A few days ago, Cloth Armoury’s Kickstarter came across the GeekMom channels. As someone with an obscene amount of geek finery ranging from Her Universe to We Love Fine to that Hot Topic fancy pants TARDIS party dress, I was convinced that I had at least one of every kind of nerd wear available.
That is until I saw the Cloth Amoury couture. Looking at the Kickstarter, I might have started to drool a little bit. The clothing, intended to be different from the traditional cartoonish geek wear, nods to aesthetic that I adore. A few years ago, I discovered nerdcore as a genre. Although I’d been an MC Lars fan since college, I hadn’t known that the hip-hop beats set to the more irreverent geek world were an actual real thing. Instantly falling in love with it, I also found that there were no real fashion expressions of it. Most clothing is either traditional hip-hop (which I also love but which feels awkwardly appropriative for the whitest white girl over here) or back to the traditionally immature looking cartoonish.
Enter Cloth Armoury. When I asked Directory and Co-founder Lenart Nuon about the inspiration for the clothing line, he confirmed all my theories about the hip-hop/geek mashup nerdcore style influence.
To be honest, my business partner and I are not your stereotypical geeks. Although we love all kinds of geeky and gaming genres, we never really felt comfortable with the apparel that was available in the market. They were usually very outlandish and overwhelming. T-shirts especially tended to be very niche and not aesthetically pleasing to the general public and were really only worn to certain “nerdy/geeky” events.
The idea behind Cloth Armoury was to, “bridge the gap between street and geek,” which is essentially our mission statement. We’re big fans of the whole street wear phenomenon, and in recent times it has become increasingly trendy and fashionable for all ages. Knowing this, we wanted to bring the two unique genres together and create apparel that was both stylish, comfortable, and could be casually worn in any public setting.
Despite not having any products currently, Cloth Armoury stands by its project, offering me a sample upon completed funding. In case they’re reading this, I admit that it was the Helm series that really called my name. As a fan of Portal and Portal 2, the dearth of appropriate fashion gear disappoints me. While dressing up as Chell might seem awesome in theory, it’s not the most appropriate for every day. The Helm Portal shirt is the perfect nod to one of my favorite games while also remaining original instead of derivative.
The Epic Series provides a nice play on the idea of “everyday cosplay.” With gear printed on the shirts, you can feel like a steampunker or warrior even while out an about. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about the location of the Steampunked goggles considering that I am, as women go, fairly well-endowed, which might make it a bit awkward. However, the designs are nicely detailed and quite unique.
As a writer and geek, I recognize that the “Not your typical keyboard warrior” shirt is more a denouncement of, as Lenart noted, “the stereotype of the basement dwellers with poorly fitting low-quality t-shirts.” However, I have to admit, despite not playing nearly as much (in other words “any”) WoW as I used to, I kind of love the idea that writing is as much being a keyboard warrior as gaming.
Overall, the products look solid in the pictures. Having already reached 30% of the $6220 goal in the first 6 days, Cloth Armoury is rapidly on its way to helping give the hip geeks some more fashion options.
I can sit at the computer days earlier and it seemed normal to me. But then I realized that my muscles told me goodbye. I could no longer close my eyes to this and began my workouts. I realized that the most important thing is to do everything regularly and choose the right clothes and shoes. I paid special attention to my underwear. The result of my efforts is the purchase of excellent boxers here – https://athleticunderwear.com/ The classic cut is combined with innovative materials (bamboo) and it is just perfect for me)