So I was with our tailors yesterday, hanging out, chatting about the Olympics, sharing some dumplings, the usual, when they showed they stopped me mid-sentence and told me they had some new fabrics to show me. Now these are hardly hi-res, but they're a start at a look at some new fabrics we might offer in the next month or so. We're probably thinking about maybe 5, possibly 10, so have your vote, tell us in the comments, which ones you'd like to see.

 Number 1.

 Number 2.

 Number 3.

 Number 4.

 Number 5.

 Number 6.

 Number 7.

 Number 8.

 Number 9.

 Number 10.

 Number 11.

 Number 12.

We're pretty big on being transparent here at Blank Label. We want to have an honest relationship with you, we want to tell you when we're screwing up or gloat when we've done something well, it's just more interesting that way.

In honor of our three months from launch on Halloween, not so much in celebration of Scotch Tape's anniversary, but that's still cool, we thought we'd share some earlier versions of our site from the vault. Be warned ... some of these are pretty ugly

Main Site

What www.blank-label.com was on 30th of October 2009, the day before launch. Ha. Definitely makes us laugh. Honestly we're not exactly happy with our current site, hence still the BETA tag. We might keep it up for a while because it leads people to give us a lot of feedback, which in turn helps us improve. You'll see quite a few site improvements we hope you'll like in Feb.

 A design we toyed around with back when we thought selling custom suits online would be a good idea. It was a good design for your straight-up e-commerce site, but just didn't quite have the spice and bite we were looking for.

Custom Men's Dress Shirt Design App

 Before color was cool, and in fact before Zee, our Chief Hamster, and Alec, our Lead Artist, even joined the Blank Team. It seems like a good render, and a front and back view, but was actually really hard to get the fabric colors on the shirt, and probably would've taken forever to load.

The measurement tab here kind of shows you how little we used to know about our loyal shirt designers. Co-created custom men's dress shirts should be a fun process, having that 'Measurements' Tab and expecting guys to either know their body measurements or get a tap to measure themselves was just plain silly. We never quite figured out what we were going to put in that large 'Accessories' Tab either, we'll let you know when we do come up some interesting ideas. In respect to transparency, we'll be sure to run them by you first.

What We're Going to Show You Next Week

 Proudly listening to Matchbox Twenty's How Far We've Come if only we actually knew How Far We Have To Go.

Fan Bi, Chief Shirt, reporting on Blank Label updates on the co-creation blog.

Dsquared2

Amidst the strictly fashion-forward crowd that inhabit Milan during fashion week, Dsquared2 brought confidence and style to their collection with a mixture of different looks and perspectives meshed together, topped off with their signature-cut jeans. 

Leather, studs, and a splash of color brought together a glam/punk theme for Dsquared2’s collection. Male models strutted something manly on the Dsquared2 runway with class and sophistication to rival all of Dsquared2’s previous collections. Imagine if you will, fit men somewhat taller than the average guy who just happen to be extras on a sequel to Fight Club complete with the black eyes and fat lips – this is the 2010 collection for Dsquared2. 

My favorite look for the collection:

One of my favorite looks was a black overcoat with lining on the collar. The pants were classically cut and creased at the top. This is in addition to what looks like to have been a v-neck sweater that was more than a little transparent, slightly covered a black slim tie. A basic white shirt and black pointy-toed shoes topped off the look. Together, the ensemble glittered and screamed, “I was on a date with a married woman and her husband found us just as she was unbuttoning my overcoat!”

Prada

Prada is classic. Since its inception, Prada has made the man look as elegant as possible – but every now and then, like the man – Prada deviates from the script adding the element of surprise and intrigue. This was the case during Milan Fashion Week when Prada premiered its latest collection. 

This collection, ironically – showed more colors than Prada’s spring collection. Purple, yellow, and a vivid magenta took to the runway nestled in overcoats, blazers, suits, and cardigans to accentuate, while trying not to intimidate. Everyman doesn’t necessarily look good in every color. Still, Prada does a good job of bringing together their collection of color amidst their trademark gray, blue, and black. This year, khaki made a guest appearance that was just enough to tease the fashion senses without dulling them. 

My favorite look for the collection:

One of the things that I liked the most about this collection was the appearance of brighter colors. The collection comes off as a fresh perspective. My favorite piece epitomizes the feel for the men’s element of the Prada show. A light-tan overcoat with buttons impeccably placed on the breast and torso of the coat along with black/blue slim slacks dominated the model who also wore a yellow/brown sweater underneath with a basic blue shirt. I will say that Prada did a horrid job of choosing the model, which looked absolutely sickly in the look. Just the same, the perspective was strong and well-stated.

James R Sanders is a Guest Blogger and Fashion Muse for Blank Label's co-creation blog. You can also find his thoughts on Fashion and Brands at James Sanders at Large.

Blank Label is currently looking for a Handy Man (Web Developer Intern) to work with our Chief Hamster (CTO), Lead Artist (Graphic Designer) and Lead Evangelist (Online Marketer) to make www.blank-label.com  the most kick ass e-commerce site with the most awesome Design-It-Yourself Custom Men's Dress Shirt App EVER! Ha, yes we are a bunch of fools, but at least we’re not tools.

We’re a self-funded startup, that launched October 31, to fundamentally change the relationship between individual consumer and apparel producer by offering affordable (starting at $45) co-created custom men’s dress shirts. Already getting orders everyday we’re looking for the opportunity to scale up, and with the long laundry list of things to do, we’re seeking some development help.

The team is spread with Chief Hamster in Orange County, Lead Artist and Lead Evangelist in Boston, and Chief Shirt in Shanghai (where our dress shirts are made). We’re pretty chill about working remotely, dialing in for all hands calls twice a week, being super responsive on email, and keeping scheduled to our project management tools.

Of course we’d love to bring someone on full-time but the reality is we’re a startup not in the cash-flow position to do so. Instead we’re looking for someone quirky and different up for an entrepreneurial opportunity, interested in supplementing college or their day job with some extra cash. Ideally we’d be able to work with you part-time for a couple of months and then dive into stock options and dreaming about the bigger picture.

We hire on culture and attitude first and skill set second. Preferably our Handy Man is a bit of a generalist who can work with our Graphic Designer on some front-end work whilst being able to engage with our Chief Hamster in actual programming in our ASP.NET framework. Experience with ASP.NET or e-commerce or doing any else tremendously awesome is a BIG +.

If this sounds like an interesting gig to you, drop us an email with five things you would do to improve our site. If we agree with three of them, we’ll chase you down. 

As an aside, if you have a friend or colleague in mind, if we hire someone you refer to us, we'll give you a Blank Label co-created custom dress shirt!

Source: constantinb

First off, we're NOT promoting plastic surgery as a gift, but this was a pretty hilarious photo. Second, this would have been more appropriate pre-Christmas, but oh well.

Thoughtful gift giving is one of the more meaningful things you can do in a friendship. Remembering that your pal said he needed to fix the shelves in his living room would make buying him a tool kit a simple gift that just means more than, "hey, here's a tool kit I got you." You're telling your friend that you care and that you listen.

Now, you're not always going to know if your friend has any needs, and sometimes needs are time-sensitive, like if James needed a new showerhead because his isn't working well. He'll probably replace it before the next gift-giving holiday comes around. But before he does, consider going out and geting him a new showerhead, the one with premium features because he needed one and because you wanted to make it extra special so it has 6 different settings and three levels of intensity.

That goes to show you that you do not need a socially-accepted time to celebrate your friendship by giving a gift to someone that's special to you. In fact, the recipient doesn't even need to need anything for you to give them a thoughtful gift. Sometimes good things come from your heart and they're spontaneous.

There are a lot of great DIY (do-it-yourself projects) out there that'll allow you to create an affordable and handmade gift. But there are also a number of really awesone Design-It-Yourself projects that let you create something very special for your friend without having to pull out the old craft kit, or needle-and-thread.

For a Design-it-yourself gift for guys, you can always design him a few dress shirts online, personalized with HIS own label, and colors and patterns that say something special about his character and personality. This is a great gift especially if your male friend works in an office space where wearing a dress shirt is an everyday thing, except maybe on Casual Fridays when we likes to wear his funky polo shirt and favorite pair of Levis. But he'd be quite proud to wear a dress shirt you designed for him because it's individually made and one-of-a-kind.

I mean, if you're really in a pinch and need to ever give someone a gift, this might be a really good idea... or you can gift-wrap plastic surgery. Ha! They'll love that.

This post was written by Danny Wong, Lead Evangelist for Blank Label, shamelessly plugging how awesome they are at making custom men's dress shirts on the co-creation blog.

A lot of new things are happening with the website, and so things with our blog are changing too!

Sure, we’re all for men’s fashion, but what about CONNECTED INDIVIDUALISM?

We’re still going to be talking about Men’s Fashion, but we’ll also post about other young guys (and gals) doing some cool s#@! too. We’re gonna connect with our community to get some interesting opinions on how uniqueness is defined and how people can truly be individual, and we’ll continue to post regular updates on what’s going on with us. Hopefully you can give us some feedback as well, so we can make our website better and easier for you to use. We’re totally open for new suggestions and interesting ideas.

But just stay tuned. There’s new stuff on the way.

If you haven’t already, sign-up early at the Blank Label website for a coupon code for 20% off your first purchase when we launch our men's dress shirt customization application. Get pumped to design your own custom men's dress shirts soon.

Feel free to follow us on Twitter as well, to stay connected.

This was an update by our Co-Creation Blog Moderator, Danny Wong, who is also the Lead Web Strategist for Blank Label.

This is a weekly Co-creation Blog post from Chief Evangelist, Fan Bi, who founded Blank Label in the Summer of 2008, and has been trying to change the way young men buy clothes ever since.

We've spoken to recently married couples, big-event athletes, and even film producers, but we can't settle our nerves for the Big Day, October 30. It's definitely been a long time coming, and the whole time we've focused on remaining true to our core consumer and delivering our vision. The next 23 days will drive that home, we're speaking to as many trend setters as possible, that young, fun, independent, fashion sensitive guy who no longer wants to be branded with some over-paid, supposedly-famed designer, and loves the idea of having Danny''s Label, Alec''s Label, Your Label, My Label, Blank Label.

This will bring a new age of apparel and men's dress shirt shopping. I walk into a store these days, and I'm just annoyed. First, I know that I'm paying for the annoying shop assistant who keeps asking me if I need help when I just simply browse around, the over-priced downtown rent of the store, and all the other costs of having walls of inventory that's going to be included in the cost of my shirt. No. Then I find something I like, but it's not quite right, don't like the front pockets, and they only have 2XL's left. No. I compare that with the experiences of our customers who tell me about their new favorite shirt. It's amazing but there's no doubt that you have a personal connection with something you've co-created, something that you've helped make. Yes!

Not long now. We really can't wait to co-create custom men's dress shirts with you. And we just hope you're as excited as we are!

This is a Co-creation Blog post from Chief Evangelist, Fan Bi, who founded Blank Label in the Summer of 2008, and has been trying to change the way young men buy clothes ever since.

Dharmesh Shah once said; 'Things you get from a startup: Meet exceptionalpeople, learn useful things, make money. Make sure you get at least 2 out of 3.' In the next couple of weeks, I thought I'd go through each one of these to give you a better sense of what we're all about, why we do what we do, and why we love it.

This week I want to speak about a couple of people I love in my family, my work family. And maybe at the end of the post, you'll love them too. Bear in mind, I'm only going to touch on two of Blank Label team, and credit definitely goes beyond that to the broader team. Carrying-on, Danny Wong is my right-hand man. He's been with Blank Label since the end of Spring 2009, and he's been kept fitting for the success of Blank Label ever since. Externally he introduces himself as Lead Web Strategist, but internally we know him as the Analytics Workhorse. Danny started out as a Sales Rep, when we still doing a Sales Rep model, but he kept pushing me, asking what are you doing for SEO, Social Media, once you build a website, how are you going to build traffic, more importantly, how are you going to build a community? When someone insists banging down the door to get involved, it's just much easier to open the door for them. He worked his summer 'day job', then would rush home and work on developing an online presence for Blank Label till the early hours of the morning. He would them come to the office with me on the weekend, and pull longer hours than even I would. Hence, the Analytics Workhorse.

For how strong-headed and direct Danny is, Alec Harrison, is super smooth. Beyond his smooth singing voice, he is creative in everything he sees and does, and for that reason, he is our Empathetic Designer. Joining the team half-way through the Summer, he has rushed to speed on what the real vision of Blank Label, and similar to Danny and myself, quickly transitioning from small steps to fast pacing to a quick sprint. Officially as Lead Designer, he covers User Experience and User Interface of our website, which means he goes between understanding the consumer and our fashion illustrator and photographer to compile something that is highly relateable to our audience of confident, fun, young, independent males. Alec does freelance gigs on the side to support himself, but without the dedication to our mission and our big dreams, we'd be lost without our Empathetic Designer.

Danny and Alec, and especially myself, do this because we've all done the corporate thing, and boy did we hate it. Maybe it's part entitlement, part naivety, but we're just not willing to spend the best years of our lives in a cubicle, hating our boss, hating our lives. So next week I'll give a bit more some insight about part two of Dharmesh's message; 'learn useful things' that help us get to where we want to get to in life.

But in the meantime, we're just gonna keep trying to make the best damn DIY custom men's dress shirts online.