The little Carnaby Street shop that howies had for four years and one month has shut its doors for the last time.
What I remember most about the early days of the shop is David (Hieatt) saying before it opened that he wanted it to be like no other shop, to make people think more and to do stuff that hadn't been done in a shop before. I remember staying up all night (at both shops) getting ready for openings.
It could never be said that selling clothes got in the way of ambition in those days at howies.
There were some mighty fine events in both the Bristol and Carnaby Street shops, notable amongst them the John McFaul organised Beautiful Machine event in Bristol and the evening talks that took place in London and Bristol. There was also a brilliant skateboard art show that Tim March organised. And many fine artists showed work in the gallery space at both shops.
I loved the fact that we got some great art straight onto the walls (a lot of it from David Sparshott and Nicholas Saunders). I even look back fondly at the things that we planned that never quite happened, like the machine that was going to spew out photo cards from a flickr feed for customers. Somehow the thinking and planning was as much fun as the doing, and so if it didn't quite happen it didn't matter too much.
Nowadays of course, the bean counters rule, everything has to have a reason to be there, and that reason is about making money (or I suppose, just surviving). It's a shame the Carnaby Street owners demanded more and more rent from howies, knowing that the likes of Nike, Puma and Adidas will always pay whatever is asked to get onto Carnaby Street. Pushing the little companies out won't make Carnaby Street unique or special.
I salute the great staff at both shops, never an easy thing running a shop, but the Carnaby and Bristol folk always did a lot more than asked and were always enthusiastic about running an evening event after a day in the shop.
I'm reminded of Jack Nicholson's JP McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. After McMurphy has tried with all his might to lift the sink block off the floor, he says "But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that".
Things move on and we all use our experience to go on and do new and different things. Some of our friends are still at howies flying the flag for the crazy and good things.
It's exciting times in Cardigan right now. David and Clare Hieatt have a new business Hiut Denim that will be the only UK company making its own jeans. The factory has machines and great people ready to make the first jeans in January. We are producing the a yearbook and David said the other day "I want this yearbook to be like no other yearbook, to make people sit up and think and do stuff never done before".
I'm hoping that we will better our warm up act, but I also want us to look back with pride at what we achieved.