courtesy of will cheyney from flickr

this year the blank blog is inspired to do three main things. we're going to continue to give you the low-down on what the team's thinking and doing. we're inspired that co-creation is real, it's coming, and we really want to be leaders in changing the relationship between individual consumer and producer through co-creation. and we're committed to really bringing you the latest in dress shirt fashions, making you the first audience for new fabrics, and providing promos to test them out.

goal number 1. keeping our fans updated

we're very big on honesty here and we take your suggestions pretty seriously so this will be the main place where we'll throw around ideas and updates and where you can throw back comments and suggestions. believe it not, we really do look to you to help make us better. what do you think about webpage redesigns? it was based off feedback through our facebook, twitter and blog that our current homepage exists. we also share our insights into more novel cases like what to do with Blank Label's lovely ladies, or sharing thoughts that many visitors send queries for like our recent saying hi to our female fans post. we also want do to more with the blank fund this year and this is where we'll do most of the talking about it.

goal number 2. the year of co-creation

inspired to be leaders of this movement, we really think co-creation will be big this year. we hope to change the relationship between individual person and apparel product through the process of co-creation. by-gone are the days where one brand or manufacturer makes millions of a single widget. people have preferences and sometimes they're not well served by the choices that are available. or at the least, their experience would be enhanced if they were able to have a unique, personal offering. that's what we're all about. and this is where you can read observation and commentary about cool companies from cereal to cars, being a part of the co-creation revolution.

acclaimed writer and thinker, malcolm gladwell, gave a great talk on why choice makes our life better. co-creation is really the next step ...

goal number 3: the coolest custom men's dress shirts in the world

it's interesting how a company that promises against being a fashion house is motivated to bring to the world the coolest dress shirts in the world. the challenge for us is to provide the tools, fabrics and styling choices that will empower you to create the coolest shirts that will be the biggest talking points among your friends. we're going to bring you a load more fabrics this year, even more styling options, and this is where you'll read about it first. because this is such an easier vehicle than installing new features on our acutal custom men's dress shirt design application, we want to start the conversation here. in return, you'll be rocking the cool before anyone else, and getting promos and discounts for sharing the love.

p.s. you'll definitely be seeing a lot more split personality shirts this year

this post was written by fan bi, chief shirt maker (no he doesn't really make any of our custom men's dress shirts) of Blank Label, and honorable writer for our co-creation blog.

we hope you all enjoyed your holidays, were able to spend it with people that were close to you. the team here went from livermore, maine to dubai to be with their loved ones. there were feasts and weddings, merriment and plenty of laughs. happy holidays everyone.

it was quite appropriate to post this article to our female fans around the holidays as it is during the holidays that the team thinks most of the women in our lives. our mothers, our wives and girlfriends. how much we appreciate them, how grateful we are for having them in our lives.

our @sayhi inbox is literally half full with emails from women asking when we can finally offer co-created custom dress shirts for women. we get loads of daily emails from women saying they actually like the Blank Label site, even though it's designed for guys, and that they want us to tell them straight away once we go into womens. they love the functionality of our online custom men's dress shirt application. our unfortunately lame answer is we're four guys. :( and we think their boyfriend, husband or brother would really like a co-created custom men's dress shirt ;)

i'll give a proper response by saying two things. first, we're not money-crazed dudes, and would be more than happy to see someone else do this. in fact we'd even help you. ask us any questions, pick our brains. why the heck would we do this? we love startups, and we really believe in the co-creation community. and we believe in making customers happy, and if women can't be customers of us now, we still want them to be happy. maybe they'll buy something for their man from us:)

what i will promise is that we bring it up internally all the time. our laundry list of things is just way too long at the moment, but we know there are a lot of women waiting, and we're working as hard and fast as we can. so secondly, in the meantime, we've got friends over at sole envie doing something really cool in the co-creation community, and probably way cooler than women's co-created dress shirts. women, your fantasy, design your own shoes. we don't mean to frustrate you more but they're not quite live yet, early next year is the inside scoop. but good things are worth the wait so drop your email to get their newsletters and be the envie of your friends with your self-designed sole.  

There has been a lot of debate within the team lately on exactly what it is that we do. At the moment, when most people who know Blank Label think of Blank Label, they think CUSTOM DRESS SHIRTS. And this is fair enough. After all, for as long as the young company has been in existence, we've introduced ourselves as the e-commerce custom dress shirt company. In all honestly, I never really liked the term. I never wanted to create a company that was about custom dress shirts. Custom dress shirts exist. You can get them on Madison Ave in NYC, Magnificent Mile in Chicago, Fashion District in LA, Saville Row in London, Oxford Street in Sydney. But we're online. Yes, that is different. But that's still not what we're about. So we're not just about bringing what already exists to an e-commerce storefront.

It's more than that. It has to be. Not just because there are other companies doing it, but because we just don't think it's that COOL. So what if we're saving you the convenience of buying a custom dress shirt on High Street, and you might save 20% by having it online. It makes it all pointless when we make you go buy a measuring tape and watch a 10 minute instructional video on how to measure your back. That's somewhat compelling, but still not totally awesome to us. So what are we really about? We want to provide something that you truly can't get anywhere else. They are three principles.

First, we want to be about EXPERIENCE. From the instant you come onto the Blank Label site, we want you to have fun, and go, holy shite, this is really cool. We want to show you an online shopping experience you've never had before. Second, we want to be about SERVICE. We've found the better we are about service, not only do we get more sales, but we get better as a company, because people are more open about giving feedback. We're a sponge for what customers tell us. Third, it's a philosophy around CO-CREATION. Blank Label is CO-CREATED MEN'S DRESS SHIRTS ONLINE. INDIVIDUALLY DESIGNED BY YOU, INDIVIDUALLY MADE BY US. We don't try and make custom dress shirts. Partly because our shirts are not wholly custom in fit. We make it super easy by asking your body shape, your standard size and your cut preference, with a couple of other details, but it's logical, and it's frankly good enough. On the second shirt, you can make tweaks to what exactly wasn't right on your first one. But what we're really about is the ability to design a really unique, interesting dress shirt that has your own style, that can have your own label.

And we're going big too. It starts at men's dress shirts online, but it doesn't end at apparel. It's a fundamental change in how individual people interact with what they consume. It's no longer mass produced goods, it's about co-created products that changes the fundamental relationship between producer and consumer. This shit is going to be big!

See what we're all about --> Dive Into Design

This post was written by Chief Shirt Maker, Fan Bi, who started Blank Label in 2008, launched it in 2009, and has been pushing co-created men's dress shirts online ever since while occassionally writing for the company's Co-creation Blog.

As I often discuss, there are a lot of trends out there with a lot of good-looking people promoting them; however, we know that there are just some things that will never work on us, will never look good on us, and should never touch our bodies or even come near out 25m periphery. Now, besides the spangle jumpsuit and the feathered fedora, a rather subtle perpetrator of style cataclysms is the infamous and notorious “boot-in.” Now, what is the “boot-in?” This overvalued look is one in which men tuck their jeans or pants into their boots, thereby producing somewhat of an equestrian look (or a nouveau riche hipster get up at the appropriate bloc party.) Alright, I understand that this sounds and looks kind of cool, and we are tempted once in a full moon to just go crazy and tuck that shit in. Why not? Johnny Depp does it.

 courtesy of jjwphotos2 

Well, good gentlemen, believe it or not, shoving your jeans into your boots has a much more detrimental effect on your overall look than you can imagine. The only way it could work as splendidly as we so  often hope is if you have REALLY long legs and a considerably proportioned body, the boots are a perfect height (ankle, calve, knee, depending on your build) and your clothes in corresponding looseness to the said boots. Look at that list. Gross. Just thinking about all those specifications makes me want to plop down on the couch in my underwear with Cheetos. However, if you do NOT fulfill at least 80% of those criterions, you risk making your legs look extremely stumpy and short, your torso look incommensurate with the rest of your body (in the sense that your chest may look the same length as your legs), and overall, make you look at least 5lbs heavier. Still, perhaps the most thwarting aspect of the “boot-in” is that it ultimately makes you look like your trying way too hard. When it comes to men’s fashion, I really do believe that the simplistic approach is the best: t-shirts, canvas tennis, jeans, flannel, etc. On special occasions you can bust out the three-piece or the leather loafers, but overall there really is no need to push so much. You’re a man; you don't wear bangle earrings and nail deco for a reason. The “boot-in” can be an overbearing detail that can either add a simple touch to an equally simple outfit or make people chuckle at you in a pitying manner. I’m not saying NEVER do it, I’m just suggesting that you shouldn’t necessarily strive for it. Simple, simple, simple: I can’t stress it enough. Do not forsake a substantially quality outfit by the subtle, yet deadly activity of taking your pants and slipping them into your elongated footwear!

This post was written for our Co-Creation Blog by Youmi Park, Blank Label's crazy vixen Fashion Muse. If all this talk about boots makes you want to buy a new pair, well, frankly, we can't help you there, but please do go ahead and design custom dress shirts online.

I’m going to keep this short and snappy. We all have habits: I have disgusting habits, so does my mother, so does Meryl Streep and David Bowie. Every person on this planet, no matter how beautiful or elegant or prominent, do things subconsciously or mildly consciously that we know are less than flattering, but we’ve done it for so long that we can’t stop ourselves. Men, I hate to say this, but often times you do things that are unbelievable behavior, and it turns others off like a light switch. In my case, once a guy displays repulsive behavior or disrespectful etiquette, that light stays off. Forever. The action might be dirty or rude or insensitive or classless, but I understand that sometimes it’s hard to catch yourself in the act when you feel so blissful doing it in all your ignorance. I feel you, for I also happen to be human. So, here's a quick check list of things for all of us that we may be doing and people ARE watching:

for a while now we've been thinking about starting a blank fund, an interesting innovative way to give back. we didn't want to just do the generic 10% of your shirt is going to the [insert charity name here]. we find this somewhat disconnected. we wanted to do something innovative, and we wanted to actually have some involvement in it. supporting charities is important. we're all about that, but i feel we should be able to leverage our brand, brains and reach and actually get involved in something really cool. we're inspired by companies like TOMS shoes that gives a pair of their shoes to a child in africa, for every pair bought.

we then realized that we love young guys doing cool shit. so we want to support that. they're super small contributions, we're a startup, we've got no money. but we did want to build a culture of creating social wealth, as well as financial, and we wanted to do it right from the start. so who are our first couple of blank fundees? 

first we have neil parikh, a brown university junior studying an intersection of commerce, organizational dynamics and biotechnology. he has the typical future-leader-of-the-universe over-achieving work background having spent months as a product developer for a platform to help healthcare leaders to better connect, a researcher for lab detecting toxins in water supplies using conductance measurement of cellular lysis as a reporter, and a research associate in the robotics academy at the NASA goddard space flight center.

neil was tweeting for a ticket to the boston startup weekend this past weekend, as someone whose previously received free tickets to paid events that i've really enjoyed, i thought this might be an interesting one for blank fund. startup weekend is a two-day extreme startup fest - walk in with an idea, pitch it to an audience, find team members, agile develop it, leave with a startup. we paid for a ticket, he had a great weekend, i'll post his personal post he wrote for us of it tomorrow. 

from sponsored ticket, our next endeavor was a sick free shirt to jason evanish at greenhorn boston. jason is a great promoter of young people starting companies in boston. his organization greenhorn is an online hub of events, blogs, video of knowledge, information and connection points for the young boston aspiring entrepreneur. when he reached out and asked if we could support him with a really individual and unique greenhorn boston/ blank label custom men's dress shirt, we were more than happy to promote his visibility, and support his great work.

if you have any other cool ideas that we could support or if you have your own case that you think fits with us, feel free to leave a comment or ping us directly at sayhi (at) blank-label.com. remember, young guys doing cool shit is our mantra for this ... 

this post was written by blank fund founder fan bi, supporting young guys doing cool shit since young guys became cool and doing cool shit was newsworthy. fan's also a blogger for our co-creation blog, and is Blank Label's chief executive.

There's a super sticky point that we're dealing with at the moment, both with users of the site and internally within the team. Most of our feedback to date has been fairly positive, and the constructive stuff usually has been consistent. But there is one issue that has split everyone down the middle ...

Sarah looks like this ... And a lot of us like her, and a lot of us don't. We thought we'd settle it on our blog once and for all. I'd genuinely like to think that is's a dedication to user experience and not out-right chauvinism that makes me vouch for Sarah. We get some annoyed emails that just think it's ridiculous we have provocative women on our site. They ask us what if their kids came across it? First, your kids are looking at stuff a lot worse that this image of Sarah. And why would your kids be coming to a site for design-it-yourself custom men's dress shirts. We have Sarah because she is beautiful, and beautiful women have always gone hand-in-hand with stylish guys. Think of GQ ...

There have been criticisms that have been thoroughly thought-out and logical about how there is an objectification of women through what we do, women being buyers for their boyfriends and husbands, and us actually doing ourselves a disservice. This is tough argument for us to counter. All we know is that about 10% of customers are in fact women, and would that be 20% or 30% if we didn't have our images, maybe. What makes it difficult of course is that guys give us great kudos and say they love the look and feel of the Blank Label site. And our ladies are an important part of that. Now no guy is consciously going to say that their not going to buy a shirt from us because we took down our women, but our goal is to build the most compelling user experience from the site, the custom men's dress shirt design application, the couple of touch points whilst you wait for your shirt to turn up, the out-of-box experience, and the stories you tell to your friends about the awesome custom men's dress shirt that you designed.

We'd love to get your thoughts on this, are we being bigoted, are we just having a bit of fun, help us out ...

We just thought it'd be more interesting than ...

Am I right?

Feel free to email your thoughts to sayhi (at) blank-label.com or post your comments here on Blank Label's Co-creation Blog.

Ah, the beauty of winter: the silver snow globe landscapes, the faint redolence of the evergreens, the freckles of Christmas lights scattering constellations on rooftops. Now, these eternal snowy grandeurs, I think you know; and you're prepared to watch the city fill up with snow.  Undoubtedly, you have the down jumpsuit, the mountain boots, the Michelin Man-style gloves, and with them you're probably ready to stop between whatever woods or frozen lake on the darkest evening of the year. Now, I am completely aware that this sort of attire is practical as well as comfortable, and usually am pretty accepting of that collabo. However, I will give your harness a shake to ask if there's some mistake, only because as beautiful and stirring as winter is, it still tends to make us all look like frumpy balls of firm cotton as we resort to the most convenient articles of clothing. Still, no matter how cold the weather may be or how reluctant you may feel towards in vogue threads when faced with the icy chills, there are suits out there made for this season that will not only make you look cooler than cool, but also completely insulated. So, you slip into one of these babies when attending to the office or the dinner party, you will be toasty as a bun and still look so sharp that no one will expect that your braving the cold out there:

·      -   The Wool-Cashmere: This suit is lightweight, yet still considerably snug. Treat this appreciably year-round suit as you would all your others, but since it is winter, perhaps a darker inside shirt will look warmer and tougher against the chilly white.

·     -    The Flannel: a hefty, yet classic suit that is a no fail. Try a gray or charcoal tone for a slimming look, but try and have fun with the inside shirt by opting for a faint pink or soft lavender rather than just a plain white shirt. 

·       -   The Tweed: Because of it's superlative and rather burly nature, this suit is inevitably more difficult to pull off than the lightweight suit; yet, if you can, you are the man of men. The trick is to keep a slim fit model, since the fabric is already pretty thick on its own and will give you breadth without you trying for it. For a simplistic, yet triumphant look, try a traditional dress shirt (solid white, plaid) and match it with a dark tie to tighten everything up.

·   -  The Corduroy: The most difficult by far. I know some people that start to vomit just by looking at corduroy and such reactions make you want to stay away from this gem of a fabric. Still, remain unfazed! When pulled out correctly, this is probably the trendiest and most handsome suit out there. Just be sure that the wale is not so thin it looks blurs into look suede-y, and choose lighter colors so that the heftiness of the material and a heavy tone doesn't weigh you down.

Now, the difficultly with all of winter wear is that even if you get a hold of these superior suits, the color, the shirt, the socks, the tie need to work just as well the suit. Although it all varies, some standard pointers are 1) grab a wool tie  2) the thicker the fabric, the softer the color and slimmer the suit 3) try light-colored and fun socks.  You don't want to be scampering around in breezy, Easter egg colors in the dead of winter, but if you choose thick + dark, you're going to look dreary and bulky, which is always unflattering.

Have fun this winter! Go for a classic look that is sprinkled with spunk and a sense of adventure, and as easy as it may seem to reach for that Northface, being so lovely, dark and deep, remember that you have promises to keep. To me. To yourself. To the society that seeks your fresh, fresh style.

But if the gussied up look for a suit is too much for the occasion, feel free to slap on a fresh and stylish dress shirt under a comfortable sweater (V-necks are recommended with men's dress shirts) and still keep warm and fashionable.

This Co-Creation blog post was written by Youmi Park, Blank Label's crazy vixen Fashion Muse

As the modern Connected Individual, you're no longer just individual in one way, you're maybe a little moody, possibly a little impatient, and probably have somewhat of a split personality. You're quite on one day, out-going the next, you're happy in the morning, sad in the afternoon.

At Blank Label, we're really about allowing your express your individuality and creativity through what you wear so we've created a Split Personality Dress Shirt. It's a half-and-half dress shirt. Basically, if you split a dress shirt down the middle, you get two sides. And each side is independent of the other, but to really make the concept work, you want the sides to complement each other (naturally). So you've got one color / pattern on one side and a completely different color / pattern on the other. We've mixed a few crazy colors and patterns and came up with some pretty cool combinations.

Unfortunate at this time, our custom men's dress shirt design application isn't able to help you visualize any Split Personality Dress Shirt you create. The only visual help we can offer at this time is pictures of Split Personality Dress Shirt we've created. We're hoping to roll out the functionality and if you want to sign up for an email update just email us with the subject line: UPDATE ME ON THE SPLIT PERSONALITY. 

As we've said along, you our biggest innovators and our best ideas come from you. This one definitely did. If you have any thoughts or concepts you think we should test out on a dress shirt, let us know and if we like it, we're probably going to give you a free Blank Label Custom Men's Dress Shirt. Let the creative juices flow ...

This post was written by Danny Wong, Blank Label's Lead Traffic Controller and guest blogger for our Co-creation Blog