"My name is Nick, I'm 25 and a transportation design graduate. Things that excite me are Krispy Kreme, Diet Coke, the cinema, any form of creativity from anybody, City And Colour, Bon Iver and just generally listening to music, drawing and zoning out!Hero&Cape is a new British creative label, we are driven by clothing and artwork that is as special to you as a superhero's cape! Our aim is to make you the hero of the story, with unique and original illustrations and hand printed clothing!Our first collection is a capsule range of white tees with a twist. We have designed on white T-shirts (our blank canvas) to show they can be stylish and fashionable. With screen-printed original drawings, we see it as a piece of wearable art!"
-Why did you decide to start Hero & Cape?
I graduated from Transportation Design in 2009 and back then I didn't even think about starting my own business/label. I was doing mostly freelance work with short stints at various design consultancies. I just reached a point where I thought, I'm 24 years old and I need something long-term and fresh that I'm passionate about and that I can throw all my efforts into.
I've always drawn, since I was a little boy and that love of drawing and creating translated very nicely into the business plan of Hero&Cape. The clothing aspect of it just came from the desire to offer something that was different to the high street offerings. So often you'll see people wearing the same things and I thought, there must be something that I can do in order to offer something different and unique.
So a year ago, I sold my car, saved up and started Hero&Cape. It's probably the biggest gamble I've ever taken in life and it was so daunting and exciting at the same time!
-And why should we all be wearing it?
You should all be wearing it because it gives a positive message about who you are and what you are about! We want our customers to feel special and feel like they're wearing something that has been made just for them. All our T-shirts are individually printed to order, so you can be sure that the T-shirt you get through the post is printed for you and you only!
I think it also says that you appreciate craft and creativity. These designs are all hand drawn from my inspiration and influences. So I guess that each design has a meaning and is not produced only to please the management or the market researchers. Like I said before, we see our T-shirts (in a small way) as a piece of illustrated art.
-You must have a favourite tee from the collection? I think mine would have to be the Balloons and a Bicycle one!)
This is a hard one! It's like making me choose between my children! I think for me, my favourite is also the one that means the most to me and speaks most strongly to me. That would be the Imagination Rules the World design. I think everyone can be imaginative and be creative, it's just about unlocking it and getting out of your mind! Art and design is such a subjective thing, and whenever people say to me "I can't draw" or "I wish I could draw" I just say to them "rubbish! anyone can draw!" because I genuinely believe that anyone can produce art. For me art is a physical expression of whats in a persons mind, and if you can put pen to paper (or any other medium, sculpture, model etc) and create something that is unique and has meaning to the artist then that to me is art, no matter how "wrong" or "bad" it looks.
-Where do you find inspiration?
Inspiration can come from anything! I think its hard to pinpoint inspiration, but I think this queastion relates back to the previous question in a way, in that all the designs are a piece of my mind. So I guess that you could say the inspiration for Hero&Cape is everything I've ever seen, heard and experienced! If I had to name things that inspire me I'd say the mind and its ability to create, and things I see everyday, I think its important to actually see things, not just look, but really see whatever you're looking at is about. Most of the time there's a reason why every product looks the way it does, and in nature everything has a meaning.
I think we're very lucky to have so much available inspiration on tap via the internet and other media, the world has become such a small place. Some people would argue that its made it more difficult to be original but if you look at all the imagery and videos that is made available to us via technology then I think there's more sources of inspiration out there than ever before.
-Being a Northener (like me!), would you say there's anything special about northern style?
I don't think there's anything particularly different about northern style but I'd say I think it's heavily influenced by music, which is not a bad thing as music has always been closely linked with fashion! -What's next for Hero & Cape? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I try not to think 5 years ahead as that means I'll be crossing the 30 year old border! But for Hero&Cape, I hope to have expanded to a point where we are offering a wide range of clothing. We will definitely be offering more variety in terms of products and I hope even to be producing bespoke one-off pieces of clothing that is hand made from scratch. I think that is the ultimate goal, to be producing Hero&Cape fashion that is designed, produced and sold by us in-house from the start. But the most important thing in 5 years time is for us not to lose our focus or our direction and be true to the reason why Hero&Cape was started.
-What's on your playlist at the moment?
I've actually just created a new playlist this week! It contains Bon Iver, City And Colour, Foster The People, Empire of The Sun, the new Florence album, and I still need to add the new Birdy album to it!
-What was the last movie you watched and book you read, and were they any good?
The last movie was My Neighbour Totoro and the latest book I'm reading is John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.
My Neighbour Totoro was actually the first Studio Ghibli film I ever watched and as a child it blew my mind! I had it on VHS and watched it all the time. I was amazed by the idea that in any back garden there could a passage that would lead you to a giant secret friend! Having watched it recently, its amazing to see how little its aged as a film (it was released in 1988!) and its still extremely fun to watch!
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a book I bought a long time ago but never really got round to reading, I've actually just started so I'll have to get back to you with a verdict on that one!
If you haven't already, you really really should click on over to Hero&Cape now, or you can tweet them @HeroandCape, it's well worth it!
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