Unseasonably warm weather across the country has brought the flowers out a bit early this year. 

With spring upon us, we have shortened our sleeves - letting the true colors of some of our favorite local skaters and tattoo artists come through. 

 

All of our featured friends keep full sleeves all year around (thanks to some incredibly intricate ink work) so, they were all psyched to free up their arms for the day. 

 

If you are in the neighborhood and are looking for some work to be done or want a friend to skate the the local spots with - you can count on these guys to take care of you. 

 

We just hope you have as much fun in our shirts as we do photographing our friends in ‘em.

Biking is a way of life to many of our friends here in the neighborhood and we can’t help but highlight these stand-outs.

They’re energetic, active and always on the go. Knowing them they’re probably going somewhere we are inspired to end up. 

Let’s start with our pals at Mission Workshop. These guys are right down the street from us, making bags that accompany the San Francisco bike-rider like no other!

Their aesthetic is clean, and fresh, not to mention they’re a great bunch of people - what’s not to love?

Crossing borders might be a new thing for Mission Workshop but you gotta know they’re gonna do it well! Berlin Mission Workshop opened on March 8 and will run for the next month.

We wish them the best of luck in their new endeavor and encourage all our readers to follow what they do closely.

If you thought, “I don’t think things can get any better under the Mission Workshop roof!” Well, you’re almost right, but add in Bicycle Coffee Co and you have one hell of a combination. 

Roasting their coffee in Oakland, they use the facilities at Mission Workshop to weigh and distribute the beans.

With a name like Bicycle Coffee you can probably guess how the beans get from point A to point B.

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Check back tomorrow for the release of our first short sleeved shirt of the year: the S.S. Milton. 

For this week’s shirts, we wanted to pay homage to Hidekazu. He took over as our amazing shop keeper back in December and has been a vital part of our success.

As we were going through traditional japanese fabrics earlier this year Kazu told us the story of how each print relates to springtime in Japan.

We held him to it and created these well appointed shirts with our signature horn buttons.

In Japan, it is said that the “stars wait for spring” and the Kira Boshi, or Shimmering Stars clear for the crisp evenings.

The Mizu Tama, or Rain Droplet, brings the rains needed to sprout new growth.

Finally, Hanami is a traditional Japanese custom where people admire the beauty of the Cherry Blossoms as the first sign of spring, which begins at the beginning of February on the island of Okinawa. 

If you missed out on our Yosemite shirt, this is your chance - the chamois’ more rugger brother (it comes in black, navy and steel). 

The brilliance of the Mechanic’s Shirt lies in the fabric - the outside is durable and tough and the other is a soft brushed cotton.

The result is the warmth and permanence of a lined jacket with a trimmer cut and less bulk. We finished it off with our spankin’ new metal utility button as well.

This shirt is here to pay respectful homage to all our motorhead buddies who continue to back up their beautiful ole Honda’s, BMW’s and Triumph’s in front of the shop every day.

We’d also like to re-introduce you to our friend, Mr. Graham French. A truly impressive guy with many talents, be them taking amazing photographs or mopeding 13,000 miles.

We spent Sunday afternoon with him as he worked on a few bikes at his garage and talked us through his most notable adventure. 

What is it you ask? Well Graham rode from San Francisco, California all the way to Tierra del Fuego (13,000 miles) on a moped. He took a bunch of pictures and made a really great book too.

He was also nice enough to get on the other side of the camera and let us snap a few photos of him for the release of the Mechanic’s Shirt.

You can also learn more about Graham and his travels from our post yesterday.

If riding 13,000 miles across South America on a moped doesn’t say rugged we don’t know what does.

We were fortunate enough to spend the afternoon with Graham French, a gifted man with many interests and talents including photography, and of course mopeding. 

Graham, whose full time job is running Glass Coat Photo Booth Co, spends time on the side repairing bikes. He has owned over 100 mopeds (with no more than 60 at one time, of course) and 5 motorbikes. Again, rugged right?

In 2006, with best wishes from his family, a map and an ipod, he set out for a five-month-long moped exhibition from San Francisco to Tierra del Fuego.

Graham’s book, Moped To South America, is filled with just a selection of the six-hundred medium format photos he took documenting this amazing journey. 

We loved spending time with someone who isn’t afraid to take advantage of such adventures and is able to capture all the unique beauty along the way. 

Tune in tomorrow for more photos of Graham as we introduce our newest edition to your Taylor Stitch collection … the Mechanic’s Shirt.

Alright fellas, now that Valentine’s Day is over you can take a deep breath and stop thinking about roses and chocolate.

Go back to praying for some real snow in the mountains and drinking whiskey with your buds.

A cold streak finally came through San Francisco and it’s finally chilly enough for our new brushed cotton plaid pullover. 

Regardless of whether your weekend keeps you in the city, the mountains or the plains this shirt translates perfectly from outdoors to in.

We’d also like to introduce you guys to a new little detail we are mixing in.

It has been in development for a couple months we and are finally happy with our new genuine horn button. No fakers here.

We’d like to think it adds a bit to some of our darker shirts and in our humble opinion it is classy as all get out.

It has the same exact contours as our Corozo button; making it soft on the fingers and easy to slip through the button holes.

A true statesmen to the sport of surfing; we were honored to spend the morning with Michel Junod on Tuesday down south at his studio in Santa Cruz.

It is truly awesome to see someone who still holds a childlike desire to get in the water and excitement for his craft after 45 years of making beautiful surfboards. 

These two shirts are testaments to the amazing color palettes Michel uses and his general design sensibility.

Michel was kind enough to let us photograph him in our most recent additions to our spring line, the canary pinpoint oxford and the turquoise pinpoint oxford.
It’s true, the colors are just as vibrant as Michel’s amazing personality.

We were toured through his workshop and taught what it takes to hand craft a surfboard. 

Hopefully these shirts either inspire you to get out into the water in some regard or just get you itching for the summer days…

Looking forward to spring, we set out procuring khadi; a hand-spun and hand-woven fabric that only comes from India. We were enamored by the beauty and utter softness of this rare material.

While working with a producer who helps bring this amazing fabric to the rest of the world, she threw a manly silk scarf made in the traditional khadi way across the table. We asked her if we could make them even thicker and chunkier. She didn’t see why not and we set off to make a scarf that reminded us of vintage European motorbike touring. We had them woven with a generous length for those that have no tolerance for an icy breeze creeping down their neck. Get it now in cocoa, hunter and royal blue.

(Learn more about khadi)

I was asked by Pop Sugar to curate a little gift guide for guys this holiday season. I went the more experiential route and let people get into the design and learning process. From tours of St. George’s Spirits to getting schooled on how to make better coffee at home to stopping by our shop and designing yourself some new kicks from Rancourt & Co. I hope you enjoy this and it helps a bit.

Wishing you guys all the best throughout the holiday season.