1883 had the chance to meet up with Dougie Poynter, bassist of Mcfly and founder of Saint Kidd clothing, to ask some questions about the emerging label.
How did the idea of Saint Kidd as a brand come about?
I had always wanted to do my own clothing line, but never really felt like I had enough of a story or inspiration behind it. I was being tattooed and the guy tattooing me said that people like Blackbeard actually existed- I was absolutely fascinated by this so went out and bought lots of books about pirateology, mainly factual things rather than stories. That became my inspiration-imagine if I had a clothing label and we had a shop that actually looked like the deck of a pirate ship and all the t-shirts looked like they were inspired by the 17th and 18thcentury.It has been a massive learning curve. We didn’t just want to buy American Apparel t-shirts and print our own graphics onto them; it had to be real.
Johnny Depp once said that pirates were like the rock stars of today; their legend arrived on the shores of the Caribbean way before the pirates themselves actually did, so pirates would do radical things so that people would be afraid of them when they reached the shore. I suppose this is where our tagline came about “ Inspired by the rock stars of the 17th century for the rock stars of today”
Where did the name Saint Kidd come from?
The pirate William Kidd, who was famously the worst pirate, inspired the name. Hired by Britain to steal bounty from other pirates, Kidd kick started his own career by accidentally attacking a British ship carrying a large haul of treasure and earning a bounty on his head. After escaping to the Caribbean, he is thought to be the only pirate to actually bury his treasure, triggering the now well-known legend. He was eventually caught and hung over the River Thames in 1701. This is where the initial name and inspiration for Saint Kidd came from.
What else stands out to you about Saint Kidd?
We really love the taxidermy side of things; this was a big part of the inspiration anyway. I was doing a lot of travelling at the time and finding little boutique antique shops and I kept collecting little bits, which to me was my own treasure, so one of the ideas behind Saint Kidd is that not everyone’s idea of treasure is gold and money, a lot of people collect these little trinkets.
One of our favourites from the first collection was the Flying cat tee, which was inspired by Victor Wynd’s Little shop of Horrors in Hackney, that actually has a stuffed cat with wings on. The idea of this is something we want to continue with.
So what is next for Saint Kidd?
The idea has always been to be a clothing label but we knew we couldn’t start off by doing sweatshirts and jackets and stuff, we had to start by being a t-shirt company. Everything has to be easy and comfortable, with a vintage, grungy look, so it already feels like it has some kind of story behind it. Hopefully if season two goes well, we will be able to take it to a much bigger level with a wider variety of product.
Saint Kidd will be releasing its second collection before Christmas 2012- Keep tuned to saintkidd.com and follow them on twitter @saint_kidd for news.
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