What’s good Vintage fam? Maybe some of you are looking for a venue to bring in the new year?

Mist, a new nightclub in B-more is located on 5,000 sq ft of property and for 25.00 a person you are treated to a great mix of music by DJ Sal Flip and Mark Forrest from 9pm-4am. Oh, and since it’s a masquerade ball, masks are provided to all who come. Hide that ugly mug of yours or create a little mystery! A portion of the proceeds will go to The Epicenter, an organization that takes Baltimore youth off the street and mentors them with an eye towards various career opportunities. www.epicenterbaltimore.org.

Mist is located at 124 Market Place in Baltimore, Md. Or check them out at www.mistbaltimore.com

Why do we follow fashion? Why is fashion a part of who we are? Expression is everything. We’re creatures who, despite our differences, our lifestyles, our principles, crave social interaction. That interaction isn’t always about communicating verbally. It’s just as much communicating who you are by what you wear, what you drive, or even where you eat. In the Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep has one of the most memorable monologues. It’s a classic retort to Anne Hathaway’s character who thinks people who thrive on fashion are simply disconnected from the social mores that rule the masses. In the movie, Hathaway who is a vanilla fashion assistant makes an ignorant, though unforgivable comment (given the company she’s keeping), about what she considers indistinguishable differences in fashion choices, to which Streep replies:

You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

The point is clear: Those who take themselves too seriously to be fashion conscious are unconsciously partakers. But what doesn’t come out clearly in Streep’s comments is the fact that those who do go into a Casual Corner or a New York and Co. or a GAP or an Old Navy and choose a blue sweater over a purple one base that decision not simply on momentary whim but on a variety of factors that have taken up seat in their subconscious. It’s not about promulgating what you will wear as if some ellusive blend of illuminati-type fashion mavens huddle around a table in a secret location and decide the new black is blue. The talent of the designer is to anticipate what you will wear before you do by reaching into those subconscious frames of references, considering what might have contributed to them, and then to build hot apparel that appeals to as wide an audience as possible. Think about that the next time you think you’re above or beyond such “pretenious” forms of expression. You might just be at the bottom of the food chain and not even know it.

Some of our latest drops and a good write up about Vintage Limited made a feature in the Thrillist DC style segment of the Thrillist network (a site/sites dedicated to showcasing major cities latest happenings from everything nightlife, music to fashion and all points in between). Read our feature HERE and be sure to give us a “sweet” vote while your there.

Note: The write-up references us being a Baltimorean outfit but as you know we represent the homes of Atlanta and Baltimore as our two collective cities of origin. Just wanted to point that out.

Vintage Clothing Limited started as a clothing company with a commitment to cater to the savvy hip hop fan. We’ve never lost sight of that goal and at this time of the season when everyone is focused on retail shopping, you would think a clothing company would be too.

But there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. While you can’t help but be distracted by the rampant buying and shopping, let’s remember that the tradition of giving gifts helps us reflect on the greatest gift of all – the salvation offered by God to humanity through Jesus Christ.

We hope in this time of family, friends, and celebration that you set some time aside to re-evaluate your own relationship with God and consider all the blessing you have.

If you’re looking for a last minute Christmas gift, and you’re a special kind of Wii fan that’s not only into the family games but wants to try your hand at a few more mature games, there’s three good reasons to go pick up MadWorld. Yes, MadWorld has been out for a minute, but consider this if you never picked it up: (1) The game received great reviews from the critics. (2) It is now only $19.99 at most retail stores.(3) It features the song “Death and Honor” from our homie Wordsmith! I picked up my own copy yesterday, having just picked up a Wii for my kids for Christmas. So when they’re done tearing up Wii Resort, Disney Princess, and everything else, I’ll steal downstairs in the later hours of the night to play some MadWorld and peep what I’ve heard is a great soundtrack of top-notch underground hip hop.

If you are like quite a few people who picked up the new David vs Goliath shirts we recently dropped you may have noticed a few things different about that piece. For those with a critical eye the first thing you may have noticed was the absence of heavy inks (also called a hand in the printing industry). The second thing you may have noticed was how lightweight the over-sized print was on your shirt. Both of these benefits are due to a process called discharge printing. If you have ever held an Ed Hardy shirt or an Affliction shirt in your hand then you are probably familiar with this type of printing technique.

Discharge is a specialty ink used in screen printing. The results give you a very soft hand, and it shows the shirt’s natural fiber instead of a thick ink layer on top of the shirt. By itself, discharge ink removes the dye of the cotton fiber when it hits a certain temperature. It works with only particular styles of t-shirts or other garments, with some styles and colors having stronger results than others. We are of course extremely picky about our products so we go the extra mile to ensure what you get is something we are proud to bare our brand’s name. We also go through an extensive sampling process to test for ink densities and wash-ability to ensure our products stand up to detergents and dryers with minimal shrink and retain print details to the highest standards… Ours!

Discharge printing can have various results in bleaching efficacy. In our experience, darker color shirts discharge well, while lighter colors do not. Shirt colors that don’t discharge brightly can still be used for discharge printing. If we want a white print with discharge qualities of minimal hand, white pigmented discharge can be used to achieve a bright white on garments that don’t discharge. One layer of white pigmented discharge can have the same visual result as two layers of normal, opaque white ink but without the heavy hand or any of the difficulties in printing that can arise from having to do two layers.

If you haven’t guessed by now discharge is a pretty in-depth and tricky process to master. Our new David vs Goliath shirts contained not only a white discharge but an added gray as well. The result gave our piece a higher level of detail and complexity and in our bias opinions it looks incredible!

Check out more photos of the new David vs Goliath shirt at our webstore.

-Shaun

Now I’m like most 30-somethings out there who are both fathers, husbands and sole-providers and think practicality over bells and whistles. As a matter of fact as tech savvy as I am and as involved in social media as I’ve been over the years spearheading Vintage Limited into the web 2.0 era… I have to admit when it came to cell phones I’ve been a step behind. For the last few years I’ve been rocking the Motorola RAZR which to be honest was based on the necessity to have a phone that withstood the abuse of my kids toying with it and me dropping it. For more than a few years now my trusty RAZR has taken the abuse and kept on ticking making a suitable asset to my daily grind. No flash here, no web browser, no email, no VZ nav, not even an mp3 player and the only ringtone I’m getting on this thing are bad renditions of popular songs as midi keys.

Just about 3 weeks ago my trusty RAZR finally gave out. The lame battery gained a memory and now the phone could only operate for about 6 hours before beaping in my ear and eventually dying a slow and annoying low battery alerting death. After some deliberation and convincing I finally decided it was time to get with it. Since I’m online 12-16 hours of the day (most days) having the internet on my phone wasn’t really a selling point for me… Or so I thought. Yet there I was making a few trips to the Verizon retail store messing around with the latest phone options and doing my research online to see which one would suite my purposes for my business and of course hold up to the kids at home. What I ended up finding out about myself is my susceptibility to the hype. Here I was after years of never having a need for or even wanting access to all the bells and whistles of a new ‘smart phone’ and I was salivating over the awesome new iPhone rival… Of course I’m talking about the Droid! Now this is a cool phone! Blackberry would have been my first choice had I not stumbled over the launch of the new Droid phones… but shortly after finding that my already hefty monthly bill would be increased by yet another $30 for unlimited data package and an extra $5 for email my excitement was short lived. Going through my head trying to find ways as we all do to justify spending that extra $30 plus a month on features like email, mobile web to update my facebook and twitter pages… you know all the things you suddenly can’t live without… and I was having a hard time justifying the bloated bill when I have a wife and 3 kids to support.

After conceding to a standard phone option I stumbled onto what I thought was actually one of the coolest phones in the store! A sliding menu, touch screen phone, with killer qwerty keyboard that slides out from the back of the phone on demand and has enough space between the buttons to actually make typing an email on your phone practical… All included with one touch access to Facebook, Twitter, and mobile email. Of course this had to be too good to be true so imagine my shock when I found out that the phone I picked up, the Samsung Rogue, allowed me to have limited access to the internet and mobile email for 1/3 what the Droid and Blackberry offered ($9.99/mo for 25mb of net access versus the required $29.99 for unlimited data access on the other phones). To make things even sweeter my new every 2 contract was up so the phone was practically free! Naturally I jumped on the offer. A few hours later I was fighting for my phone that was in my wife’s hands who was suddenly as captivated by the ability to stream video and check her social media pages while simultaneously sitting at the dining room table preparing food for the kids. Now how cool is that!?

I found this review on Cnet of the Samsung Rogue. Have to admit I really wanted an iPhone and was almost convinced to switch to AT&T to get one… the lack of the qwerty keyboard was my hold up and also the service change to break my contract with Verizon. Droid was my next option and a killer phone! Still… for anyone like myself looking for something more practical and can’t quite justify the $30/mo ADDITIONAL fee’s added to your plan… This phone is just as cool, has all the same features (a few exceptions) but for 1/3 of the cost of ownership. That’s one phone that was easily justifiable to my inner-conscious and to my wallet as well. I definitely co-sign the Samsung Rogue as one cool phone and a new weapon in my arsenal of the daily grind.

I just wanted to extend a special congratulation to Vintage Limited artist Wordsmith. Earlier last week, his “Bridging the Gap” LP, which he cut with the legendary Chubb Rock, was named the fourth best music album of the year by a local artist.  Check out the review by Baltimore City Paper feature writer Bret McCabe.

http://www.citypaper.com/special/story.asp?id=19446

Back in March, I gained exclusive backstage access to Sonar, Baltimore’s premier venue for live performances. At that time, I didn’t have this blog, but figured this was as good an opportunity as any to post exclusive photos I took at the show. That evening Rakim and 80’s legend Chubb Rock were passing through town for one night, and the place was packed wall to wall, mostly with older hip hop heads. But it was also reassuring to see younger ones as well who could appreciate two Golden Agers doing their thing.

The concert event was sponsored by Busy B Ent. If you recognize the name, then you’re in the know. Busy B was made famous (or infamous) during one of the first recorded rap battles ever. His opponent? None other than Kool Moe Dee. Busy B lost that night, but it became a jumping off point for all future battlers and is still talked about as a watershed event in the history of hip hop culture.

Our own artist Wordsmith was also on hand at Sonar and took the stage during Chubb’s set to hype up the crowd. If you didn’t already know from following Wordsmith, he recently finished up a collaboration album with Chubb Rock called “Bridging the Gap” and we expect it to be distributed through Koch sometime soon. In the meantime, his first solo album “Vintage Material” is scheduled for March 2010. So be on the lookout!

Afterwards, I visited Chubb and Wordsmith in the green room (yes, those rooms are literally green) and snapped a few photos and we all talked a little bit. Chubb needed to push off eventually (he had a show in Michigan the next day), so we parted ways, and I was off.  I also got a shot with him.

Interestingly enough I came across a Baltimore Orioles fitted hat about 6 months ago worn by a random passer by while out at the mall with my wife and kids. The hat was an all black hat with black embroidery of the O’s beloved oriole bird iconography but the silhouette had a thin white outline around it. I thought the hat design was done exceptionally well… So after I got home I did a little digging at the usual online boutiques I sift through from time to time and what I came up with was surprising. Unfortunately I couldn’t locate the hat that inspire me to write this post in time… However it seams us Baltimorians are not the only people prone to the heritage and legacy of our hometown Major League baseball team. Instead every possible color combination and reinterpretation of the O’s logo can be found. Obnoxious color combinations and all! Below is just a little gallery of some of the best & worst (mostly worst) variations I came across.

Enjoy!