above: The Helvetica leggings are just one of the many cool pieces of printed stretchy clothes from Black Milk.
Black Milk, a line of trendy fashions by James Lillis has been getting a lot of attention lately thanks to a post on Boing Boing which featured the fabulous Artoo and Threepio swimsuits and has resulted in a four week wait for both of the suits shown below.
But there's a lot more fabulous items in the collection- not just Star Wars-related clothes. While there's other fab space imagery, there's also some wicked rock n' roll, skulls, abstract patterns, union jacks, dollar bills, bones and other hip iconography printed on LYCRA in the form of swimsuits, leggings, shorts, catsuits, jackets and more.
Some of my fave swimsuits:
C Threepio Swimsuit:
Artoo Swimsuit (R2-D2):
Dark Side Swimsuit (Love the combination of the Pink Floyd album cover with Darth):
Galaxy Swimsuit:
Black Ribs Swimsuit:
Resurrection Swimsuit:
Sesame Street Pulp Fiction Swimsuit:
The Great Wave swimsuit (clearly inspired by Hiroshige) and Jaws swimsuit:
Black Skull and White Skull swimsuits:
Some of my fave leggings:
Helvetica Leggings:
Galaxy leggings (shown in black, also available in red):
Dreaming Desire leggings:
Leg Bones leggings:
Newsprint leggings:
Colored Comics leggings:
Black and White comics leggings:
Little Skulls leggings:
Dollar leggings:
Not all of the above suits and leggings are still in production, please check their online store for availability.
In James' own words:
At the beginning of 2009 I walked into a little sewing shop and bought two shiny new sewing machines. It was a slightly unusual sight - a shop full of older women making patchwork quilts for their grandkids... and me.
I didn't mind. It seemed very punk at the time.
My idea was fairly simple - I would teach myself to sew, buy some beautiful stretch fabrics, and make insane leggings. Then I would find girls who would get into them. Girls who wanted leggings that could pack a little more punch than the ones on offer at your average department store.
I made the leggings, found the girls, and so was born Black Milk.
Things were slow initially, but the girls who bought the leggings were always really positive, which was super-encouraging for me in the early days. The turning point came when I decided that I was going to figure out a way to wrap chains around a pair of leggings. It took me a week of drawing, sketching, scheming and failing before I finally figured out how to do it. I called them Cages, and they were a minor cult hit. From that time on, so many girls were ordering Black Milk gear that it became a full time job.
We've come a long way since those early days sewing leggings at midnight on the kitchen table. We've sold thousands of pairs of leggings all over the world. We've been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers and blogs from the local paper to Vogue. Best of all, Black Milk has now got score a reputation as one of the most exciting designer leggings labels in the world.
But a lot is still the same. I still stay up to midnight sewing. I still personally design each piece. I still get a buzz every time a girl emails me a picture and tells me how many people commented when she wore out her Black Milk leggings.
Yeah, it's still fun.
xx
james Lillis
Shop Black Milk here.