sofi donuts meets timo of CTRL clothing....

Not meaning to pick a favourite brand in Donuts, but, I have to admit it, there is one above all the others that has a big place in my heart. That brand would be CTRL from Helsinki, Finland. The brand was born just over 10 years ago & since then has done 13 clothing lines, a lot of Skateboards & collabs with Rockers NYC & Vice Magazine. I managed to get a few words of Timothy Khun of CTRL & here's what he had to say.

Hello Timo! How do you feel to be such a big part of Donuts & being one of our favourite brands?
i feel good and vibrant! It makes me feel alive, my pops was a sailor man and he got to know all these people all around the world, so i guess i'm sailing as well, meeting and staying in touch with people around all of the seven seas. i'm a lucky bastard! Sometimes i might end up ordering a beer and running out of cash tho... but getting along, seeing the world and meeting up with dope people is just epic for me!

You've conquered many countries around the world, how do you aim to conquer the UK?
It'll happen sooner or later. We got some tight heads that are down with our stuff and spreading the sincere and playful word, like this diamond like girl Sofi at Donuts. She's like an ambassador!

i think that we are fairly unknown in a way over there. the market over there is quite alive with many domestic brands etc, so all we gotta do is to get our stuff visible and there's no question that it'll find the right crowd! We can also do it through our tolerance for massive amounts of alcohol, and that's a good connection with the U.K heads right there....
and Gavin Watson of course... Monty Python and the Queen are soon wearing our stuff as well.

Nah, but seriously. It's kinda tricky to be just a mail address or a phone number telling to some shop owner, ''Yo, we do cool stuff. Place an order.... You need to meet up, have a pint, share some thoughts and realize, damn, this shit is good and the people behind it are tight! We love U.K and we'll just wait for U.K to love us back!

One of the reasons I love CTRL so much is because you don't seem to make stuff that you know is popular right now, you seem to make what you feel like & the brain of CTRL never ceases to amaze me. What you gotta say about that?
Maybe it's because we reside in Helsinki, which definitely def hasn't got all that Milano, Paris vibe to it... Sometimes when we go out for travels and get some free trade show beers and are inspired, we just talk about crazy stuff and then sometimes, just spontaneously something crazy comes up, like let's do this t-shirt print with feathers and tar for the Las Vegas trade show so we're like ripped off cowboys whne we go there... and it all of a sudden ends up being one of the designs. It just kinda cumulates from a far flung slightly drunk hilarious joke... next thing you know, it's a print or an item in the collection.

We don't wanna take shit all too seriously in a way of being like we can't laugh about ourselves...

The Uranus is a brilliant example... we have loads of those coming up again for our next SS09 line... Also Brand Of Gypsies since we always down with the free beers and booze and actually our designer has some of the survival blood running through his vains.

To quote you "Ctrl has no intentions on staying as "an exclusive, small, cool brand" - instead CTRL wants to be a HUGE COOL BRAND". A typical question in interviews, but I do really wanna know what you have planned for the future?
Well, we want to continue seeing the world ad carrying our work with us wherever we go. Meet up nice people and so on... Maybe sleep in a hotel instead of some couch in a small friends apartment... That's why we wanna be huuuuge...

We have no intentions of just categorizing us as a small exclusive brand. We have quite a wide line both for girls and boys so this kind of olds it as well. There's not many f the ultra super hyped super exclusive shops that are able to carry all that stuff, so that's why we kind of wanna offer it to a wider, but still a cool category of shops and people.

We're always amazed when we see totally different kind of people wearing our stuff and seeing that it works, both visually and message wise. Even in genres we don't know too much about. And we're like, ''Hell yeah! That's dope... I mean he's happy wearing it and we're happy for our brand elevating in to new crowds and still it can be seen as a cool brand and not a sell out''

Like if you think about music. The idea behind it is for people to hear the music you do. If you have skinny cheap mondays or not doesn't really matter... If you love the tune, the people behind the tune should love you back and be happy about it. That's how we feel!


Lastly a message from you to us Timo...
We love that thang you doin out there and keep going straight outta CTRL at doNUTS! Love and respect in epic amounts! We need to hook up some day & drink a brew.

Find CTRL here - http://www.ctrlclothing.com/