Tucked away on a little side street in East London’s Hoxton locale is a compact two-floor boutique that has remained relevant and consistent in challenging times for physical store fronts, with winning curation, a very impressive brand roster (home to brands such as PAM, Junya Watanabe Man, Wood Wood and Pendleton) and keeping true to their ethos with admirable enthusiasm and success.

Designers, Jo Sindle and Kyle Stewart are the creative duo behind the Goodhood name (established 2007) and in my opinion, have made nothing but substantial moves to guarantee themselves a prolonged future as one of London’s finest.

We had the opportunity to sit with Kyle (our congratulations to you both, as Kyle’s partner, Jo is currently away on maternity leave) to discuss style, influences and the future of the ‘hood.

Who are ya + what do you do?

My name is Kyle Stewart. I’m co-owner of Goodhood store and I run this place.

Tell us a bit about the Goodhood store and brand.

The store was set up in 2007 by me and my partner Jo Sindle. It started out as a bit of an idealistic project to curate brands and products that we’d seen on our travels. It was important for us to try and get a range of goods that, at the time, shared our ideas of independence and what that stood for, along with quality and creativity. The store has been going for 4 years now and has got bigger, with an additional floor for men’s in the basement and a gallery just over the street.

Myself and my partner Jo, we come from a design background and so it was important for us to create an identity around what we were trying to do. I come from a graphics background and Jo comes from clothing design background, that’s why we’ve been able to do collaborations with the people at R.Newbold, ’cause it’s something we’ve been doing for years. The graphics thing is a thing we’ve that we’ve rolled with – there’s myself and other designers involved with in the business, so it’s easy to roll out an indentity and be quite strong on that side of things. Although we are a multi-brand store, people very much see the store as a brand in itself.

You recently released the latest collaboration effort between yourself and R. Newbold, which was consistently strong. How did that team up come about?

Basically, friends of friends worked at Paul Smith and I met them in the pub one night. I knew they had done a collaboration with Oi Polloi, so I just said to them cheekily, “We should do a collaboration”, not thinking anything of it, but funnily enough R. Newbold had based a lot of their collections on London style and so the idea was perfect for them.

When we started the project we wanted to make sure that it had a bit of a life, we didn’t want it to be a hit-and-run thing, collaboration for the sake of it, so we applied a long term approach to it. We’ve just released the 8th season and are in talks about a 9th.

What inspires you for each collection?

Listening to what people want, people we meet, talking to customers, taking in what we see here and on our travels. This current season we wanted get away from all the heritage stuff to do something that was more “streetwear”, that’s why we did the Way Back tee, sort of having a laugh with ourselves. We’re obviously very interested in heritage and it does influence our designs, but really the collection is what we’re feeling at that particular moment in time.

On your website you host your Store Styles to exhibit outfits of visitors to the store. What’s your take on blogging’s effect upon men and women’s style?

I think blogging is massively important right now — it’s bigger than magazines, which I feel have become stagnant. They started out being quite cool and about something real and cool or whatever. Now it’s about selling ad space to perfume and sunglass brands. I’d like to see blogs become more significant. Guys, particularly, want to obsess over products and girls are into what people are wearing and doing. East London, hate it or love it, is a global focal point and it is nice to know that someone in Australia can know what’s going on over here instantly via the blogs, news sites and online niche communities at the click of a mouse, and vice versa.

Following on from that, do you have any favourite print publications at the moment?

Monocle is the only magazine I really bother reading. It’s intelligible and an actual interesting read. Stylistically it’s not my cup of tea, but I like their content. Some of the mags we have in the store at the moment like Travel Almanac, Apartmento, Gentry Magazine and Champfest are all really good too. I even like getting in all the brand books, they’re usually quite interesting.

All these new publications are quite open and one thing we learnt when first starting out is that the established media is closed off, it’s quite often about their mate’s mate. It’s quite boring. It’s nice to see people have an open attitude to content and deciding for themselves.

What are your favourite brands at the moment?

Difficult to say. From what we stock there’s Norse [Projects] — they have great product and a great attitude, it’s easy to wear their stuff. Phenom, Yuketen, [Junya] Watanabe are all doing great things at the moment. I personally really like Unrivaled, I’ll buy something every season.

Favourite spots in London?

We’re very local, we pretty much never leave Shoreditch as everything is very convenient here. From the all pubs to places like Laxeiro, Brawn and my local grocers S. Jones on Columbia Road — a little old school grocery joint that hasn’t changed since the 30’s or something, where I pick up lovely bread.

What do you love and hate about London?

I like the people of East London, the diversity, the style and I love the architecture around here, it has a really unique look and feel.

I hate all the crackheads who rob bikes and threaten people with syringes.

Do you collect or hoard anything?

Yes, clothes. I have a massive archive. We come from a denim background, so I have a lot of special stuff that I can’t get rid of and will hopefully become relevant again. A lot of classic streetwear stuff. I used to collect trainers, but I’ve sold them all. I’m trying to get into a more transient lifestyle, where I wear something out and then get rid of it, replace it and not sit on it because my son might wear it in 25 years. He might love my sh*t, but he probably won’t.

Briefly describe your own style.

I’ve just been to the gym this morning and I forgot my jeans, this isn’t my usual look. My style is influenced by Japanese takes on our style, metal and rock, street. I used to dress like a bum, my thing was bum chic, but I stopped that. Grunge is massive influence for me, I grew up in the 90’s and I was into skateboarding. I skated for years and that’s affected the way that I dress and as I got older there were brands like Silas.

You’ve mentioned metal and skateboarding; people tend to forget that it’s had a quite an influential affect on streetwear e.g. brands like FUCT. Kids these days seem to think it comes from a more hip-hop aesthetic…

I think when streetwear became associated with hip-hop, New Era and matching Nike sneakers, it became a really cliched look and a bit of a joke. For me, when we talk about streetwear, it’s nothing to do with that — it’s about i-D magazine 15 years ago; Japanese takes on mixing stuff up with running shoes, fur coats, business shirts and tweed — mixing up styles. I think the hardest thing for us is to challenge people’s perception of what streetwear is. People hear the word ’streetwear’ and they instantly think that it’s like dressing like a baby wearing a blue t-shirt, blue sneakers and a New Era cap, and that’s not what it is.

What’s next for the Goodhood brand?

We’re starting our own label off the back of the store and we’re talking about opening another space, which should be happening in 2012. We’ve got a 4 month old kid who we need to see to/get to a certain age before we can get our heads down on all of that.

The Goodhood Store
41 Coronet Street
London
N1 6HD

The Goodhood Store
@goodhoodstore
GoodHood on FB

Words: Mister Ollie
Interview: Mister Ollie and Denis Yong
Photography: Mister Ollie

Chef rapper Action Bronson sat down with Boylston Trading Co to discuss his wardrobe as a youth, his fashion likes and dislikes, and the time he met Mr Ralph Lauren in the flesh. He also gives some great fashion advice towards the end! Check out his style in the visuals and in his chat.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Great news has landed as ‘The Producers’ series is set to return to VICE.com, a joint project between Red Bull Studios London and VICE Media. Series two builds on last year’s stellar cast and explores the methods and muse behind some of the best and brightest producers as they collaborate with the world’s most exciting artists.

This season will see The Streets’ frontman Mike Skinner with new project D.O.T, left-field atmospheric producer Kwes collaborating with Micachu, Elen Tamara, Ghostpoet and DELS, The Bulllitts and two-time Grammy winning musician Syience, and Starsmith working with new singer/songwriter Ellka.

Be prepared for episode one, as it’ll show Magnetic Man’s dubstep all-star Benga working with Youngman, an up and coming vocalist signed to Shy FX’s Digital Soundboy label. ‘The Producers’ series is definitely one to watch for great insight to your favourite producers and to give inspiration to budding ones in the making.

Catch up on last year’s episodes featuring the Radio 1 presenter and globetrotting DJ Toddla T, and the sought after DJ and Mad Decent boss man Diplo, all here. Head over to Red Bull Studios for exclusive behind the scenes footage, images and interviews from this year’s films.

Check out the trailer below for this new season of the short shows.

The Red Bull Academy is known for holding “lectures” and workshops with guests who are influential and deeply passionate about music. This year’s Red Bull Academy Lectures are currently taking place in the unique surroundings of Matadero Madrid in Spain. The event spans from 24th October-25th November so clearly a lot of knowledge has already been dropped. There have already been a host of insightful talks that have gone down, including one with engineer Young Guru as well as everyone’s favourite masked rapper, MF Doom; check them out below. For other lectures, be sure to check out the Red Bull Academy Channel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Channel 4 recently broadcasted a 4Play film about young British dance producer Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Directed by David Terranova for Falko Haus, it follows Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs from his home studio in Oxford to Dour and Melt! Festivals, and features exclusive music from TEED’s forthcoming debut album.

TEED also discusses liking the fact if the barriers in dance music like house, trance and drum n bass were taken down, we could embrace the whole umbrella of dance music more and producers could effectively have more creative freedom. Not to get anything twisted, the producer states that he’s not a poet in any way and not even a singer, but he’s just a producer dressing up as a dinosaur and singing. He is quite the music maestro who puts on a good live show if you watch the video.

You may recognise TEED’s beautiful ‘Garden’ track (it’s included further below) that’s currently used for Nokia’s Lumia advert. Check out our featured recap on Rizlab at Bestival, where TEED collaborated on an exclusive track with Friendly Fires live on stage.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Garden

Click here to view the embedded video.

Join me as I get to grips with a pre-production model of the amazing new Canon EOS-1D X that we recently mentioned. In this video, I interview consumers and pros to give you an exclusive look at the new UI and a 100% crop of an image shot at ISO 51200!

Check it out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alllindstrom.com recently sat down with studio engineer Young Guru, who has been behind most of the sonic magic behind the majority of the Roc-A-Fella catalogue. In Part 1 of this interview, Young Guru talks about the creation of Jay Z and Kanye’s collaborated album ‘Watch The Throne’ and the part he played on it, what he worked on with J. Cole, and if Jay Electronica missed his “moment”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I usually don’t work with a lot of people, but my man Josh is in another lane…” – Ghostface Killah

How did you first getting into singing?

I had been writing for a while and had picked up the guitar after a family friend threw his out, and it got to a point where everything clicked and the songs I was writing were straight from my heart so the prospect of giving them away didn’t make sense so I just decided to give singing ago!

I understand that you listened to a lot of John Legend and Ben Harper songs as a teenager. Who are your musical influences?

Tracy Chapman, Donnie Hathaway, Ben Harper, Damien Rice, John Mayer, Kate Rusby and Nick Drake.

How would you describe your style of music?

I’d call it ‘Me’ music . It’s difficult to encapsulate it into one sound as from track to track it’s a journey through every sound that’s ever influenced me!

I understand that you experienced some difficulties growing up. At what point did you realise you could put it behind you and make a success of music?

I think in the back of mind I always was conscious, more subtly at times that not only did I have a gift but as a person I could transcend my situation, I should transcend it, but once I was living out and away from all the influences it was easier to make sense of everything.

Part of your new music video is shot in Lambeth. How has growing up in South London shaped you as an artist — musically/lyrically?

I think it has just added that sense of diversity in how what I take because of the different influxes of music, across the board, through different cultures and classes. But I think that’s just London in general.

Your new debut single ‘Redemption Days’ features Ghostface Killah. What was it like working with him?

Crazy, obviously working with someone who I personally look to as a great artist and instrument for hip hop in general was big enough, but on meeting him he had a humility and a warmth that just made it even more surreal.

Wu Tang are executive producers on your forthcoming debut album, ‘L.I.F.E’ How did that come about?

Through meeting Ghostface and them working on the first record, they seemed to have seen something they felt was special, and have joint the journey, but I guess how special it is for others only time will tell. But it’s already that for me.

Ghostface Killah is known for his flamboyance. How do you manage to keep looking fresh in such company?

I keep it simple, classic and I have to be comfortable. I won’t suffer too much for ‘fashion’; besides trends always change. I have certain staples then over time I add different stand out pieces. I like to mix a lot of 30-50’s stuff. I’m quite open minded in era and cut, but I don’t like bright colours.

What is your favourite item of clothing in your wardrobe at the moment?

Right now it is a brown fur trim, 1940’s aviators jacket and a Norse Project works jacket.

How would you describe your fashion/style? Are there any brands/designers you favour?

Understated. I love Grenson, I like a lot of vintage stuff. But specific brands — I don’t really care about brands. If it looks good, it looks good. I mix and match so much.

What are you bringing to the game that sets you apart from other artists?

I don’t know; that’s for my listeners to say, but I just know everything you hear I create and it’s created from the heart — that’s it. And I feel I successfully escaped getting caught up in a marketing fuelled record that can sometimes trap you from really expressing what you want musically. So I guess there is a record that anyone can listen to and relate with.

What can we expect from your new album ‘L.I.F.E’?

It’s just wholesome, hearty music; that’s it. No crazy concepts, no tricks, just expression!

‘The ‘Redemption Days’ EP is out now on Island records. It features Ghostface Killah, plus includes remixes from RZA, Distance, Roni Size and Mensah. Go check it out now!

Click here to view the embedded video.

London-based jewellery designer Toshi ‘T-Dog Junior’ Takahashi has been crafting some of the finest silver pieces for just over 13 years. Originally from Japan, he has independently built up the brand Dog State (est. 2004), through which he distributes his handiwork of unique silver rings, earrings and pendants. Be it a one-eyed grinning skull, a beautiful rose or British bulldog, Toshi does it all with a distinguished skill.

Whoareya + what do you do?

My name is Toshi Takahashi and I am a jewellery designer. I own the label Dog State.

Tell us more about Dog State.

I’ve been making rings since ’98, I’m self-taught, but I worked in a jewellery store on Carnaby Street for 5 or 6 years which was fun, I learnt a lot there and it made me want to do my own thing even more. I would come home and just improve my skills to make my designs better.

Dog State is just me making and selling jewellery that I like. I specialise in modern skull and animal designs. When I do custom work, it’s a relationship between me and the customer, we make the piece together.

How do you go about your design process?

When I wake up if I want to make rings I will, otherwise I won’t. I draw inspiration from a lot of sources; when I’m out on my bike or walking and I get ideas from nature and animals I see, I’ll then come home and work off that.

What’s playing in the headphones this week?

I listen to a lot of jazz. At the moment I’m working to Miles Davis.

Are you reading anything interesting at the moment?

I hardly read, but I do browse a lot of blogs, like my friends Bounty Hunter, Secret Base and Illustrator End.

What’s your worst form of procrastination?

I spend a lot of time on YouTube looking at dumb stuff.

Is there anything that you collect or hoard?
I don’t actually. I’d love to collect clown and joker related memorabilia, but if I started, I would never stop. I used to also collect jewellery, but that cost me way too much.

Your favourite spots around London town? Do you prefer to party or chill?

I rarely go out, but if I am out I’m usually going to this Japanese spot, Tsurukame (Crane & Tortoise), near Chancery Lane.

What do you love/hate seeing around London?

[Laughs] I could go on forever about what I hate so let’s start with love. I love seeing such a diverse mix of cultures in town. I hate the miserable weather. When it’s so cloudy outside, I don’t feel to make anything.

Three of your favourite brands and why?

Bounty Hunter – I love their overall style and collection.

Tenderloin – They made some amazing jewellery and jackets. Their stuff suits me a lot.

Dickies – I don’t wear denim too often, I’ve been wearing Dickies pretty much everyday for over 10 years. They’re just hard wearing and good for the conditions that I work in.

Wouldn’t be caught dead wearing…?

[Laughs] Can I say? I don’t like Ed Hardy because it looks like it disrespects tattoo culture.

Briefly describe your own style.

I like plain things. If I wear prints, I have to think about what I’m wearing. With my long hair, tattoos and jewellery, it’s just easier to just dress simple.

You never leave the house without…?

I never leave without my keys on the big skull chain and my bike. I don’t like London Transport.

What would you do with a big Lotto win?

I’m not a big spender. I’d open my own jewellery store in Los Angeles.

Toshi is currently in the process of revamping his website, but you can still check it out and if you’re after some crazy custom work, don’t hesitate to get in touch with him for an appointment!

Dog State is also available in store and online at Goodhood, London.

For more info, head over to:

• Dog State Jeweller
• @T_dog_jr
• Facebook

It’s been quite a long time since we first gave young rapper, Mac Miller, a mention on here. Since then, he’s taken the world by storm and performed his début sell out tour across the UK, last week.

At the age of 19 he’s got classics, a catalogue of bangers, millions of YouTube views and a loyal fan base, proving that this music game is his for the taking without a major label, radio, or big budgets.

DJ Semtex caught up with the artist when he was in the capital to talk about his influences, his journey so far, his forth-coming album. Footage from Mac Miller’s first ever show in London is thrown into the video for good measure.

Thumbs up, most definitely.

Click here to view the embedded video.