Well, at least according to the latest issue (#15) of the creative world’s bible Contagious we are! The nice people there go on to describe us thus:

“A competitor to Threadless? Superfly T-shirts on a superfly website. Welcome to the-affair.”

Welcome indeed. We only hope you get involved…

Here at the-affair, we’re never truly happy. Although we sell the best quality product we can source, we’re constantly looking for ways to improve it. It doesn’t make the previous t-shirts inferior, it just makes the new ones we’re about to drop that much closer to the ideal we’ve got in our heads.

We’ve just changed label suppliers to Adastra, and our new labels are quite simply, the dog’s bollocks. Super fine weave means they are super-hi-res.

And while we’re on the subject, if you are looking for a label supplier, never never never use www.wovenlabels.co.uk. We don’t make a rule of slagging people off, but these guys are cowboys.

As some of you know, we recently ran a short questionnaire. Why? Quite simply because we’re relatively new at this. And like in any partnership, we have our differences. Very democratically we decided to let you - our previous customers - decide for us.

So, if you spent your precious time helping us out, many many thanks. Unlike every other survey you’ve ever done online, we’re actually listening and affecting change as a result. We want to grow alongside you and we want you to get involved in the brand. After all the-affair is your brand as much as it is ours. In that spirit, we want to share the results…

So what did you tell us?

Well, on V-Necks you were pretty clear. So we’re going to steer clear of those. Same with pink and yellow shirts. Interestingly, almost 60% of you don’t care about the American Apparel factor. For the other 40% of you who do, don’t worry - we still think they’re the best around and until we find otherwise we’ll continue to use them.

And what did we learn?

Unsurprisingly, friends were one of the biggest reasons you bought our shirts. Quite simply this is fantastic news. It means that the graphics are noteworthy enough in themselves. But more importantly, it means that you are happy enough to pass our details along. For all those who have done so, a big thankyou! And if you’re reading this we’d love you to leave a comment explaining what we did right. And if not, then we’re even more interested in what we didn’t.

C’mon! Get involved!

You might have noticed that we’re out of stock in most sizes at the moment. We’re really sorry about that, and we’re working as hard as we can to re-stock as soon as is humanly possible. Please bear with us, it won’t be more than a few weeks…

Fresh off those good-looking (probably tall and blonde) Swedish printing presses comes the latest issue of Rocky Magazine. We can’t read a word of it, and we can’t remember the interview but we’re pretty certain we sound intelligent and thoughtful.

You have to love the Eastern Europeans (*). Not quite as laissez-faire as the Chinese, but pesky things like intellectual property just aren’t a concern. I guess so many years being screwed by the Russians means a few ‘cease and desist’ letters are the least of their concerns!

So it is with bemused pride that I bring you the Polish equivalent of Madame Tussauds, figury-woskowe. Brought to you by the inestimable talents of 2designstudio, your local Polish amateur. The only thing saving this cowboy kid’s arse right now is his sense of humour - putting JPII next to a naked Pamela Anderson! Pure awesomeness…

(*) I do because I am one. I carry a Hungarian passport, even though I don’t speak the language. Thanks dad.

This month we welcome to the retail fold, miscelanea from Barcelona. After meeting Fátima at the OFFF conference in Lisbon, she kindly agreed to begin stocking our shirts. So if you’re in BCN over the summer, drop in and tell Fátima what an awesome decision she made ;)

The awards for our site just keep rolling in! Last week we won a website design award as well as a dope award… Big love again to Kamil our resident Flash guru now resident in our home town, Sydney.

Anybody going to the OFFF 2008 festival in Lisbon? Nice one centurion. We’ll see you there! If you want to hook up and talk about t-shirts, then get in touch - we love nothing more than talking about ourselves ;)

We finally got the backorder copy of the Boston Herald into the-hq and figured everyone not in Boston might like to check it out.

This week has been, quite simply, amazing. Firstly we’ve just been featured in the Boston Herald’s ‘Gotta Have It’ lifestyle section (image is currently somewhere over the Atlantic). Big shout out to Jed Gottlieb for pimping us Stateside.

And secondly, we had our first interview published in the über urban-cool format magazine’s Issue #39. Not quite sure about the Chardonnay quote, but if you’re interested in finding out a bit more about how/what we think, then head on over to format and check out the interview. Being up there with Dizee and Staple is not a bad effort at all for 6 months young, don’t you think?

Lost At E Minor, everyone’s favourite arts and culture portal, has just launched an online “shopisphere of intergalactic proportions”, and we are very proud to have been asked to be a part of the range of products on offer for launch.

Guess what? We’ve won the FWA!!!! If you don’t already know, its the premier global website award, and its a real honour - especially as we don’t quite have the same budget as a global car brand.

Thanks again to our resident Flash guru Kamil Gottwald for making it all happen. And if you’re in the position to give him work then please do, I can guarantee he’ll be amazing.