The Blind Tiger Collective Pop Up Shop and Us!

By now I hope you've heard some of the mutterings from the grapevine about the Blind Tiger Collective - a pop up shop with 11 independent Irish designers - which is launching on Tuesday 20th December in The Little Green Gallery..The pop up shop will be open until the 24th - you're invited! This project has been brewing for a while now so, beloved readers, get comfy, read, watch and enjoy..Here's the downlow...

In mid November Dualta from Project A Apparel got in touch with me via the tweet machine and asked if we'd like our ladies clothes to be part of a pop up shop, The Blind Tiger Collective..Me, not being one to say no, quickly said yes and then we started to hatch plans.. Over coffees we schemed and tried to hammer out the details..Dualta had done a ton of work and had sourced all the brands for the pop up and got some great names like Turtlehead, S & D, Outcry Apparel and Dog Eat Dog Clothing..With the line up nailed down we moved on to "Phase 2 - Getting the Damn Word Out" (we didn't have a name for it, but, if we did...).


This is where the Bulgarian brilliance of Mr. Double A, Andrey Andonov, and his camera skills came into play. The first target to Blind Tiger-ised and caught on film was the Grand Social pub in Dublin.. We had grand plans of a grand Ali to be wheat pasted onto the side wall of the Grand Social (shown in picture) alas the roof was deemed, um, structural unsound, and the plans had to be put on the back burner..We did get to do some nifty wheat pasting inside though and Andrey was able to mix up this 20 second teaser clip for Blind Tiger, full of "what the deuce is that?!"..



The next step in the marketing efforts took us to Abbey Street where we we finally unleashed our Blind Tiger-ised Ali.. It took a couple of hours to get the installation up and whilst Dualta wheat pasted manfully I "worked the crowd" and gave out flyers and info to interested and curious passers by..The reaction we got was pretty cool and all we spoke to were supportive of the efforts and endeavor..And, there was the usual banter, some old guy asking if we were doing it for the Late Late Show before dancing in front of the camera, another asked if we'd put up an Ali like it on his house and another questioned "where are you going to put up Tyson?" Of course, it was all recorded by Andrey and the Naturehood Media Crew - here is the time lapse trailer..



We all know trailers are just preludes, teasers, to the full theatrical piece and so here it is..After Ali was put up we retreated to the nearest pub to record some interviews for Andrey to edit into the footage..Anyway, enough jibba jabba, enjoy...



As if all that wasn't enough to get some buzz going we had a photoshoot a cold Sunday a week ago and got a whole ton of quality pictures..You can check out the full lookbook on facebook.. We also got this nifty footage from Conor Coughlan - oh so many videos...This one was shot on a GoPro Hero2 camera and really looks sweet..



And, that is pretty much the story of the Blind Tiger Collective..It's all kicking off tomorrow and hectic last minute preparations are being put in place for the launch night..We've got DJs, free drinks and clothes - what more could you want on a Tuesday night..Here is your invitation and if you're in Dublin do try call in between now and the 24th - ideal chance for you to get your last minute Christmas shopping done..Hope to see you in there..

If you've read this far, fair play ;) Stay tuned for the post event update..