Still crazy busy. I’ll spare you the details and move onto the more interesting stuff.
Last night, I met one of our wonderful designers to discuss the style we’re shooting for. It was much easier to do so in person than by e-mail. I simply showed them a bunch of flyers that I gleaned in London and Berlin and went through different examples of what I would and wouldn’t print on a T-shirt.
After the meeting, I swinged by Boulevard Saint-Laurent, aka La Main, the nightlife HQ of Montréal. With not too many good choices on a Wednesday night, I went with the fail-safe option and headed to A GoGo Lounge.
As soon as I entered, the bouncers immediately directed me to the cloakroom, a growing practice in Montreal. I suppose bars need to make extra money during the cold season.
The review from the World’s Best Bars describes GoGo Lounge very well. I can also add that it draws mainly a 25+ clientele, has eye-catching staff (very common in Mtl), and is known for its long queues at weekends. Here’s a very, very short clip:
After a few drinks and a chat with a friendly staff, I planned to check out Radio Lounge, which welcomes every Wednesday a local celebrity to bartend. But noticing the student mob lined up, I decided it was best to grab dinner (big mistake: it left the same way it entered. And yes, I eat with my mouth) and hit the sack.
Addresses
A GoGo Lounge: 3682 Boul. Saint Laurent, M Saint-Laurent
Radio Lounge: 3614 Boul. St Laurent, www.radiolounge.ca, M Saint-Laurent
Been glued to the PC these past few days researching where to incorporate and how to minimise sales taxes. We’ll have to eventually hire a lawyer but for now we’ve decided to keep things simple and incorporate in the U.S.
Among the most burning questions that are still unanswered:
- if we ship a product from the UK to a customer in Spain, do we pay the VAT to the UK or the Spanish tax authorities?
- if we ship a product from the US to a customer in the EU, are we exempt from charging VAT, since the US is not a EU state?
We also have others on corporate income taxes, personal income taxes, and dividend taxes. But we can worry about this later once the company takes off.
Can’t wait till this adminstrative burden is over so we can concentrate on just making T-shirts.
I arrived in Montreal a few hours ago. The weather is unusually mild for late November. I hope it stays this way during my two-week stay.
Roommate and I caught up with a friend last night at Market Place. As I’ve said before, this is one of my favourite hangout spots on a weeknight. But lately, I’ve noticed that it’s not as lively as in the previous times. I wonder if it was because of the rain (we’ve had remarkably good weather the past 3 months).
After a quick drink, we decided to move to a different venue and settled on Digress. This Soho bar looked busy the few times I had walked by. But last night was more relaxed, at least when we got there at 10pm. Most of the clientele were in the 25-35 range and, like us, mainly talked among themselves. One quirky note, I noticed on my way to the loo that a couple of guys were getting massages. I first thought that they had thoughtful girlfriends but then realised they were professionals when I spotted their tags.
As it was getting late, my wonderful companions went home while I headed to my final destination. Since it was my last night in London this year, what more fitting place to party than The End?
As you can see from the image, I stayed a long 20 minutes at one of the top clubs in London. I just didn’t have the patience to wait until it really picked up (at 2am like at 333?). Besides, I wasn’t in the mood for D&B.
“Oh no, not Tiger Tiger!” Despite a friend’s plea, we went in, and I won’t lie, had a good time.
I’ll be blunt. Tiger Tiger is a meat market, especially at weekends. And by meat, I mean the pickup variety, not the takeout one. But last night was not as blatant. At least not while I was there.
Sure, there were tons of guys when we arrived. But they had other things on their mind. The Man U game was on. In fact, once it was over, most left. I guess one “game” an evening is enough.
The opportunities were definitely present last night. At around 11pm, scores of women started to trickle in either without male companionship or with only one or two (the injustices of life!).
As there were quite a few of us last night, we stayed in the quieter area to chat. But Friend and I did venture to the more intimate second floor to observe the social dynamics of the bar. It didn’t last long.
Friend: “I hate these types of bars.”
Me: “What do you mean? Bars where people don’t know how to dance?”
Friend: “Exactly.”
It’s a pompous thing to say but I figure he couldn’t divert his eyes away from that guy on the dance floor who seemed to come straight from Borat (if you’ve seen it, simply picture the guy running in the preaching scene dancing).
Tiger Tiger’s still a place to consider going in Soho on a weeknight (and at weekends if the personal ads aren’t effective). There were about 300 people inside (there’s a counter right above the exit) and a short queue was forming when we left shortly at 12am.
To get warmed up for this week, I went to a bar near Angel called The Chapel, which hosts every Monday night free DJ lessons.
When I walked in, about 25 people were huddled around the DJ booth, introducing themselves and sharing their dance music inclinations. According to Roland, the affable teacher, this was double the regular turnout.
To accommodate this sudden influx of newbies, the regulars had to step aside and patiently wait for the introductory lesson to end. Unfortunately for them, only a few got the chance to spin as the primer lasted until 11.30pm. It was time for many to catch the last train home.
Here’s a short clip I took with a student spinning at the back:
Address
The Chapel, 29 Penton Street, www.thechapelbar.co.uk, Angel
Open Deck Nights on Tuesday and Wednesday nights
After a timid start consisting of billiards and a movie, the week kicked off on Wednesday night at a networking event at The Collection in South Kensington.
This fashion bar/restaurant reminded me of the Fashion Club in Riga. There’s a runway element at the entrance (the one in Riga is behind the bar), the screens play Fashion TV, but unlike the Latvian Club no models were in sight on that night.
Conversations on these types of function are very easy to play out. They usually start with questions like “What school did you go to?”, “Where are you from?”, and “What do you do?” dispersed with awkward moments of silence.
As mundane as it might seem, I actually met some interesting people and swapped business cards. Unfortunately, on that night, interesting didn’t lead to more fun, as no one seemed eager to go for another round of drinks. It didn’t help that there were no other happening spots (except for Bijou) in the area.
On Thursday night, Roommate and I took our nocturnal habits to Paris. We first checked out a cool place called Point Ephémère, a warehouse along the canal Saint-Martin converted into a gallery / café / bar / concert hall (short review on The Guardian), and then moved on to Favela Chic, one of my favourite bars in Paris.
Favela is usually dynamite on Thursday nights. It’s one of the few spots in Paris, where people my age go out dancing and are not afraid of wandering off from their own circle of friends. But this time, however, I noticed the buzz wasn’t there. It turned out that most people were at le bar du coin celebrating (or moaning) the launch of Le Beaujolais Nouveau.
Friday night was a write-off. I contacted several people but only one came through at the last minute. We ended up grabbing a couple of drinks on Les Grands Boulevards, the clubbing HQ of Paris. But again, the streets were rather quiet. I suppose most stayed in to recover from the previous night.
Since this was my penultimate weekend in Europe before New Year, I couldn’t risk spending another day unamused. So I skipped the Saturday night in Paris and booked an earlier flight back to London for an emphatic night-out.
Upon arriving in the UK, I dropped my luggage home, grabbed a quick bite to eat and joined my buddies at the Hoxton Bar and Grill. I thought that this was THE place the first time I was there – no cover, few people sitting, lots of people dancing (to oldies, pop and rock music) and a good mix of guys and girls – but it’s now starting to wear off. Or maybe it was because we arrived too late, after 11pm.
(I’ve noticed that the makeup of the crowd at Hoxton B&G changes drastically during the course of the night. People seem younger and less sociable at later hours. I surmise the locals get turned off and go home early at weekends when tourists and suburbanites invade their turf.)
In the end, my final weekend in London this year just wasn’t meant to be. But that’s ok. Weeknights at mega cities are usually better. And with three nights left, I still have ample time to make up for it.
Addresses (London)
The Collection: 264 Brompton Road, www.the-collection.co.uk, South Kensington
Hoxton Bar and Grill, 2 Hoxton Square, Old Street
Addresses (Paris)
Favela Chic: 18 rue du Fbg du Temple (11e), www.favelachic.com, République
Point Éphémère : 200 quai de valmy (10e), www.pointephemere.org, Jaures
Off to Paris for the weekend. Unfortunately, I’ll be flying there for the first time from London as last minute train tickets were a tad expensive. This means that I’ll be without the office (laptop) and probably won’t blog tomorrow, since I don’t want to check any luggage in and am allowed only one carry-on (and up to 150ml of gels or liquids per item).
Anyway, we’ll see if they even let me board the flight. I managed to make a mistake on my booking and filled out my name as Charles Charles.
Looks very likely that the launch date will be pushed until January 2007. And it has nothing to do with me being disorganised.
Sure we can start selling in a few weeks to take advantage of the gift-giving season. But that’s not very important to us. We simply want to make sure everything meets our expectations before we infect you with our slick gear.
Among the issues we have to sort out are:
- the look, print quality and design placement for each T-shirt size
- the packaging of the product
- the fulfilment performance of our supplier
- the average shipping time to major cities around the world
- the ease-of-use of our site, and so on.
I’m pretty confident that the website will be intuitive and functional. My chief concern is the reliability and quality of our printer. Although they received decent reviews on various discussion boards, I won’t be swayed until I see the actual product (our first shipment is slated to arrive early next week).
In the meantime, we’re constantly asking ourselves: “How can we make this better?” Seems these guys are way ahead of us.
Talk about bad timing. With the launch date inching closer, I decided to nix one of our T-shirt designs for women before it went for print.
The concept was to assert an alternate form of consumerism, one that is non-conformist and does not entail conspicuously flaunting one’s status, especially if the product is revolting. Here’s an early version we came up with (the actual one would’ve skirted possible copyright issues):
As a friend pointed out correctly, instead of making a positive statement, the design has an arrogant tone and jabs those who own those bags. And that’s not what we’re about.
So, for the past two weeks (actually a small portion of it), I went back to square one brainstorming on an improved, non-derisive version. Unfortunately, I haven’t come up with anything good yet. Does anyone have a better idea?
On Wednesday night, I met former classmates at The Market Place. It’s one of the few places around Oxford Circus that is spared from the frenzied scene of Oxford St.
We typically begin the evening outdoors and then work our way to the basement, where people continue mingling and the DJ spins an eclectic mix of head-nodding music. But since it was drizzling and I hadn’t seen some people for a long time (especially Investment Banker friend), we chatted instead on the smaller and quieter main floor.
Best time to go to Market Place is between 7pm and 10pm on a Wednesday or Thursday night. While you’re there you should check out the lower level and look for the dispenser right in front of the loo.
On Thursday night, Roommate and I attended a fundraiser organised by alumni at my school at The Orangery at Kensington Palace. For a tiny contribution of £25 to For a Child’s Smile, the UK branch of Pour un Sourire d’Enfant, we not only helped kids in Cambodia but were pampered with Veuve Clicquot and delectable hors d’oeuvres courtesy of Sodexho and its founder.
Not content that the evening ended early, we hopped to Notting Hill at a small bar called The Gate for their ’80s night. I had very low expectations but it turned out to be a neat place after all. It wasn’t too packed, had an acceptable mix of people, and played, of course, ’80s music.
The next evening, RM and I caught up with friends who were in town for the weekend. Nothing much exciting happened as we were in Soho on a Friday night and it was pouring. In other words, we didn’t feel like queuing so we grabbed a quick drink at a pub off Glasshouse St and then headed home.
For the rest of the weekend, I hung out mostly around Brick Lane. On Saturday, I went there with friends for Indian food and then had a drink at the Commercial Tavern, where I saw someone overtly getting his coke fix and a non-sober guy hitting on practically everything that was moving. Since RM was away (we’re quite the potent combo) and no one else was in the mood of going out, I caught the last train back home.
Yesterday, I returned to Brick Lane to do some scouting (T-shirts, not people) at the Spitafields and Old Truman Brewery market. I then bumped into a friend who was having drinks with his buddies in the front patio of Cafe 1001. This place never seems to quiet down – it was still pumping House music at 4pm. Here’s a clip I took (yes it gets dark here at 5pm):
Fortunately I had a meeting with Business Partner at 8pm otherwise I could’ve seen myself staying there quite late.
