I used to hate assembly...

But now I love it! Finally the next run - It's Man Made - has made it to the assemblers (QA Design). The elastic will be picked up from Screen Concepts tomorrow morning then it's full steam ahead with sewing the gruds up with plenty of time to get them in stores for the lead up to Christmas. Woo hoo!!

I had the help of my lovely friend Kristen during the printing process this time which made a big difference, especially with the heat pressing to set the ink. But we got through them in record time and I have to say Cathryn Zhang's design came out looking brilliant, it really transfered well to the fabric. When your screen gets its flow, on you stick to that roll because once it's done washing every few transfers sucks ass.

totally unrelated but...

But I was wearing nüdel at the time! Infact if I had've though about it I should have given everyone I interviewed a pair to take away with them. Oh well next time! APRA, song writing, New Zealand music, celebrities - all things close to our hearts here at nüdel.

All entries are in

Well now it's down to deciding who's going to win the nüdel competition. I didn't think it would be this difficult to pick one! Apologies for taking so long, but it's really tough! I'll endeavour to have the winner announced by this weekend, so make sure you stay tuned.

Don't forget it's Father's Day so make sure you treat him to the most comfy undies he'll ever wear and buy him a pair of nudel! Remember if you can't make it to one of our fantastic stockists then you can buy online at the nudel website. Just click here.

Catch you real soon for the big announcement!

Is this the last entry?

So today is the very last day for your artist type people to submit your nüdel art competition entry! To be precise, you've got until midnight tonight (that's Monday night - 31st August) so if there are any last minuters out there, pull finger and email your work to comp@nudel.co.nz I'll upload the last of them over the weekend then chose a winner on Monday.

The winner will have their design printed on the next run of nüdel which will be ready in time for Christmas and they will receive 5 pairs of their own to dish out or keep all to themselves. Hey that's one pair for every working day! Sweet. I think that's a pretty cool prize, your art will be on undies being sold nationwide!

This entry below has just come in from Mercia Tawhiri-Kerr called Urbanite Bull, so thought I'd post it along with this 'ere blog. Catch you soon for the results :)

nüdel comp entries #2

Got another entry today from Cass, with her piece entitled 'It's Man Made'. 

"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."

Also in the running for their own line of nudel with this design is AKDC by Bianca Gardiner who said 

"The design was inspired by the view out of my window. As I gazed out at the urban landscape I pondered the TV aerials and power lines that criss cross the landscape and inhabit our environment. Power lines grow like trees and aerials like creepers, prolific and ubiquitous as city dwellers we assimilate them into our vistas and they become for us a type of urban nature."

ecstatic for elastic

I could go on about how printing on elastic is time consuming and tricky but I won't. I've left that up to the good people at Screen Concepts, who have begun the mission and it's looking likely it'll all be done (about 200 metres of it anyway) before the end of the week. Mint! 

200M (100M of black and 100M of white) will be plenty enough to have this next Chaos run made up. I just can't wait to get them all back and start throwing them into some noodle boxes. Miranda up at CoCo PR has got all the little frames which will be going in the press packs, along with some new promo photos, competition details, Wagamama vouchers and general company information. I just hope they're well received... at least I'll know they look great!

Artist comp goings on

Well we're still sorting out the press packs for the promotion of the nüdel artist competition, but they're not far off from being ready. It was just a matter of figuring what item (probably best described as a free promotional item) that's something desirable, that conveys brand essence and  is cost effective to produce. It's very easy to get carried away after a while, and then you get to a point where you're considering items that would cost more than putting a pair of the actual undies in!

There are lots of other goodies to go in too, but the promotional item for me, was the most important, it will be the thing people take away and keep with them for a while. Each time they look at it, they're see the nüdel brand and hopefully everything else I'm trying to associate it with. This is marketing baby!

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.

...on Good Morning

Well, I didn't see the nüdel feature on Good Morning this morning but I got texts and nüdel facebook messages from people who did, so thank you! Sounded like it went quite well and was featured with another brand of undies called Four Fontaine. TVNZ's website is a seething beast and I didn't realise I could stream GM until I found the miniscule link hidden in the bowels of the site until too damn late. Anyhoo, here's a little link on the TVNZ website to a shred of nüdel exposure

I had some great news from Miranda, my PR lady on the weekend (who I met face to face at ChCh airport for the first time) Rex Turnbull is keen on submitting a piece of art for a limited run! This is big news people, Rex is a living legend. So along with him and Tiki Taane the list is slowly but surely growing, I can't wait to see who else jumps onboard the nüdel band wagon.

As soon as I get any footage from Good Morning I'll post it quick smart!

Preparing to launch

Things are well under way in preparation for the big nüdel launch this month. It's going to all start happening after they feature on Good Morning on the 16th March then we'll kick off the artist competition. All comp details will be on the nudel site of course, but it's basically a chance for artists around the country to submit an original piece of work online with the chance to have their design feature on a limited run of nüdel! The winner will also receive some pairs for themselves, or to give away to some lucky mates.

The big question I'm asking myself right now is; how many pairs should constitute as a 'limited run'? This has been something I've never quite been able to pin down, it needs to be enough to be financially viable to produce - making up screens, printing, cutting and assembly as well as distribution but made in numbers low enough to be something unique and desirable. Hmmm... anyone? Producing limited runs to the world market could be in the 100's of thousands while here at home it would be obviously much less, but what's the magic number...