SPOTTED: DJ Agile in JUZD Tech shirt at 2009 DJ Stylus Awards Monday night!

Toronto’s own DJ Agile spotted not only winning an award for “Mixtape of the Year” at the 2009 DJ Stylus Awards, but winning in style in his JUZD Tech T. We know Agile appreciates the feel and style of his JUZD Tech.

Huge congratulations to Agile on his win!

Agile has been on the Canadian music scene for over 10 years & has produced tracks for international artists such as NaS, Jully Black, Ivana Santilli and his Juno nominated groups BrassMunk and Big Black Lincoln. He is known for his wide and diverse musical range which he gives to party goers and music connoisseurs who are looking for that special vibe in music today. Agile has had national television appearances on E-Talk, Off The Record, MuchMusic, NBA XL and The Score. Agile can be heard spinning at events and clubs weekly throughout the GTA and North America and at MARBEN on Fridays.

DJ Plus, DJ Starting from Scratch and DJ Agile at the 2009 DJ Stylus Awards

Congratulations also go out to DJ Plus who won the award for "Radio Mixshow DJ of the Year."

Trend Forecasting for Fall Winter 2009 2010 - Effects of recession on fashion

Who really dictates the fashion trends, buyers or consumers?

I was in New York City last week and met with a lot of buyers, showrooms, buying services, and designers and was quite enlighten about the trends coming up for the season. Pretty much all of it is affected by the recession.

1. Lower price points. From online shops to brick and mortar stores everyone is lowering their price point. $100 tees or even $60 tees aren't doing so good. I was told by a couple of big online stores that their lower priced tees are flying out but having difficulties pushing the higher price tag ones. This sentiment was also given to me from a big department store in the US. They are lowering the price points on tees but they are still carrying the big names like Affliction and Ed Hardy but just lower price point.

2. Out with the bling bling. "No one wants to look like they have money," I was told. People feel guilty when they shop and buy flashy clothing. So the trend is for more subdue and subtle aesthetics. This is not good for Juzd as we are all about the heavy graphics and bling bling. It's funny, last year before the recession hit I showed the Juzd original to Holt Renfrew and they loved it and it turned out to be their best selling Juzd shirts. Now I design more of those pieces and they are like, "we are moving away from that now."

3. Cleaner aesthetics. There will always be a demand for graphic shirts, buyers are going for a cleaner aesthetics. Compare to other lines Juzd is is not as busy but buyers still put it in that category. As I have been trying to move to more of a busier all over prints, I am not moving back to the clean stuff.

4. People still want to go shopping. Shopping is like a drug for most women and in our capitalist society there is a sense of gratification when we own something new. Ever notice how complete you feel when you go out shopping and come back with something, anything! It makes you feel like your time wasn't wasted. Well people are still shopping and still want to shop, that's one of the reasons American Apparel is so successful in recent years. Their items are inexpensive and you can easily buy several of the same items in different colours. This makes shopping easy so you'll feel more productive.


5. Mix of high end and low end. People are piecing high and low end pieces together. People are pairing up thousand dollar leather jackets with $300 dollar jeans and $18 American Apparel tee. This may not be caused by the recession and have been happening before the recession but with what is happening, it is surely accelerating the trend.

Inexpensive American Apparel black t-shirt and tie-die tights
combined with leather jacket and boots

On my trip to New York I've learned about several of these trends. But the buyers tell me that they don't know for sure but that's what they think and they can be wrong. All of us in the fashion industry have been screaming and yelling that the busy gothic and graphic heavy shirts of Ed Hardy and Affliction are going out for as long as they've been in yet their sales are still expanding. I guess the diplomatic answer is that it's a combination of both and like anything in culture it's interdependent and organic.

See 6th trend and our latest updates on Fall Winter 2009 2010 trend forecast

JUZD Re-style: Keri Hilson

Nothing is worse to me then an amazing woman, in a bad outfit. Keri has #1’s on the charts, but her outfit screams “I let a grade one style me today.”

With a quick fix from the JUZD team, Keri could have been rocking her look.

Keri's young, fresh style could benefit from an upgrade, easily provided by the stylish crew at JUZD.

Keri loves her liquid leggings, so we can keep these, add the JUZD TECH shirt, maybe a little black vest or cropped jacked (also a favorite of Keri's) and of course some bad heals, her hip-hop chic night look goes from childish to stylish.

If you want to take this look from night, to day, switch out the liquid leggings and heals, for a simple black pencil skirt and flats. Turn that TECH shirt around for the more subtle print on the back, through on a boyfriend blazer and this simple meets sexy outfit is ready for your day at the office.

See more JUZD Weekly Re-styles

Cosmo TV Promo Stars JUZD in Search for Next Female Rockstar

Even though this past summer was recorded as being one of the wettest that Toronto has ever seen, Cosmo TV got ready to sizzle with its search for the "next fun and fearless female rockstar." Previewing the excitement to come in the fall, Cosmo TV ran a television spot showing off the busy streets of Toronto, as well as the perfect rockstar outfit - jeans and sunglasses paired with a JUZD Original shirt!

Behind the Scenes - OMNI TV gets JUZD

It’s an early, grey Monday morning here at JUZD as we begin our week with TV cameras and models.

Behind the scenes, we're redecorating; couches, tables and chairs have been slid out of the way to make room for camera’s, lights and models.

OMNI TV’s Trendy Zone is here to get an exclusive interview with Jing, and learn all out JUZD.

After a few takes with Jing in the office, the crew moves over to the main room and shoots our models Taz and Lori-Lee doing what they do best, working that runway walk. Walk, stop, turn, pose, walk. Don’t smile. Ok. Smile.

While the OMNI camera’s roll, so does ours, capturing all of the behind the scenes action.

See the exclusive interview with JING on OMNI TV’s Trendy Zone on OMNI 2, Cable 14, June 20, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

About Trendy Zone
Trendy Zone is a half-hour magazine-style program that focuses beyond the local Chinese community to cover anything up-to-the-minute regardless of origin, whether its events, lifestyles, people or places. Segments within Trendy Zone include: Trendy Activities (seasonal sports for example); Hot Spots for young adults and family to gather; Entertainment Expo for the latest celebrity news – plus home décor and handyman info, auto advice and even beauty tips! If it’s hip, cool and happening, you’ll find it on Trendy Zone!

Models Lori-Lee and Taz pose with Jing.

JUZD Weekly Style: Street Florals

Have you seen pictures of your favourite JUZD items, but are wondering how to get the whole look? Every week we will feature a JUZD look, and let you know where we picked up all of the other items for styling. The stylish people over here at JUZD have picked some amazing items which work to complete the whole look, starting with of course, a fly JUZD shirt. Peep below for your weekly update on all things stylish from JUZD.

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Summer is here and JUZD bamboo has you covered on so many levels. Aside from the facts that it’s good for the environment, highly sweat absorbing, natural UV protectant and one of the softest fabrics around, it looks sooooo good.

This look combines all of our favourite trends for Spring/summer 2009. Model Lena has a day to night look to turn heads with the Konceptz JUZD T, paired with floral skirt from Urban Outfitters and Wilfred light-wash denim jacket. Headbands from Oh Dina! by designer Nicole McInnis and fierce Zara heals complete this look perfect for every Toronto stylista.

Roc4Life's Feature on JUZD

Saying that the JUZD collection makes their "tastebuds tingle," Roc4Life, a hip trendsetting social network, captures the essence of JUZD in this sweet exclusive. With images from previous photoshoots, Roc4Life surely shows off their love for the fashion-forward bamboo line.

Check it out at http://www.roc4life.com/profiles/blogs/roc4life-exclusive-juzd

JUZD was featured on www.t-shirtmagazineonline.com!

Today JUZD is the feature story on www.tshirtmagazineonline.com, an online t-shirt enthusiast's site. The one on one interview reveals the secret of how JUZD got celebrities like Chris Bosh and Estelle wearing JUZD shirts to promote the line. Also learn how JUZD got their shirts on a national Cosmo Magazine TV commerical.

Don't forget to stay tune for our upcoming collection for 2009!



Check it out: www.t-shirtmagazineonline.com

The Importance of Failure

Are you scare of making the biggest mistake of your life? Do you have choices you just can't make because you are petrified of what would happen if it doesn't go right? I have made the biggest mistakes of my life over and over again. (It's not the same mistake just that I have different choices in different stages of my life and it seems like I have always made the wrong one.)

When you've made them you know it, those are the moments where your heart skips a beat, your body temperature rises and start to sweat, you get dizzy, and your stomach gets weak,. These are moments where it forces you to re-evaluate your life, reality, and self worth. If you do not know what I'm talking about then you have not really taken a risk in your life. Today I realized that these failures are necessary to grow and to succeed.

I define failure as when what you plan does not go the way you expect it to. Or more specifically the benefit or what you got out of it is less than what you invest or put into it. (Sounds quite emotionless for such as traumatic event you think.)

I was and still am petrified of making decisions or taking actions where I do not know the outcome and where the outcome can cause me a lot of hurt. I realize today these failures are not only necessary but are not as bad as we think. We are looking at it the wrong way. We think failure is discrete such as if we start a clothing line and show it to 10 stores and 100 people and none of the 10 stores carry the line and none of the 100 people buy the line then we are a failure. The end.

But failure like life is continuous, it does not end at any moment or event, it continues on. You learn from the failure, you get feedback from the 10 stores and the 100 customers. With the feedback and knowledge you learn and develop and you go to the next 10 stores and the next 100 customers. Then you go to the next and the next and next until you get it right. If you look at it this way you never fail, you just learn until you succeed.

I have made many wrong decisions in my life. And I realize last night I made one of the biggest mistakes with the JUZD line. It's the pricing. JUZD shirts are priced at $100 each. I have been told many times that the price is too high by everyone from buyers to consumers to family and that's what dogs are probably telling me when they bark. With a lower price (sub $80) my opportunities to get it into stores increase a lot. It also makes it easier for customers to try a new line. And there are an abundant of other reasons. Life would have been a lot easier. But I am here now and I can learn and fix my mistake. I will be working on a small collection of bamboo shirts with lower price tags, looking to hit the market in Spring 2010.

Understand that when you try something new odds are you will get it wrong. How did I really know that setting the price at $100 would put me back so much. Heck I didn't even know a single thing about the fashion industry when I started.

Looking back everything that I am good at such as baseball, marketing and selling, promoting, dodgeball, math, and even design I sucked at in the beginning. Yes even design. Some of my first designs were horrible. The idea of people being prodigies at anything without hard work is a myth! I was below average in everything I ever tried compare to other beginners. Only difference is that I kept working and working and working at it till I got better. I remember when I first started playing baseball I was really bad, year after year I would get teased by all the other kids. But I kept at it and after a few years instead of being the last kid to be picked for a team I was first. I can still remember that very moment and the emotions that filled me.

When a kid fails at something we tell them to try harder. But as adults when we fail we just give up. Why is that? Why do people stop achieving when they graduate from school and just give up at the first sign of failure?

The difference bewteen Toronto and Miami stores

I have heard many times before that Toronto is slow with fashion, that Toronto follows other cities. I didn't know what this truly meant but it was fun to joke about it.

I was quite surprise on my visits to stores in Miami that the managers actually told me the time the buyers would be in and how to see the buyers. In contrast to Toronto where the staff and even the buyers try whatever they can to avoid you.

Buyers in Miami were happy and excited to see the JUZD line. They are friendly people.

But this all makes sense you see. The world and people in Miami look to Miami to set trends. The best new lines strive to have their lines sold in Miami and only the best survive out there. While in Toronto, the lines that approach the stores are local lines and the majority of these local lines are not good and don't go much further than a few Toronto stores.

And the world and people are not looking toward Toronto for trends. People in Toronto want to go to a Toronto store and buy lines that are popular in LA, New York, and Miami. Torontorians don't go into stores in Toronto looking for the latest and hottest Toronto brand. You can see this from the buying of stores like TNT and Over the Rainbow. The one store that supports local artists is Got Style. I hope with the success of JUZD more artists from Toronto take starting a clothing line more serious and determine to compete like they do in LA and New York.