This season maharishi presents a modern Latin American Guerilla inspired collection entitled ‘Age of the Fifth Sun: Summer 2012′. The range also references ancient and contemporary cultures of the Aztecs, Mayans and Mexicans including the Day of the Dead – Día de los Muertos.
Throughout the collection, milspec webbing is used to highlight utilitarian features and the dual functionality incorporated into a range of styles for this Spring Summer collection.
 
Webbing is used as a central element for construction of military belts, load bearing packs and vests. The British Army adopted cotton webbing to replace leather after the Second Boer War in 1900.
The term is still used for a soldier’s combat equipment, although cotton webbing has since been replaced with more advanced materials. The webbing system used by the British Army today is known as Personal Load Carrying Equipment but is still informally referred to as “webbing”.

In the British Army, this webbing system is designed to be light enough to carry the vital things needed in battle and for outdoor survival. It is made so that if the backpack or bergen is lost or abandoned, the soldier can survive on emergency rations carried in the “webbing” for up to 24 hours, although this can be extended if supplies are rationed. Typical contents of webbing include cooking equipment, food rations, ammunition, first aid or survival supplies and sheltering equipment.
 
maharishi reinterpret military construction techniques and consider defence budget funded development as part of the public domain. Many of the technological advances within clothing, fabrics and their construction have their roots in developments for the military.

Each year maharishi celebrates the Chinese lunar calendar with a limited edition clothing release.

2012 welcomes the Water Dragon, and to commemorate this maharishi have produced a limited number of MA-1 tour jackets, in Melton Wool & Flight Nylon featuring hand work embroidery, worn here by Hodgy beats of Odd Future.

These jackets feature a hand work embroidered dragon motif on the front and dual dragon on the chest, inspired by Vietnam war era “Pleiku” tour jackets much prized as souvenirs by GI’s serving in Vietnam and Korea.

Available exclusively online at www.maharishistore.com and at the maharishi flagship London store.

Our SS12 Cargo Net Loose Polo Neck featured in February’s Nostalgia issue of Tank Magazine.

Photography by Ilaria Orsini

Styling by William Gilchrist

Far from the metropolis lie the dislocated hinterlands and remote wildernesses that support the mechanizations of modern living. The ‘Unknown Fields Division’ – probes the fertile territory between nature, technology and culture to explore our contemporary condition through critical acts of speculation. They map the complex and contradictory realities of the present as a site of strange and extraordinary futures.

The Division is a nomadic design studio embarking on expeditions to explore these unreal and forgotten places, techno-landscapes, alien terrains and obsolete ecologies. The otherworldly sites we encounter afford us a distanced viewpoint from which to survey the consequences of emerging environmental and technological scenarios.

It is a cyclical landscape of natural and artificial time. Alaskan Inuits, informed by ancestral memories of their environments and its patterns, embrace the uncertainties of the future with a deep belief in their own adaptability. Meanwhile, environmental scientists attempt to assemble their observations into climate models in order to predict the future as precisely as possible.

Caught between improvisation and premeditation these cultural relationships to landscape and time will define the future of the North and in turn our cities beyond.  Here in the darkness we are explorers in time. We draw on the rich uncertainty of this territory, speculating on possible futures, rewriting histories and altering the present. In this landscape we examine the Unknown Fields between cultivation and nature and spin cautionary tales of a new kind of wilderness.

Products pictured include the Reflective Glass Bead 3M Jacket, maharishi x Palladium Tactical Boot and the DPM: Desert Hex Emperors Parka. Available in-store and online here.

maharishi welcomes the lunar year of the dragon

Jacket available online and in-store soon.

Selectism recently featured a preview of our Autumn / Winter 2012 collection being showcased at Pitti Immagine, Florence.

Click here for the full article.

Images courtesy of Selectism

Tom Vek’s “repeaT” signature pattern features on a custom-made Maharishi produced T-shirt. Cut and sewn from pre-printed material to produce an edgeless all-over print.

Tom Vek, primarily known as a recording artist expands on his self-designed visual identity to transcend traditional music merchandise and appeal to the wider ‘design-within-fashion’-conscious. His two albums on Island Records have been commended for their raw, forward-thinking uniqueness and edgy accessibility. They have garnered praise from the music and fashion press including Dazed & Confused, i-D, Interview and websites like AnOther Loves and Nowness.

Click the video below to see when Vice Magazine met Tom.

Hardy Blechman is head designer of maharishi, the company he founded in 1994. Blechman, whose former experience lay in the international military and industrial clothing surplus trade, started maharishi by producing hemp and other natural fibre clothing as well as recycling workwear and military surplus.

Since its birth in 1994, maharishi has evolved into one of the UK’s most influential designer labels, offering men’s, women’s and children’s collections available from exclusive fashion retailers worldwide. Founded by (creative director) Hardy Blechman, maharishi carries a strong ethos of respect for nature while utilising the latest technology.

Blechman, whose former experience lay in the international military and industrial clothing surplus trade, started maharishi by producing hemp and other natural fibre clothing as well as recycling workwear and military surplus. In fact, his work in the field of natural fibres helped them to gain wider acceptance among larger commercial fashion retailers.

In 1995, Blechman designed and launched Snopants® – an original design concept with unique detailing that became a significant style statement and the label’s signature. Arena Homme Plus described them in their Millennium round-up as “the most copied pants of the decade” and into the 21st century Snopants® have formed the basis of the evolution of a new style of dressing.