Buffet is the first bi-annual trade event and public expo in Asia-Pacific dedicated to the streetwear, accessories and contemporary style culture. It is a new urban venue and hub delivering the latest Australian as well as international streetwear labels directly to the public along a host of event features. We have managed to get a Q&A with design/retail/music/entrepreneurial legend, jeffstaple, who will appear alongside a line-up of other keynote speakers from the industry on Saturday 27 February 2010.

Buffet will run over three days – 26 Feb 2010 Trade only and 27-28 Feb 2010 for public – at The Factory, 500 La Trobe Street, Melbourne. The event will incorporate an industry tradeshow, a free public expo, marketplace and discussion forums, covering different areas of the streetwear fashion industry.

Meet Jeffrey Ng aka jeffstaple

33-year-old Jeffrey Ng aka jeffstaple has masterfully created a world of communicating through design. The founder and owner of Staple Design, Staple Clothing and Reed Space, Jeff is a graphic, web and clothing designer, artist, DJ, writer and entrepreneur.

Born in New Jersey, Jeff attended New York University to study journalism and worked part-time as an entry-level data clerk at a design firm. With no prior exposure to the design software programs that were being used such as QuarkXPress, Photoshop and Illustrator, Jeff quickly learned and eventually became a class instructor at the firm in less than 6 months. He then realised his growing passion for graphic design, dropped out of NYU and enrolled himself at the prestigious Parsons School of Design in Fall 1995 to study Communications Design.

Jeff then took on an internship with the pioneer streetwear clothing company, PNB Nation, and worked as a graphic designer at c.i.t.e. design. With school, an internship, a part-time job and a strong desire to communicate through design, he managed to materialise his budding idea to establish Staple by silk-screening t-shirts in his spare time.

Coincidentally, his first break happened on his birthday, March 7, 1997, when Jeff walked into the Triple Five Soul boutique in SoHo wearing a hand-printed Staple t-shirt. The manager took notice and placed the first ever order of 12 T-shirts from the line. With Staple’s door officially open for business, Jeff successfully turned his one man T-shirt business into a mens collection as well as a full-service design firm; opening Staple Design that year and his own retail store/art gallery, Reed Space, in 2002.

Staying very firmly grounded to the values in which the Staple brand was created–sticking to the basic necessities needed in life, Staple Design has also created design work for Burton Snowboards, Converse, The Gap, HBO, Housing Works, Levi’s, LVMH, New Balance, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Nike, NYC&Co., Puma, Timberland, Uniqlo and more. Eleven years since Jeff received his first T-shirt order, with an international following and being highly respected by his peers, jeffstaple himself, has become a brand.

Q&A with jeffstaple

My inspirations:
Random people in random places.

My top tricks of the trade:
No tricks. Be on time. Be on budget. Leave your ego at home. And you’ll go places.

My style in a sentence:
Function over form.

Bet you didn’t know I can:
…kick your ass in table tennis.

My travel tips:
When choosing a security line to cue on, length is not the determining factor. The people on the line are. Avoid families, kids and senior citizens. Put all metal objects in your jacket pockets. Then just place the jacket in the plastic bin. That way you don’t have to fish for things later on. Just grab your jacket and go.

My latest project:
…is trying to stop adding projects to the list.

My last purchase:
A plane ticket.

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