Holiday Warehouse Sale ‘09

Warehouse Sale Saturday 12/5 & Sunday 12/6

’nuff said.

We’ve been Hyphenated!

Check it: An Interview with Designers Fiftyseven-Thirtythree

 

 

Tell me briefly what your line is all about, how you got started, and what you think makes you stand out from the rest of the streetwear scene.

5733: We’re just a little company doing what we feel like. That’s the main ingredient. If we don’t feel like doing something we don’t. If we have some goofy idea we like, we do it. This is supposed to be fun. I assure you there are no demographic charts at the studio. That’s what keeps it all genuine. Occasionally we do something that sucks, but we take great pride in the fact that it “genuinely” sucks. This all happened by accident. We were just playin’ around screen printing stuff for our friends. We knew some of the guys at Hieroglyphics in Oakland and they had a screen printing set up in their warehouse, from there, everything just escalated.

Actually there is no “streetwear” scene, this is a common misconception. See a long time ago there were people doin things, being creative, having fun, wearing clothes, expressing themselves, you know, living. Then another group of people with smart phones and BMW’s needed a word to describe what the first group of people were doing to marketing execs and investors. So they came up with the term “Streetwear” to describe a plethora of creative and often incongruous styles that they didn’t know anything about.

Where did you get 5733? My math is terrible.

5+7=12. 12 is the square root of 144 which is commonly the quantity T-shirts are purchased in. 33 is the square root of 1089. 1098, in addition to being both a nonagonal number and a centered octagonal number, is also the year the Byzantine Empire conquered Crete. 5733 is also our street number.

Your designs are part political statement, part street art. What inspires your designs?

Life, NPR, cinema, all the information that floats around out there. Ideas about achievement, society, perception and such. Some things just stick, they stay with us. We carry them around. The things that stick are what make us who we are. We’re just expressing who we are. We all write our own histories. Through emphasis and omission we create our identities. This is just us, being us. That said I think we also have a definite agenda, but that would be a long and tedious explanation.

What about the various Asian allusions? What’s up with that? May I ask also about the seemingly LGBT thread also hinted at in your work?

I can answer both really simply. We live in the Bay Area. Lots of Asians, lots of LGBT, lots of LGBT Asians. To that end I think we reflect what’s around us.

Oakland plays big into your designs and concepts. Why Oakland? How would you describe the fashion scene there? It’s not exactly Milan.

There’s a fashion scene in Oakland? It’s not Milan for sure, cuz Milan doesn’t have a major league baseball team yet. It’s more like Rome, particularly East Oakland, where the Coliseum rises in grandeur amidst the bustle of the city reminding us of our former greatness i.e. the 72,73,74 A’s. Honestly, we hella heart Oakland and we also pay hella less rent here. Oakland is super diverse and has a lot to offer it’s a good place work and live and focus. There is no facade to it. It is what it is.

Why did you decide to sponsor Mr. Hyphen this year? In your opinion, who makes a good Mr. Hyphen?

Mr. Hyphen should have an air of confidence and a certain understated sophistication. He should be a man who can hold his own, intellectually, in any forum and at the same time know how to throw back a few at the neighborhood dive. Mostly though, the decision should be contingent on the size of his penis.

This question is for Loretta. As a Vietnamese American, what do you parents think of this?  Is there no end to the shame we have brought to our families?

They were strict but it helped being the seventh child out of eight because to some degree, I think they were done with parenting when I came along. I was scrutinized more for my moral character, but when it came to career I was left alone to do what ever I wanted. I studied design and art and worked odd jobs and they never cared. Right now, I think they are so relieved that I’m “no longer” a lesbian.

What’s next for 5733?

I don’t know. What did you have in mind?

–
Mr. Hyphen 2009 will take place on Saturday, November 14 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Buy tickets here!

 

 

Making Hoodies

This is Moy and James painting hood linings for the Japanese Schoolgirl Hoodie and the warehouse in East Oakland. If you own one of these hoodies this is how it was done. Now ya know.

The much anticipated and highly coveted….

The Lincoln Selleck “Act Like Ya know” Poster is now available online!!!!!
RIGHT HERE

Get em now before they’re gone. This is sure to be this year’s HOT holiday gift!!!!

Gene Simmons, meet Mona Lisa Simmons

One of our customers went to see KISS in Philly last week and sent us this pic of her and KISS. Hell YA!!! It’s kinda surreal to see the actual band and our homage in the same pic. Mad thanks to Mare, in Jersey (my home state) for the pic. Also my sincere apologies to Terry Gross for Gene’s behavior in the past.

Treasure Island Music Festival 09

Treasure Island summarized. Much thanks to everyone we met. It was fun, despite the sub artic breeze

Treasure Island Festival

This Saturday 10/17 and Sunday 10/18 we will be at the Treasure Island Festival:

Treasure Island Festival 2009

Stop by and show some love.

New pics

This is a bunch of new stuff we shot recently with Lorna, Matt and Livia. All 3 are awesome models and upstanding citizens in the community

Shot in the City of Oakland

Not only do we make all our gear in this fair city, we also do all our photoshoots here. This past weekend we tried to make a dent in photographing some of our new work. I’m not sure how, but somehow we manage to get some really Hot models. This weekend we got to shoot Lorna who is probably our all time favorite. She’s not only pretty, she’s also kinda handsome and thus we coined the new term “prandsome”. We also got to work with Matt, and Livia. Matt and Livia both rock climb and even more ironically have the same birthday!!!! What are the odds of that? (well, if you account for leap year the odds are exactly 364.75 to 1).

Matt and Sid the cat

Lorna being hella rude

Sexy is hard work. Livia passed out on the couch.

Stay tuned for the finished product from the shoot!

Reppin Rickey @ The Coliseum

Our buddy Charles sent us this pic. Ain’t No better place to rock the Rickey shirt than the OAKLAND (not mcaffee) COLISEUM. Thanks Charles and Thanks Ladies!!!!!