70's polyester shirt I've had in my closet for years.

Ever wonder where your clothes you donate to charity end up?

Well, the truth about what REALLY happens to the clothes we donate to charities may hurt. Even with the holidays and its spirit of giving behind us.

A eye-opener to celebrate the start of a new year. Read about The Charities Profiting Off Our Goodwill (And Ignorance).

Expect much of the same in 2007: Fashion reviews and designer brands teaming up to push over priced and over-hyped products onto the market

GQ is out with their "basics for spring fashion." First recommended item is an unlined cotton blazer by Calvin Klein Collection with a hefty price tage of $910.

DressMonkey blazers for Spring will be available soon on our new retail website opening in March. Choose between linen, corduroy, seersucker and cotton and custom-made anyway you want it for hundreds of dollars cheaper than designer labels.

American Apparel was bought last month by a small investment firm for $382 million - NY Times

Expect the AA rash to continue to spread rapidly, with stores popping up everywhere. Sales have blown up since 2002.

But how will the sale affect AA's messaging? Will loyal AA customers who expect the socially-conscious "Made In The USA", sexually-charged brand remain just that? Or will the publicly listed firm seek to rebrand the company to attract more of the mainstream US market like the way GAP did in the 90's?

I suspect much of the same from the brand during the early phases of its takeover. They'd be foolish to rebrand themselves after so successfully hijacking the young hipster populace in the US. And with AA founder Dov Charney remaining CEO, there's little to believe AA will market itself any differently.

American Apparel has been the perfect case study for me while focusing DressMonkey's brand identity and messaging. A few hours researching on the internet and reading old LexusNexus articles has exposed the similarities between AA and DM. AA sought out to do to the T-shirt what DressMonkey is trying to do with the blazer - that is, provide a cheaper alternative to a classic, inspired piece of American clothing, by focusing on a simple product (T-shirt), targeting a particular subculture (young hipsters and retro-chic hippies), staying true to to core values (US vertical manufacturing, socially-conscious, and blantantly sex-driven) and brand messaging. The best bit of information I learned however was that Charney sometimes works in his underwear, a habit we at DressMonkey are not ashamed of.

Here is a revealing portrait of the man behind American Apparel - Inc.com

We are collecting testimonials from willing customers to be featured on our retail website opening this Spring. Testimonials are a key component to any retail apparel company like ours that lacks a bricks-and-mortar storefront. Your honest and positive comments about our product, not to mention your killer bod gracing the pages on our website, will greatly help our cause here at DressMonkey. Who knows, it may even bolster your instant celebrity status.

Please attach the following to an email and send to customerservice@dressmonkey.com.

1. Picture of you wearing your DressMonkey blazer (note, we sponsor creativity, have fun with it)
2. First Name
3. City you live in
4. Age
5. A short blurb about why we're different from the rest (something positive please)

Thanks again for shopping with us!

Sincerely,

Team DM

Goddamn Chinese Government

It's been slow going on the updates so far, due in large part to my crazy schedule at school and the fact that DressMonkey.com is now officially blocked in China. The paranoid Chinese government has decided to censor a batch of IP addresses located on one of our hosts' servers, and unfortunately, our's was on there! Which means, Coley can't post to our site, let alone view it. We can get around this problem by using proxy servers, but that methods is both tedious and limited. We're considering moving hosts, however are hesitant to do so considering that censorship is completely random and webhosts are essentially powerless when it comes to IP address blockage in China.

11:36PM Coley: running into a bit of trouble sourcing the seersucker nobody seems to have it in stock we may have to splurge for it, 1,000 M if we want it at 30 RMB a meter, that ain't good

11:38 PM or we wait till the March fabric fair in Beijing

-gchat message 01/27/07

Coley and I have a decision to make: we're estimating higher customer demand during Fall/Winter seasons than in Spring/Summer, but do we investment more now for a cotton-fabric staple at the risk of added inventory costs down the road?

Suddenly the Southern Gentlemen scream BUY THE SEERSUCKER CHEAP ASSES!

Site of what may soon become DressMonkey's second custom-tailoring house - Ningbo 01/28/07

We're currently in negotiations with a factory in Ningbo - 6 hours south of Shanghai - that would provide DM with not only a second manufacturing facility in time for our Spring launch, but also access to more efficient and higher-end production capabilities. Benefits include lower production costs per unit, inventory services that would enable us to store our fabric on location, easier exporting, and the piece of mind that our products are being produced side-by-side with designer name brands.

An internet marketing workshop I attended last week introduced me to yet another free and useful Google toy called GoogleAnalytics.

A great tool for small business owners like myself who suffer from technology-deficiency.

I've already set up an account and plan on using it in DressMonkey's early days of marketing to provide me with key performance measures.