Have a Holly, Jolly, Chistmas!

I like Christmas.

I know it's a commercial marketing scheme for pushing stock at the end of the year at ridiculous prices that they would never have gone for at any other time of year and any real significance the season used to have was lost in the commercial haze long ago. I do.

It's just that I remember Christmas before I knew all that. When the gifts were just that. Gifts. And there was fun in giving and taking. There was a ridiculous amount of hype for Christmas in my life and I can never forget how being excited that Christmas was coming felt.

My all time favourite things about Christmas were the following in no particular order:

1. Gifts! Yay! Somebody loves me!
2. Peoples reactions when they saw the awesome and totally surprising gift that you got them.
3. Christmas Breakfast: A magical spread consisting of everybody's individual favourite breakfasts.
4. Having Christmas brekky in your pajamas and no one making a fuss about it.
5. Tinsel: It's sparkly
6. Christmas Lights: Also sparkly
7. Christmas Carols: We forget about them all year and then at the end of the year it's this bunch of season appropriate songs that we all knew! Best sung at the top of one's voice with pumping fists!
8. Corny Christmas Films: Guilty pleasure. They give me the warm fuzzies.
9. Everybody's good Christmas Mood!
10. Christmas Tree: No better place to put gifts under or perch a star or angel on top of. Plus they wear tinsel and Christmas lights.
11: Ginger Bread Everything: Tastes best on Christmas Day.
12. Santa Clause: I don't care if he doesn't exist. He's a nice man and I love him!

We wish everyone, those who celebrate Christmas, those who celebrate other holy days and those who just celebrate, the best of the season!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!
XX

Creative Difficulties.

*Sigh

No creative process is without its hiccups I suppose.

I have to say, though, right now I feel kind of like Jack Black. You know how Tenacious D sang that song about having met the devil at a cross roads and then singing the most awesome rock song in the history of the world but then forgetting it after so that the song they were singing was actually really just a tribute to that song?

Well we have this design. I don't think it's the most awesome design in the history of the world. But I Loved it. And Cee loved it too. The only problem was it is a controversial design. In fact, according to our loved ones, it's something that could get us hurt.

We argued and harangued and even pouted a lot but nothing could convince our loved ones otherwise. We don't want to compromise the design so it looks like we're not going to be coming out with it. Not yet anyhow.

We're not trashing it though. Even if we have to make just one copy only to be bought by someone we truly trust and only on the condition that they frame it and display it in a hidden gallery in their Fortress of Solitude in Antartica, we will someday print that design.

Meanwhile, maybe like Tenacious D, we should just do a Tribute?

imekura hearts lagos.

Moving to Lagos has been a big turning point for us. So many things have changed. We've changed.

Both of us had to get jobs for one thing. That meant doing grown up things like waking up early and thinking about stocks and real estate. Those parts were scary! But it has also meant actually growing as people. We've had new experiences, seen new things and made new friends. Those parts we liked.

When we got here, one of the first things we did was release a collection that was inspired by the emotions we experienced during our shift. We called it "Lagos" and it featured our citrusy line of "Molue" tops, the sexy Je Suis Africaine v-neck for girls, the "football or soccer" confusion shirt for guys and our first ever tote bags!

We threw a thing to formally launch the collection and the label in Lagos and were able to do it in collaboration with our friends at the Xposure Studio in VI. Their fine work (pictures taken of our friends in our shirts) was the central exhibition piece that night. We printed them out then pegged them to hangers and hung them from a clothing rack instead of the real shirts! That was fun.

Finally we released the most recent of our love notes. Also called "Lagos". This note was really special to us because it was our expression of the mood that was Lagos as we first re-experienced it. Ayetoro was what we were listening to then and we still feel his track "Naija Blues II," which we featured in our note, is extremely eloquent of that mood.

This love note was not just to our image club but also to the whole of Lagos as we saw it. A crazy, beautiful, vibrant, sexy city that's like no place else on earth.

See love note here.

XX

Sad.

The events that have taken place in Jos over the last couple of days have been heart breaking.

We are sad for the pointless waste of lives and ensuing mourning.

We hope that at the very least there is a lesson to learn and that we have the grace as human beings to learn it.

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