Arty undies in Art Gallery!

...well, Art Gallery Gift shop. And it's the Christchurch Art Gallery to be precise, yes nüdel has infiltrated the very core of it's conception, the intellectual birthplace, ie. somewhere it should have been stocked a long time ago. Better late than never! And we at nüdel are stoked to have our fantastic undies amoungst the wonderful paintings, etchings, postcards and various canvases that the Art Gallery Store has on offer.

And the winner is...

... Cathryn Zhang with her piece: It's Man Made! Congragtulations Cathryn and well done everyone who entered, the talent was amazing, which of course made it very difficult to choose a winner. Here's what Cathryn said about her work...

My design is an idea that comes from the process involved in constructing an urban environment. When you see the new trees and flowers being planted to style up a newly constructed round-about, road kerb, or some concrete wall, there is the feeling of nature being put into our urban life deliberately, and not existing..naturally. To me, that type of nature is urban nature.

So Cathryn will receive 5 pairs of nüdel with her design on them when they've been produced and of course the rest of the run will be distributed to stores throughout New Zealand (and now Shanghai!!) in time for the Christmas rush, so we're hoping they'll sell out!

Thank you again to everybody who entered, we'll be running a similar comp again in the near future so be sure to stay tuned. Don't forget tomorrow's Father's Day so there's still just enough time to get out and buy him a pair of nüdel, he'll love you for it. Remember all those times he lent you money, or picked you up at 3am from that party or watched you play all those Saturday morning sports games in the rain? Well now's your chance to show him how much you care, with the coolest undies in the world, made right here in New Zealand.

nüdel blog blogged about

The lovely Anne Rash up there in Auckland posted a blog about nüdel on her site The Owlander, check it out! 

Things are trucking along, elastic for the waist band is at the screen printers having the logo printed on - this is a damn fiddly job which would take me waaay too long especially seeing as I don't have carousel. Screen Concepts do a really good job too, I'd be too inconsistent. Having the logo sewn into the elastic would be ideal but apparently that's near impossible to do with nylon elastic. Screen printing it is fine but also quite pricy and obviously not as durable as having the letters woven in. One day!

Ah behind the scenes, well now I've finished all the printing this table will gradually be immersed with all types of clutter until the next run. The thing about printing is it really makes me feel as if I have actually done something - the result is tangible, unlike spending hours trying to work out how to set up an online shop or entering stock info in a spreadsheet or chasing up retailers. But it's all work which needs to be done at the end of the day, and I should count myself lucky I live in a country where I am able to start my own business, let alone eat good food every day, wear ok clothes, go out with mates etc. Some times it's good to put things into perspective. I look forward to the day when I can give back to people who need, when I can support myself through nüdel alone and have profit left over to help someone else.

and the new design is...

...called Chaos! You can kind of see why, it's a beautiful chaos though, thanks to the uber talented Nicky Perry up in Auckland. 

Understand now why it's going to be interesting to print? The grey is on one screen and the black on another, I'll have to line up those little squiggly lines perfectly to get it looking just right. But it's definitely do-able, and I'll get to spend some quality time with every pair of nüdel. That's got to be a good thing - every unit bought has been in contact with the owner of the company - how many other clothing manufacturers can say that?!  

I'm just trying to work out what's the best promo item I can include in the press pack I'll be sending to promote the nüdel artist competition. It needs to fit in a noodle box and has to be something cool - nothing tacky - they're being sent to media savvy people who get this kind of thing all the time. Hmmm... any ideas? 

Round 2

Finally they have arrived - the cut panels, all 250 pairs worth of them. While they look deceptively less than the first run because they consist of less material, (being shorter leg trunk style) it's actually going to take me twice as long to print them due to a two layer screen print. But it'll be worth it!

Who just loves keeping track of stock and invoicing? Want to do mine? While I find this side of business quite intense and at times incredibly frustrating, it's good to learn these new skills if you want to succeed at this early stage. No one else is going to do it for me and it's a good idea to get these systems in place right from the start because if I didn't, I know I would just keep putting it off and off... however I'm really looking forward to the day when I can employ an account AND accounts manager type person! Will pop some bubbly that day.

Another step

Meet Bart Hoedemakers, the first nüdel artist. Bart is a super talented stencil artist based in Canterbury, to view more of his work click here

I received the pdf mock up of the nüdel competition guidelines today from my brilliant PR person in Auckland at Coco PR. It looks great and it's simple to understand, anyone should be able to follow the instructions and submit their work. From what I can tell, most artists nowadays are pretty internet/graphics editing program savvy so I don't foresee any problems. Get your creative wheels cranking for the 1st of April!

The cutting is almost under way for the next run of short leg 'trunk style' nüdel, just had to clarify a few issues first, as last time equal numbers across the size range was cut - not what I wanted. But this time we're all on the same page and I won't have to worry about trying to get rid of a large stock pile of XLs. 

Can't wait to get up to Auckland and start whoring nüdel to shops up there, I know it's going to go off!