot be touched by another. Only 200 were produced and that will be it for this particular style so get them while you can: available on JTE's road show.

"JTE Holdin' Smoke" on Dusty Black, by Barking Irons (2009)

MB is proud to be reporting on this masterful collaboration between two kindred spirits with penchants for sartorial excellence. JTE and Barking Irons have just nicked the surface with this one, stay tuned for more cool exciting things happening on this front.

Check out some JTE tunes

ABORIGINAL CITY

The year 2009 is drawing to a close. Before it does, The Mulberry Bend would like to recognize that it was this year that stood as the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's historic arrival into Hudson Bay. He did this of course on his good ship The Half Moon on Sept 12th, 1609.

Manhattan was a very different place back then. More like The Hamptons actually, without the sweater shawls & khakis. Sound enchanting? We have no doubt that it was. Which is why the Dutch decided to move right in. Legend tells of men wading into the waters and plucking whole lobsters with their bare hands. Now if that doesn't make you wonder, perhaps a trip over to The Mannahatta Project will set wind in your sails.



Although it's been around for a little while now, The Mannahatta Project founded by Dr. Eric Sanderson, an Californian ecologist, now offers downloadable data and resources. Information about Mannahatta's once strong biodiversity and the over 55 ecological communities that once thrived in on this island is there for the plundering. Furthermore, if pictures and maps are your speed, you can mess with The Mannahatta Project's 10 different layers of time on the Google Map based overview of the island. That means you can type in your address and rewind time to see what once existed where you do now. Whatever it was, it was probably cleaner and looked a hell of a lot better than you do anyway.

KINGS OF LEON TEES BY BARKING IRONS!

The brothers Followill, proud sons of Tennessee, may be hitting their stride in 2009 with a breakneck touring schedule, a string of huge singles, and more fan power than ever before.

On Thursday, the Kings of Leon will take on a sold out MSG -their biggest US show to date and the buzz is palpable here in NYC.

In July, the KOL dropped in on the Barking Irons Bowery digs (as reported by MB) to discuss some new art work that Barking Irons had made expressly for the Kings of Leon. After the guys happily approved the work, Barking Irons set out to produce a limited edition run of three ultra-soft, beautifully made t-shirts to be sold on tour with the band. It is MB's distinct pleasure to showcase them here now:

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<<< align="left"> YOUNG LOVERS - ONLY BY THE NIGHT

Each tee was produced on a super soft washed cotton picked by Barking Irons and sported an artful inside neck label for ultimate comfort and an added graphic punch. The KOL by Barking Irons tees are available for $34 at the Kings of Leon webstore and on tour only.

The whole band was super thrilled with the final outcome. Some joker even caught Nathan wearing TRICERATOPS on his day off (alterations his):

In addition to wearing their own gear, every now and then the Followill boys will end up on stage wearing one of the original Barking Irons pieces that they picked up on their visit to the Bowery.

We wish these boys the absolute best. Believe it or not, the KOL were an integral part of the founding of Barking Irons when back in 2003 their album "Youth & Young Manhood" fueled many a late night of screen-printing in the Bowery basements. Funny that...

Stay tuned for more KOL / Barking Irons collaborations to come.

'ROLE MODEL' TEE

ACTOR, Sean William-Scott was caught wearing the ol' Barking Irons classic "Greensward" tee in his new movie, "Role Models" last week. The film has been advertising all over NYC with a giant pictures of Mr. Stifler wearing this vintage Barking Irons diddy. Aside from Scott, Role Models also stars Paul Rudd -a gallant knight of comedy these days and a Barking Irons fan to boot. The film has been scoring solid reviews as a good ol' knee-slapper, just the thing for our depression era blues.

For the curious among you who are wondering aimlessly about the history and meaning of the "greensward" shirt, rest easy and you may now unfurl your brow:

In 1860, the city commission of New York issued a design contest for a landscaping plan to fill the center portion of Manhattan island. Over 1000 entries were submitted from all over the globe, but it was a submission by Fredick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux entitled, "The Greensward Plan" that ultimately won the day.

The ambitious Greensward Plan proposed roughly 8 years of massive terraforming and redirection of waterways in order to reconfigure the feral, rock-strewn land into a sprawling opus of open public space in the center of the country's most crowded city.

It is remarkable to remember that while it may seem like a preserved natural space, Central Park and the Greensward Plan represent the totalizing efffect of man-made space. Every square foot of Central Park was mapped out and reformed by steam shovels and good old-fashioned Irish labor, more than anything else it represents man's ideal vision of nature.

Thank you Sean-William Scott for your wearing on chest a most memorable homage to manscaping.

The Greenward shirt is available on the Back Door section of the Barking Irons webstore, get yours NOW!!!

KINGS OF LEON @ BARKING IRONS

Preeminent rock band Kings of Leon dropped in on the Barking Irons Bowery digs last week to pick up some of our latest spring wares and to discuss a potential partnership with the Bowery Boys -more details to come.

As the band rifled through racks of t-shirts, woven shirts, accessories and more they found special interest in the various Civil War relics that populate the Barking Irons showroom. Caleb & Nathan Followill walked away with fistfulls of t-shirts and other Bowery paraphernalia.

Many beers were consumed in a relatively short period of time which eventually led to some unsteady picture taking (above). Occasionally, the band would incidentally drop a hint pertaining to their new album due out in October.

This is the second time that the Kings of Leon have come hunting for those rare Barking Irons goods -not currently available in Tennessee- however, this time was a much more spirited encounter as the band had a few days to kill before jetting off to Europe.

The Kings of Leon will be appearing at the All Points West Festival this August at Liberty State Park, NJ along with Radiohead and many others. The KOL continue to be a leading force in homegrown gritty rock'n'roll and they are proud friends of the Barking Irons gang. Stay tuned for more great things...

HOME OF THE BEAR

Bear Mountain area, New York. As unlikely a place as ever to find landmark evidence of a big impact on menswear. But hark! This is no ordinary place. This is sacred ground of the Algonquin’s. Home of the Bear they called it after the great Sachem (chief) P’Tauk-Seet (the Bear) pronounced (Tuck-Seet). A village exists here that has held a legend in mens fashion for over a century.


But before this story unravels itself lets take a trip back to England in the 1880's. The Prince of Wales has commissioned Henry Poole & Co. to tailor a special smoking jacket hybrid for him that will allow him to attend semi-casual galas without going through the ritual ‘top & tails’ routine of high class dinner-wear. It is rumored that the then Prince (Edward VII) had his eye on a young Cora Potter from America. Cora was a beautiful southern girl born in New Orleans and married to one James Potter of New York (Cue J. K. Rowling fans). Although Potter was not a wizard, he was a successful coffee broker and a highly influential dinner club founder back in the states. Thus in 1886 he and his wife were invited to attend a ball at the Prince's Sandringham, Norfolk estate in the UK. When James Potter asked the Prince what would be appropriate to wear to such an event, the Prince referred him to his custom tailor to get fitted for his newly designed dinner-wear. A ploy to get time alone with Mrs. Potter?





Funnily enough, Cora did not return immediately to America. She stayed behind in England to pursue acting, while James returned to New York to continue his business and social presence. In New York, James Potter wore his new outfit from the UK all around town and at his private dinner club near Bear Mountain. Customers at the popular dinner spot Delmonico's were noted to constantly ask where the attractive new attire was from. Most of the time, Potter’s dinner club was sighted as the area of attraction for this mysterious and new garb. Consequently Potter’s dinner club which was located back northwest of New York City was given credit for the uprising of this trend. P'tauk-Seet-Tough (Tuck-Seet-Toe) or Home of the Bear by that time (1870's-1880's) was known as Tuxedo, New York. Rather by chance or by the winds of fate, Edward VII, Cora & James Potter, and Algonquin Sachem P'Tauk-Seet had all played a hand in inventing the American Tuxedo.

Barking Irons has pioneered what we call the Hester Polo combining elements of the American Tuxedo shirt with a fine jersey polo shirt for several seasons now.



Cora Potter died in 1936. Upon leaving England in the late 19th century Oscar Wilde is quoted to say "With regard to Mrs. Brown-Potter, as acting is no longer considered absolutely essential for success on the English stage, there is really no reason why the pretty bright-eyed lady who charmed us all last June by her merry laugh and her nonchalant ways, should not--to borrow an expression from her native language--make a big boom and paint the town red. We sincerely hope she will; for, on the whole, the American invasion has done English society a great deal of good. American women are bright, clever, and wonderfully cosmopolitan. "

BARKING IRONS BLIND TIGER SAMPLE SALE

Last friday, the good old boys at Barking Irons kicked off an entire weekend of amazing deals & steals with an evening of jazz-age pomp at their hauntingly beautiful loft space at 161 Bowery. The news was spread by Thrillist, Urban Daddy, Time Out NY, Daily Candy, and a host of independent bloggers (thanks). Apple-tinged Dark & Stormy cocktails flowed throughout the affair while old time Dixieland jazz quartet brought down the house.

Shoppers were escorted to the 4th floor in a rickety old manuel elevator by a short, disheveled-looking operator called "Mr. Moy" who speaks nary a word of english, but is quite wise beyond his years.

Once safely landed on the fourth floor shoppers were drawn into the jumpy rhythms and flighty clarinet of the jazz players and a lively bunch of lower-east-siders picking through all manner of fine sportswear including copious t-shirt styles, classic hoodies & flannels, and dashing Fireman Pea coats, all laid out like a feast. The smell of rum & ginger hung in the air and the evening rollicked on in the tempo and grandeur of a speakeasy of the roaring twenties.




But there may be no need to speak-easy about this affair. With the resounding success of this sample sale, Barking Irons is considering keeping the retail set-up throughout the holiday season so folks from California to New York Island know exactly which pit on the Bowery to stumble into when in need of some fine threads & a grand ole'time!

visit http://www.barkingirons.com/

SUNSHINE & SHADOW

It is difficult for a gentleman to be discerning nowadays. Smaller independent brands are either destined to a shadowy existence or
or getting snuffed out after a few short seasons. With retail in a slump customers and retailers alike are reluctant to take chances on independent brands and instead gravitate towards bigger, more established labels. Only a few years back this wasn't so, there was an opening in the market for independent brands, people wanted original and subversive, something off-the-beaten-track and provocative.

Everybody knows the economy is in a spin. It is not at all surprising to learn that this opening has since slammed shut and the trend has swung back the other way in light of the circumstances. Everybody is being more cautious especially when it comes to fashion; but does this economic turn inevitably put the subversive consumer on hiatus? Does the falling dollar set the scene for a few years of sure-footed conformity in the fashion world?
Whatever be the outcome, The Good Ship Barking Irons along with a slew of other independents are sailing on in an ever-more brazen direction, through the shadows toward an eventual sunrise.

It is a classic business tale of David & Goliath: we have to rely on getting scrappy and staying lean in order to hold out in this fight. There are several factors working against us, but being a nimble brand is our greatest strength if we can hang in there long enough. The armchair economists predict that the economy will bounce back again, maybe so, but I glean from the experts that we may not have hit the bottom yet. Until then, we here on the Bowery are going to keep our candles burning...

New Fall Collection In Stores; available at Bloomingdales & Nordstroms as well as other specialty retailers

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Running a business from the Bowery is somewhat of a task in itself it seems. Its not the occasional drooling Meth addict outside our door from the clinic a few blocks away. I actually like the reality of their company. Or the Bowery Mission and its perpetual crowd of loiterers outside its doors. Its the Bowery itself, with its many mysteries and omnimous presence that I think creates friction with the world around it. For instance, there is one phenomenon that I cannot rightly get passed in our days at the Barking Irons HQ. Quite often we get the innocent question about our address, “Bowery what?”. It baffles people that a street doesn’t have a surname. “Bowery Street?” they say? “No, just BOWERY” we counter. Time and time again it is a problem. We’ve even had couriers pause shipment because of this. Of course none of these people are from New York. However it brings up the question of why the Bowery is so mysterious to people. Better yet, what is the Bowery? and what does it mean today?

You may say that its the lack of the surname that excludes the Bowery from other streets. Then again, Broadway doesn’t have a surname. Or is it because it has the word “Way” in it that it may be excused from such trials? It is however true that the Bowery had a surname prior to 1807, where it was then called a Road and before that a Lane. But to know why Bowery is called simply Bowery is to know how this road to perdition became such a mark on Manhattan in the first place.

Bowery and Grand St. with the old 'L' tracks casting shadows for theives to hide.

Bowery or Bouwerij in the old Dutch spelling was, the little country road to Peter Stuyvesant’s farm established in the 17th century. Bouwerij literally meant farm or farmland. Peter Stuyvesant was the patriarch of New York. A peg legged dutchman who single handedly purified young New York from the sins of an unruly colony of farmers and feuding dutch traders.

Later on, in the 19th century, Bowery became the poor man’s Broadway. It was filled with Museums, Theaters and Flop Houses of the day. Song writer Stephen Foster died on the Bowery, George Washington drank on the Bowery and legend has it there has never been any Churches built on the Bowery. That fact can be claimed by no other main artery of Manhattan. Perhaps that is a clue to the Bowery's true identity. For Bowery was never a safe road (until Whole Foods opened).

The Bowery’s fall from grace began almost at the same time that it gained notoriety. Covered by a giant ‘L’ in the mid 19th century (which explains why the street is so wide today), it was cast in a dark shadow. This, no doubt, aided its mystique and its violence. Many gangs roamed the Bowery. From the Atlantic Guard to the Slaughterhousers to the Bowery B’hoys, each new decade brought more infamy. Then during 70’s and 80’s the Bowery was born again. It was the famed birthplace of punk, some might say. A baptism occurred, as the Ramones took the stage for the first time in 1974. Located at 315 Bowery, CBGB’s became a mecca for the new punk scene. But as worshipped as CBGB's was, it was not the church of the Bowery.

The secret church on the Bowery exists in the most obvious of places it turns out. Getting back to the origin of the Bowery I found that it doesnt necessarily have a church on it, but it actually leads to a church. The Second Dutch Reformed Church existed where St. Marks Church exists today. Right on the old Stuyvesant farm and rightfully at the top of the Bowery. Why is this so significant to New Yorkers? Well as a church it may or may not be, but as the final resting place of Peter Stuyvesant, it should be the holiest of grounds.

GET DOWN, OLD HAGUE!

For our Fall 2007 season I was being dragged into this "ghostly" theme by my research. Originally it wasn’t a conscious idea, it was more a theme that I kept running into accidentally. I became aware of it after prints started looking diffused rather than sharp. This diffusion was more or less a defense against knock offs. With all the iconography cropping up in prints now-a-days, I was trying to get a distinct technique that would separate Barking Irons from the recent flare of antique prints. Most of it is done with my pencil, but some of it is a result of older print shop methods and halftones in some of our out of print books.

The Daniel Divver print is not an example of this diffusion, but it is an example of how the now conscious theme of ghosts has become a part of the Fall 2007 collection.

Daniel Divver was born in Ireland in 1839. Soon after he came to New York and lived in the city's 4th Ward (Lower East Side closest to the East River). Divver, like all youth, had a fascination with being a volunteer fireman. When he became of age he joined the Eagle Engine Company No. 13 and proved his worth as one of the ladder's best men. As soon as the Civil War broke out, Daniel Divver joined the First Fire Zouaves and was elected Second Lieutenant. In 1861 during the battle of Bull Run, Divver's company met with a rally of Rebels.



Outnumbered and too proud to turn tail, Divver is reported to have rolled up he sleeves and yelled his old engine company's familiar "Get Down, Old Hague!" before rushing forward to his death. The Zouaves eventually pushed the Rebel force back enough to find Divver's body before his final breath. They said their goodbyes but could not move him as the South made another sally and Daniel Divver was never seen again. Until now. . .

The MULBERRY BEND welcomes you.

Here's a little story:

In the old-timey days of New York's Lower-East Side 'down near what is now Federal Plaza, Mulberry Street used to bend leading you directly into the depths of the Five Points. Well-to-do city folk considered "the bend" to be the cut off, or point of no return as it were since beyond that elbow in the street a man might expect to lose much more than a pitiful rookerful of change.

Photographer/police blotter, Jacob Riis became obessesed with the terror and inhumanity that swarmed below the Mulberry Bend. The Five Points was the intersection of five streets (Mulberry, Worth, Little Water, Baxter, Bayard) and was said to be the deadliest intersection in the world. Riis, an immigrant and well on his way to becoming self-made, championed to cause of erradicating the Mulberry Bend, and he did!

Until now.

Even still however, the Five Points was one of the most fertile cultural places in New York -an offshoot of the Bowery- it was the neighborhood that introduced tap-dancing, and the rough & tumble New Yorker, its own particular New York dialect, and a original and unpretentious style of dress. Writers such as Horatio Alger, Stephen Crane, Edgar Allen Poe, and Charles Dickens were all fascinated with the life that teemed in the points.

The slums of the Five Points and the Bend evenutally fell in the 1890s and in their place sprang the grass, trees, swings, and benches of Columbus Park. If you go there now you may see the park and the various Historical Society signs which to little justice to the pages of dark history that were written on those corners and their surroundings, now you will see a string of Chinese funeral homes huddled in the armpits of towering Federal buildings. U.S. Marshalls in their cheap suits buldging with some sort of firearm, can be seen every which way and that-

The Mulberry Bend is being reawakened. Not to impinge upon a slum-free zone, or to threaten, or terrorize, but to bring voices down into the mouths of a culture resting beneath the surface, of a forgotten code.

We will bring you news and culture, art and history, thoughts and fashion. We wont be preening the Bowery in case that be your worry, we want it stir it back to life.

Help our Cause.