SubSpecies Interview

Certified Banger: Yo! This is a first for me… tell the people why:

Chris Hughes: We are Subspecies, an urban/streetwear label that was formed by a troop of talented designers who were tired of the poor quality that mainstream brands were banging out and selling out to the sheep of society.

CB: So tell us about your product a bit more. What did you set out to achieve with it?

CH: We want to create something that is a little different from the rest of the brands that are out there, using good graphics on quality fabrics. All our tees are limited edition and there are only 450 of them per style/colour worldwide, so if you’re in a club with someone wearing a Sub tee the same as you... that's just fate!

CB: Who does the designs and what is the inspiration for them?

CH: The design team consists of General Thade, Ceasar & Nim; Three wise monkeys who all come from varied backgrounds who can influence each other in their areas. We get our ideas from the depths of our minds and try to stay away from trend direction too, that stuff’s for the catwalk cats and the la-di-das of this world. I mean who makes these trends up? Someone trying to sell you a book for £600 per season, thats who. That’s why we made ours limited edition, there are no boundaries, you’re guaranteed to be different - a Subspecies. There are No Gods, No Masters!

CB: How are you different to the average garm pedallers?

CH: Did I mention quality?! We get lots of mail from our customers telling us "they get the graphic now!" People buy things ‘cause they look good, but at Subspecies there's usually a hidden meaning or message in the graphic - you know, propaganda.

CB: You support the local music scene here. Who did you hook up with from the Hip Hop crowd?

CH: We hooked up with Bane from No Pretense who is a local Hip Hop artist up in West Yorkshire and we just respected each other’s talents. We are all about supporting local talent!

CB: Are you a Hip Hop fan? Who do you rate musically at the moment?

CH: Yes. Obviously we like the music our sponsors produce, but on the treehouse studio turntables this week are Cypress hill, New Kingdom, The Goats, Talib and a bit of Fushniks. We're a bit old skool!

CB: Who else do you sponsor?

CH: We sponsor Monsieur Phil Kyle, a s**t hot tattooist from a programme called London Ink, UK Hip Hop artists Jack Flash, Chief Wigz, 9livez, Spida Lee, No Pretense, Brutal Artistry, Knew Jeru’slum, Dr Syntax, we have a BMX team and we collab with Plug and his team - one of the UK’s top graffiti artists.

CB: Would you be open to expanding your sponsorship of artists outside of the local Hip Hop scene? Who would you like to see modelling your threads?

CH: Of course, we want the cream of the crop reppin’ our garms, be it a hip hopper or a body popper, if you got skillz to pay tha billz we got the garms to slide on your arms!

CB: How do you hope to grow as a business? Will there be a bigger range? Different items of clothing?

CH: We got a whole range of things to be released; the next drop consists of more limited edition tees, some hoodies and a polo shirt. We have belts, underwear, bags and we're getting a lot of girls asking when we're bringing their range out, so that's what’s happening at the mo.

CB: Is there anything you’d like to say before we finish? Any plugs etc?

CH: Yeah, get on our website www.subspecies.co.uk and www.subspecies.bigcartel.com and buy some garms off us!