Interview with Alex Singh of etc. on the boutique label’s most recent project, Swami Safari.

What’s the concept behind the Swami Safari project?

The basic concept is exploring this Swami character we’ve created, who’s running around on his inner safari in the ether. During his safari he interacts and meets all kinds of gods, crazy creatures and fantastical people and places taken out of ancient mythology. A new tee is designed and produced each month in association with a specific artist.

The current plan is to work with one artist for a year and then find another one. Over time (with plenty of support) we hope to be able to put all the art side by side from all the different artists that have been involved. The end result is appreciating their individual styles and interpretations of the same mythological source material. Our current artist is James Hancock who’s actually in a residency in Europe somewhere.

How did you discover James Hancock?

Conveniently enough through Lost At E Minor. I subscribe to a host of newsletters and blogs that showcase artistic talent. If there’s a certain artist who’s style we like we save their information in a manila folder. I like manila folders! I really liked James’ style and thought there was a lot of potential for it to translate well with the Swami. Do you agree?

Yeah absolutely, James is a brilliant artist and his style is well suited to the project’s themes. What’s the process for creating themes and designs?

Due to time constraints I’ve basically been working out which mythology to run with for each month. This is unfortunate because I’d prefer to collaborate with the artist and choose each mythology by consensus.

Either way I’ll choose a specific mythology and then begin researching it. Gods, demons, heroes, villains, people, places, concepts and ideals - all of it. I’ll put together a brief for James with links to all kinds of information and visual source material and then play around with different concepts. We’ll then work out how we integrate the design into the shirt - in terms of placement, size, ink choice, and print and fabric colour. While James is working on that I’ll begin writing the next “chapter” of the story - how the print relates to the Swami’s story. Mythology rocks, there are so many different ones out there that have been created and developed over centuries.

How is this different from the other projects online right now?

Is it really that different? I mean we’re using our own tee block that’s been developed over the last three years. We’re using a specific artist whose creating great original prints, we’re incorporating the story telling aspect in there. But at the end of the day its a side project of a real world label. This is much simpler than the community driven style of Threadless or Oddica. That’s one of the best things about it - the simplicity behind the entire thing. I mean, we’re offering quarterly and yearly subscriptions to people and they’ll also have access to subscriber-only pieces like belts, bags, jackets, trousers and shorts that we’ll produce from our existing patterns. But generally it’ll be one tee per month, every month.

I think the biggest differentiator is quality. Are we making this in China? Yes - so that we don’t have to charge AU$60-70 for it. However we’ve sourced and signed off on the fabric ourselves, the printers and makers over there we’re using are excellent and produce all kinds of clothing right up to high-end pieces. I think the quality of our product will speak for itself.

Where do you plan to take Swami Safari in the near future?

Amon (who designed and developed this project) is actually working on “Project Marrakech” which this is the first phase of. Expect the second phase in the new year.

With Swami specifically I would like to begin exploring other pieces. We’ve been talking about our first subscriber-only piece being a belt and I’m really excited about coming up with something for that. If we can get enough email in support of it - girls stuff. We’re only producing guys tees but I’d love to begin doing girls tees with more feminine style prints. Finally I’m very interested in bringing our customer base into the fold and the decision making process. We’re being very transparent so that they have the option to learn a lot behind all of this. From there we hope to begin collaborating with them, receiving their wisdom, ideas, and input going forward.

How does this fit in with everything else that you’re doing?

As I mentioned previously this is the first phase of Project Marrakech, an online exploration and transition of real world fashion into a digital space. Swami Safari is a side project for the etc. label but its also part of a totally different direction. Currently the fashion industry is very backwards, very archaic, very traditional. We’re trying to break that model and the inflexibility behind it by going online and direct to our (potential) customers.

After Swami comes Some Street Somewhere - a fashion retail database - launching in the new year. “SSS” will launch with only a handful of features. Throughout 2007 we’ll be expanding and developing it to include an online store that will sell the clothing and accessories of all our collective projects including Swami stock.

I guess you can consider Swami as the beginning of our movement online and the first of - hopefully - several online only projects pushing the boundaries of how fashion is conceptualised, designed, produced, marketed, sold and loved.

What are the core themes inspiring Swami Safari each month?

The main theme is mythology, then ancient history and culture. The underlying creative themes are obviously the story telling aspect and James’ artistic style too. But purely in terms of monthly inspiration I’d also consider contemporary and ancient religions, spirituality and all things airy and fairy that are difficult to define. The things science can’t measure or comprehend - which means that it avoids definition and one-minded interpretation.