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Batten Sportswear at Oi Polloi

Due in at Oi Polloi any time now, Batten Sportswear is the brainchild of Shinya Hasegawa. A chap who learned from the best, he was Daiki Suzuki’s design assistant at Woolen Mills (which by the way is also looking so hot right now and will be in OP in due course, probably).

Having seen a sneak peek of this stuff on ACL last summer we’ve been looking forward to seeing more. And a closer look confirms our Depeche Mode stance on Batten is about right. We just can’t get enough.

To showcase Spring/Summer in a way only Oi Polloi can, their Pica~Post fanzine is currently being put together. It’s the kind of thing competitors wish they could do, but know they can’t so rarely bother. It’s that point of difference and character which sets OP apart from the others.

To get to grips with Batten and what they’re all about, Oi Polloi enlisted the help of self-confessed ‘West Ham Scum’ Michael Fordham, one of the chief chaps at The Church of London. He spoke to Shinya about his influences, his time spent “majoring in ‘how to make clothing’ with Professor Daiki” and the contemporary surf scene in his native New York.

You’d be well advised to keep an eye on oipolloi.com for news of Pica~Post #3, but if you’re impatient, Michael’s interview with Shinya is available in full on the OP blog.

Before you go though, look at these ace pics, shot by Antony Crook of The Rig Out fame.

We’re off to fashion a broken wardrobe door into a surfboard then we’re going to Formby point to pretend we’re surfers. In a bit.

P.S Check out Shinya’s house. If we knew where it was we’d break in and tell him to find somewhere else to live. It’s even got chambray WWM curtains. Cool as fucking fuck.

Keep an eye on the OP twitter, facebook and of course their website for the good news.





Mark Smith

I had pizza for tea.

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