Siouxsie Sioux as Wonder Woman, and other 80s music icons reimagined as comic book heroes.

(Source: liveworkcreatebki)

Name: Kyle Peterson

Current occupation at BKI: Store Manager in Bay Ridge

Hometown: Minneapolis, MN

Now living in: Washington Heights

Currently obsessed with: Rupaul’s Drag Race. #TeamJinkx

Favorite place to eat: Cafeteria in Chelsea simply for mac and cheese spring rolls.

In my fridge today: Leftover Domino’s and delectable German beer (priorities!)

Favorite dive bar: Rudy’s in Hells Kitchen hands down. Cheap pitchers and free hot dogs. Duct tape booths complete the ambiance!

Favorite thing to do in BK during the Summer: My favorite place in NYC is the Brooklyn Bridge. I love when I end up in DUMBO over the summer so I can walk the bridge into Manhattan.

Favorite BKI Tee: Forever Jung

If I had a super power it would be… teleportation. Just think how much time you’d save!

When I was 16, I was wearing: Sadly, oversized track hoodies (not in an ironic way), “witty” t-shirts and JNCO jeans. It was a rough time.

Favorite book: The Silmarillion by Tolkien or really anything by Tolkien.

On my iPod right now: An amalgam of Robyn, Gaga, Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, and Death Cab with a smattering of (classic) rock and a healthy dose of showtunes.

Favorite Blog: I’m lame and don’t read many blogs but the one I look at the most often would be Rachel Maddow’s.

How I Live, Work, Create: I spend a lot of time thinking about future projects I’d like to do in film or photography. I should be starting one soon, but first I need a camera. :/

*Kyle will be spearheading Brooklyn Industries AIDS Walk team this year. Help the team fundraise at the BKI AIDS Walk event on Thursday, May, 9th 2013 at the Park Slope store from 5:30pm -8:30pm. For more info, click here.

Oh snap! It’s Brooklyn Industries Chicago’s 5th birthday! We’re celebrating with an analog photography competition in partnership with Lomography Chicago next door. Accepting submissions from everywhere. CLICK HERE TO ENTER for a chance to be exhibited in Chicago plus other prizes.

(via thewantcollective)

Swedish born, and current Brooklyn resident Jenny Mörtsell first caught our eye with her submission to our 2012 T-Shirt Design Contest. Mörtsell’s illustrations have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, NYLON, and Elle, and in collaborations with Urban Outfitters, Phillip Lim, and Diesel. Brooklyn Industries worked with Mörtsell this year to release her design All Cats, an homage to her obsession with… cats! We spoke with her recently while she was on break in Sweden about her practice.

How did you initially take interest in drawing and graphic design?

I have always loved to draw really. Since I was a kid. Like I’d rather sit home and draw than do sports and things. So when I got older I thought that maybe I should become an artist or something. But then I realized there was a profession where you could do record covers and things and get paid for it. So I decided that I wanted to go to college for graphic design. It took me a few years to get into college though. In the meantime I went to different private art schools, studying printmaking mostly. Then I got into college in Sweden where I took both a bachelor and a masters in Graphic Design.

And what prompted a move to New York?

I was there the first time in ‘04 and didn’t like it at all. But the second time I went back, over NYE ‘08, I fell in love with the city. That old story where everything seemed so possible there. So that spring I rented a really expensive apartment in SoHo with all my savings and stayed for six weeks by myself, just getting to know the city. When I got back to Sweden I broke up with my boyfriend and moved out of my studio and then I decided to move to New York for real, which I did in September ‘08.
Just because I could, sort of : )

You live in Brooklyn now. How does living in the borough inform your work?

I really really love it in Brooklyn. I love the way of living there, that it is simple, people ride their bikes and eat taco truck tacos and you can get the best oysters and the cheapest beer, and that there is this feeling of community. I live and work on Havemeyer Street now, and I love how I can plan my days like waking up, going out around the block for coffee if I want, work in my studio, have tacos for lunch, go for a run over the Williamsburg bridge in the afternoon, ride my bike to the art supply store on Metropolitan if I am running out of paper, and then go for after work at The Commodore or Daddy’s, have dinner at Walter Foods or Five Leaves and then go and listen to a good DJ somewhere in the area at night, all just within 15 minutes from my apartment (red heart emoticon)

Also, there is a lot of cats on the streets…

What else has been inspiring you and your work lately?

I’ve been listening and watching a lot of documentaries lately. A Swedish documentary called “They Call Us Misfits” about 60’s youth culture in Stockholm and what happened to those people when they grew older. I am also staying in this house that belongs to a photographer and his artist wife and there is a lot of good art books here. I really love the pre-Rafaelites. And documentary photographers like Anders Petersen. So it’s a mix of hyper realism and romanticism sort of…
Basically anything that sees the beauty in the ordinary.

It’s the last weekend for their Kickstarter campaign!

Last year Brooklyn Industries worked with our friends at Greenaid, a California-based environmental group, to make their hand-rolled seed bombs into bracelets. Brooklyn Industrialists everywhere wore these with pride and flora-bombarded new life into uncharted landscapes.

For Earth Day 2013, the seed bombs are returning, with an entirely new method of dispersal. This year, Brooklyn Industries will be crafting and selling carabiner key chains loaded with these hand-rolled seed packages.

New York City isn’t exactly the most wide-open space on Mother Earth, but its residents walk by barren, gray patches of earth every day; whether it’s that empty lot at the end of the block or the little tree planter in their sidewalk. Easy to clip to a backpack or belt loop, anyone can deploy these gumball-sized bombs when the inspiration for environmental revolution hits! It’s fun to toss a few around your neighborhood and watch spaces become greener through the summer.

The Seed Bomb Clips are available at all New York City stores. Pick one up to leave a green mark in New York City, or wherever you may roam.

In the Summer of 2012, the Brooklyn Industries design team took a trip out to Rockaway Beach to gather design inspiration for the Summer 2013 collection. The sandy stretch of beach just east of Brooklyn has always been a favorite of ours, from summer beach trips and dance parties on the boardwalk to visits with close friends and relatives living on the island to photo shoots in Breezy Point. But between the inspiration visit and this year’s shoot, the Rockaways received an unwelcome visitor – insane mother nature.

While the majority of Brooklyn outside of Redhook and Coney Island was spared from the destruction from Hurricane Sandy, Rockaway Beach in Queens wasn’t as lucky. A large number of homes were destroyed or consumed by fires, businesses were shuttered, and people were without electricity and transportation for an extended period of time. The same week as the hurricane, Brooklyn Industries organized a donation drive at its stores to directly benefit victims from the hurricane on Rockaway. The day after the drive, many Brooklyn gas stations had run out of gas, and our own delivery truck had been rendered immobile, but thanks to the community stepping up and offering their own gas-filled cars as transport for the donations, the communities in the Rockaways were able to receive the donations collected the day after. In the wake of such a traumatic experience, it was comforting for our company to see the kind of community we operated in – one that came together and rose up to the challenges from adversity.

The beach revisited in 2013 bared little resemblance to the design inspiration trip of 2012. The long stretches of wooden boardwalk the team had strolled down for miles were not just damaged – they were completely missing, leaving bare concrete supports and lending an unusual sculptural element to the beach. Sand sidling up against torn concrete looked more like Fallujah than the Rockaways immortalized by the Ramones. Yet through some of the destruction, electrical trucks were repairing damaged lines, crews could be seen clearing out debris, and for many storefronts, it was business as usual. One thing we’ve learned about New Yorkers over the years – we’re a resilient bunch of builders and creators.

View the lookbook here.

The story behind the projection.

Devendra Banhart and Ana Kraš: stop being so cute.

An Outfit For Biking: Bright Colors = Visibility
Spring is the perfect season to bike along Brooklyn’s parks, side streets, and of course bridges. Stay visible en route with bright colors: the Pop Denim cotton shorts and the Double V cotton T-shirt. Keep the wind at bay with the Mercury Windbreaker, which is easy to stuff in your bag when you arrive.

An Outfit For Brunching: Brunch Over-Easy
In Brooklyn, brunch is the most important meal of the day. Our Arena Shift Dress couldn’t be easier to slip on so you can hustle to the head of the brunch line (and there will be a line). Hair of the dog not quite enough? Hide under the Chrysalis Parka until you’re feeling as sharp as you look.

An Outfit For Creating: Show Your Bold Spirit
Dynamic ideas to share? Businesses to build? Stories to write? Asses to kick, names to take? Brooklyn’s creative community will rise to any occasion and look cool doing it. Our Suspend Stripe Knit Top and the Captain Sailor Style Pant pack serious mileage as separates, or as one eye-catching outfit.