Official Tourist were sort of an unknown quantity to us until last week when Jeremiah—a leader of the OT pack—showed up at the office with his band of merry and (partly masked) men and women. We featured the San Francisco-based art/fashion/music collective last summer and have been internet buddies with them ever since. Yes we always sensed they were weird and wonderful over the phone, but just multiply that weird/wonder factor by at least a thousand and you might get close to imagining the sheer madcapness of it all in the flesh. Jeremiah brought some of the Official Tourist extended family (including Aurelie Leyre from French art posse Andrea Crews) along to model some of the new pieces in their line—masks are a new accessory to add to the extensive collection of detachable hoods (the Watermelon one pictured here was one they made especially for MIA) as well as the more accessible reversible spats. Jeremiah recommended they be worn with heels but honestly we're still toying with the idea of adding them to our summer wardrobe. Our favorites though are the new appliqué Jerseys and T-shirts that Jasko has been toiling over tirelessly for the past season.
The full Official Tourist phenomenon is probably best experienced at their shows, improvised happenings that unfortunately Jeremiah and his homies were unable to re-enact in our conference room. He did, however bring a DVD along of their performance at the Yerba Buena center in SF which inevitably has given us a bigger peephole into the Official Tourist mind—like visual remixes of vogue balls set to a trippy OT beat with papier-maché bobble head boys dancing around in the foreground.