Ventile Alpine Jacket

Coming through for mid June is the first of our taped Ventile styles. This is our technical climbing jacket shape, panelled and articulated, we have made it so it works on a mountain, waterproof/windproof cotton Ventile. Waterproof RiRi zips, elasticated drawcords at hood and hem.

There is nothing on here that is unnecessary for its purpose and it really works.

It is really the ultimate conclusion to the fishermans cagoule in that it performs properly. Three colours to start with, Orange, Navy and Leather Bronze which is more shade of Olive. Each colourway is in 20 pieces only and they are all made here in England. Price is tbc but no more than £315.

Come and join us for a drink!

Well we have been open for 3 weeks now and thought it time that we had a little celebration at 286 Upper Street. Come along on the 5th May from 7pm and meet our ever growing team and no doubt some friendly faces.

As the space is smaller than our Commercial Street store you will have to send your name to:

rsvp@albamclothing.com

We don't like people being turned away but we aren't too keen on playing sardines aswell!

See you there.

Cafe Kick

An informal tournament (of sorts) was held at Cafe Kick on Shoreditch High Street the other night. Table football is for some a way of life, for Albam it needs a bit more work!

A good evening with a great bunch of people.

More tokens please!

286 Upper St

286 Upper Street - Now Open

Bank Holiday Monday, we have finally opened our doors to our Islington branch of Albam. These pics were taken on Friday in the build up to the opening as I had to get back up North. Store is looking really good, but it will take a few weeks for us to bed into the new area and for Andy our man on the ground to get his feet under the table.

There are no parties just yet as we like to get settled before we do but there will be one I am sure!

More pics to follow.

The hard work begins!

We have had a great opportunity present itself to us in the last few months. A new store! We are planning to give it a go and the work started today.

The space stays true to the things that we stand for both visually and location wise whilst enabling us to improve what we do for our customers without having to join forces with others to compromise what we do.

Our small team have set to work and we will be updating the progress along the way. As Easter is coming it gives us a little more time than we usually give ourselves.

An opening date hasn't been given yet but when we know we will put it up here and some other places. Thanks for all your support and see you soon.

The Irwin Shawl Collar Cardigan

Our latest shawl collar cardigan arrived in a couple of weeks ago and I have just got round to posting this piece (an awful lot is happening behind the scenes at Albam, more of that later). We spent the day at one of our knitwear factories working on the finishing touches to the AW10 range and I took these pics of the machine that has just created our Irwin Shawl Collar Cardi.

Seeing one of the ladies knit this piece is something of a wonder. Due to the quality of the yarn and the tension we have wanted to give the piece it has to be knitted on a hand machine rather than a power machine. What this ultimately means is you get a lot of work for your money and if I am honest much more than the value of the garment due to the time and skill it takes to make one piece. They are selling super quickly, and I know we dropped off a small number of the navy version to Oi Polloi last week, of which they only have sizes 1 and 2 remaining.

A great piece of knitwear and something that marks the start of a new level of input for Albam,

Dieter Rams - London Design Museum

A number of you will have probably seen this exhibition already, some in Tokyo and the others over here in London. I have just managed to get in before the exhibition closes and I wasn't disappointed. Dieter Rams and his body of work for Braun and Vitsoe is exceptional and doesn't need introduction from me. Go and see for yourself, the colours, the shapes, THE PRODUCTS! If you can't get there then get the books!

Store updates - Spitalfields store

This last week we have made a few changes to the store over at Spitalfields. It has always felt like we stopped working as we opened the door to the store. In reality we like to see how the space works before we make plans. Customer comments and recommendations shape what we do and has culminated in the developments to this store. We have added a new range of magazines and books from publishers - Nieves, Qompendium, Farewell, Gottlund Verlag, Lines & Shapes and these complement our compact selection of publications (Inventory, Moncole, Apartamento)

We have a new accessories section coming in about 4 weeks so there is a fair bit still to be done. The pictures show it as a Work in Progress so drop by and take a look for yourself.

438 Field Jackt - instore in March/April

When the weather decides that it doesn't want to deliver fresh snow overnight as it has done this weekend we will start to deliver our styles that are suitable for the weather. We are reckoning that March will signal a slight change in the weather, still a fresh wind in the British air but with clear bright skies.

The change in the season requires a new outerwear piece. Our showerproof canvas field jacket may be the jacket for this time. Layered over our Irwin Shawl collar cardigan (cotton version of AW09) and a chambray shirt and you might just be set. Leather trims and reinforcing details add some refined features to a weekend style. Crafted in Manchester it will be available in Navy and Olive (£tbc)