House of Billiam Blog

Popper Buttons

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0100

This is what our new popper buttons look like.

They are engraved with the B from House of Billiam and fully reversible. They come in gun metal and you'll find them on your brand new leather-sleeved varsity or your new reversible varsity jacket - seven of them, to be precise.

Rav's littlebigbrother

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0100

We have had ourselves a studio guest, I would call him an intern but he only made 3 cups of tea and couldn't handle a broom to save his life... anyway, we helped him make/made for him a real nice varsity. Unfortunately we have no shots of the one stitch we did let him do but we didn't want to embarrass him... anyway, here are some shots of him trying to look cool, you can judge if he achieves his goal or not from these images...

Superspecialnicestuff

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0100

So, we have been making some very nice things out of some rather beautiful bits of fabric and leather. I will try to express some enthusiasm...They are freakin' brilliant, if I was rich I would buy one. Lots of leather details and loads of amazing colour details, new cuffing, different colour poppers and the ability to mix it with any fabric you want...look at some nice pictures.

Can you see all our great work? So if you are a beautiful shop and want to collaborate with us get in touch... If you think it will go well in your favourite shop, tell them... We want to be everywhere...

While you enjoy the sunshine

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0100

So apparently the sun has been shining recently, the only real reason we know this is the advent of hayfever. Sitting in a room with no windows and starting work at daybreak and leaving work very late indeed we rarely see the light of day but the sneezing fits of recent days have led me to believe summer is starting. So while you have enjoyed the sunshine we have been working on a new rather luxurious piece of clothing as part of a collaboration with Chimp. Here are some pretty pictures...

All lambs nappa, melton wool and pretty linings... Hopefully this will persuade people that I actually do some work. Available at www.thechimpstore.com very soon.

The House of Billiam Varsity Jacket

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

These are our new Varsity jackets. They are fully reversible and feature the outer suiting fabric of your choice on one side combined with your choice of lining on the other. The sleeves are made from 100% Melton Wool on the "outer" side, satin on the "inner", and come in red or black.

The Varsity jackets do not use zips but reversible, antique charcoal-coloured poppers with the House of Billiam "B" engraved onto them. The ribbing is also 100% wool, and the pockets feature the "inner" fabric chosen by the client and a personalised label with the client's name and the garment's date of birth on it.

More pictures below... check them out. They feature the non-engraved poppers and our lovely models China and Stef. Photos by the very talented Tinko.

To order contact info@houseofbilliam.com.

House of Billiam X Diptrics A/W 10/11

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We're once again taking part in Diptrics' Sales Week in Japan. Their beautiful showroom is set up at their premises in Aoyama, Tokyo's fashion centre. Here are some pics for you to check out. If you're eagle-eyed you may well spot a new House of Billiam garment. We'll give you an official look at that soon. For now, do enjoy the pics.

House of Billiam X Skins 4

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Skins series 4 is set to start this week and House of Billiam will once again be sported by the compelling JJ. We're obviously not experts on what is cool as weren't not teenagers, but we're reliably told by some teenagers that Skins is cool. JJ seems to like his enormous polka dots, and he wore them for the official Skins series 4 promo shoot.

Photos

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We've got some new pictures on the site. Huge thanks to Anaïs Barelli our photographer and of course Pierre, Manu, Jean-Phillipe and Stella for modelling.

House of Billiam in Japan

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We've been working with the wonderful people at Diptrics who are taking care of our sales in Japan. We participated in their S/S 2010 Menswear showroom in August, and here are a few pics. You'll see House of Billiam in Tokyo stores before the end of October - details of which soon.

House of Billiam Scarves

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

It's Autumn now so you might want to start wearing some fabrics around your neck to keep it warm. You could wear some really nice British suiting fabrics there if you bought one of our lovely scarves. For info just email us.

En Face Opening - a trip to Paris in springtime

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Tom likes getting up really early, which is as laudable as it is annoying when you have to get up at 5.30am on a Saturday to meet him cos he's not averse to an overnight coach to Paris.

A passport, an e-ticket and a bag of goodies: back in March we received an order from Raul at EN FACE in the Oberkampf area of Paris, who wanted our clothes in his store before his official opening. So it was that the intrepid and larkish Thomas ventured across the channel on an overnight coach back in April, because at House of Billiam we like to make dreams happen.

We were of course way early, so stopped off for the mandatory coffee (Tom LOVES coffee) and French viennoiseries at the mandatory Parisian cafe. This turned into croque monsieurs and juice as the shear early-morningness of it all demanded a balancing of the energy books.

Much pretentious café posturing and pouting later, we met up with Raul to hand over the hoodies and check out the store's last-minute, pre-opening cleaning session. If you're in Paris, head to the 11th arrondisement and visit En Face at 2 Rue Jacquard. As well as us, you'll find many other one-off items of clothing and trinkets, and the charming Raul, of course.

In fact, you can also now head there to buy our new House of Billiam Retail Bespoke range, as EN FACE now stock that too, but more of that to come in another post as well as info on the other stores that do so (Tom's been making some more early-morning trips sous la manche). Watch this space for details and all that.

Eyles cut

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0100

While most people have been enjoying the sun we have been cowering away in our hovel in East London due to severe allergies... don't worry though, we like being pasty. We have not been feeling sorry for ourselves, instead we have been working on some new things for you to give us money for and soon you will be able to order your hoodie and choose from not only our standard cut but also this: the Eyles cut...

The back panel has no pleat and is instead cut on the bias (a technical term my mum told me which means diagonal and it allows the fabric to have a bit more stretch to it).

We have also moved the pocket slightly further forward using some more bias (diagonal) cutting.

We like it but we're biased.

Art, Knives and in a dark corner, us

Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

So, having been invited to donate to a cause, we find it difficult to say no. It was all a bit strange in the bottom of Shoreditch Town Hall with art from people I had heard of.

Despite possibly having a bigger workload than is helpful I took a day off and went to see what it was all about.

Anthony Gormley

Rankin (not a photo it seems)

And this was the thing I would have bought...Cannot for the life of me remember who it is by but look out for them

Oh, and this is the hoodie we made that got bought it was pretty difficult to spot as it was quite a way away from all the famous people and that odd bunch of cement bags.

I thought it was pretty nice...and it was good to get out of the house for a day.

Business Cards

Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Have you seen our business cards? They look like this. They were designed by us on moo.com, which we highly recommend. Anyway, yes, these are our business cards.

Teki Latex

Sun, 03 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We did a collaboration with Parisian hip hop artist, electronica maestro and bilingual DJ Teki Latex. He's been rocking around the world enjoying Japanese designers' wares, meeting our favourite little-known grime mcs and collaborating with famous Americans for a while now, but we found some nice alleyways in his own city in which to take a few pictures...

Room of Billiam

Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

So I tidied up the room we work in and thought I would share the hovel in which I spend about 17 hours a day, Ed is the guy in the photo, learning how to sew.

If you ever want to make us tea and coffee or feel the need to sort out the chaos we work in get in touch...Where's Wally?

Skins finale

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0100

So Skins series 3 ended. JJ was all up in the finale wearing one of his House of Billiam hoodies - racing around with OAPs on his back and sailing, which is largely what our hoodies are for.

While I buy all the drinks

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I am not sure if I should use stage names... Due to a youth spent in the midlands living rurally I became friends with John 'Berko' Berkavitch, although I have never called him that. It seems now he is a bit of a something: jack of all artistic trades, master of a couple it seems as well, and due to this fact he has people, or at least one single person, who wants to take photos of his astounding mullet amongst other things... Anyway, he wore a couple of our hoodies on a roof top and I got sent some photos so have a look if you want.

Everyone asks about labels

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I tend to be the guy at the end of the email and so to save me answering more questions on labelling it gets its own blog entry.

These are our labels, they come in a box like this

And on this close up, you can see all that is written on the label, on the dot dot dot we insert your name and the date it was made.

The label goes in the pocket because wearing it so everyone can see where you got it from makes you a douchebag and we don't want you to be a douchebag... well you can be a douchebag just not in one of our hoodies.

An attempt to educate

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

First blogs are always difficult to achieve a sustainable and entertaining tone so this will probably be deleted in the next couple of months when I decide no one cares about it.

We have been pretty busy now that we have moved to London and everything smells like dog poo...I also believe the pollution is giving me a form of the black lung. And I bought some more fabric this one by legendary fabric producers Scabal

It was specially commissioned and I would be surprised if you could find it again. Have a look at the Scabal site as it is seriously impressive, the producers of the most expensive fabric in the world...and for a hoodie in it? Well, £190 it is possibly the only time you will own fabric so good...