For those of you who have not been keeping up to date with our latest status updates on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, we will be celebrating our flagship store’s first birthday this Wednesday, 19th June at the 8 Berwick Street address. To mark the occasion we are hosting an in-store party in the evening, for press and Underground customers.

At the event which starts at 6pm, party goers can expect drinks courtesy of Brother Cider and a music play-list curated by Georgina Langford from MTV District. We are also giving you the opportunity to influence what tunes get played on the night, so send us requests via Facebook. As a special nod to our customers, we will be giving away a £10 voucher to anyone who attends the event in our Underground shoes.

As part of the celebration, Team Underground have been out on the streets of London these past weeks, taking photos of fans of the brand with our #8BERWICKST banner which will make up a special anniversary window gallery; head down to the store on Wednesday to see who made the cut. You can also see the full archive of people caught on film in our #8BERWICKST album on Facebook.

To complete the birthday festivities we have also launched a re-tweet competition @UNDERGROUNDSHOE to win a free pair of original Wulfrun creepers. To enter, follow us on Twitter for more details and for live updates on our #8BERWICKST b’day party.

As the first week of June draws to a close, we begin the monthly count down to the next Rock the Belles X Underground event.

Last month we saw Ki Yoshi, Miss Mini and Lady Lykez take to the all girl stage and cause a storm, and this month is set to be even better.

On the last Saturday of June, Rock The Belles X Underground will be taking over Shoreditch’s Bedroom Bar yet again for a night of girl power, music and creepers.

This month we have a host of new additions to the bill, not forgetting the all-important give away that will surprise two lucky members of the audience with a pair of Underground Original creepers.

On the microphone this time we welcome two new talents; British RnB artist and MOBO award winner Rachel Kerr and singer Leanne Louise who will be performing on stage, whilst over on the decks, radio and TV presenter Clara Amfo will be trading in her KISS FM residency for the night. Of course it wouldn’t be a Rock the Belles night unless regular DJs Fearney and creator Emily Rawson were on hand, so expect sets of genre defying music to carry the party through into the early hours of the morning.

So for your next monthly installment of hip-hop, RnB, house, bass and much more from Rock the Belles X Underground, head down to Bedroom Bar on Saturday 29^th June.

This week our street team have been touring London capturing Underground fans and inviting them to join our #8BERWICKST birthday campaign. After a great week meeting hundreds of talented and creative creeper wearers, the art work is now in the safe hands of our graphics team ready for the grand unveiling at the shop next week.

If you can’t wait until then to take a look at the photographs, then lucky for you our Facebook and Instagram are rife with the images we’ve collected over the past few days. So pop online and have a search through the albums to see if you can find yourself and get tagging.

On the night Underground are welcoming District MTV’s Georgina Langford to take control of the music. Georgina will be compiling a playlist to set the perfect party atmosphere, so we want to know what you want to hear. Whether it is a rock classic, the latest indie track or a local band you think we need to know about, then get involved and submit songs to be played on the night. Follow this link to our Facebook  page where we are asking for your suggestions and then tune in on the night to hear if your song has made the cut.

Alongside hundreds of photos, what is set to be an eclectic playlist and a fridge full of summer cider provided by none other then king of the fruit cider – Brothers, we will also be offering every guest in Underground shoes an exclusive gift voucher.

With the gift voucher available to use that night on the new stock we’re excited to launch, or on your next visit to the store, we are also running a competition via Twitter for those who can’t make the event. To enter the competition and gain the chance to win a free pair of creepers, all you need to do is retweet our competition post. The competition winner will be announced the week starting 25th June.

For more details on our birthday celebrations keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter, in the meantime we look forward to seeing you at Underground, 8 Berwick Street on Wednesday 19th June.

2012 saw the release of their debut single “Gonna Make My Own Money”, when you hear the passion in Troy’s voice, the raw energy mixed with the rhythms exuding from the drums you know these girls mean business. They’re far from average and given all the attention they have receiving they truly have what it takes to be one of  the greats and not fade into the background. They bring back the blues and revamp it and make it their own, their sound is distinctive for all the right reasons. From listening to their first track you, instantly fall in love and form an addiction to their sound.

It’s almost as if these girls were plucked from another era to show us there’s still room for another band that will cause a riot and make you stand to attention. Their laid back, cool californian style is going to take the UK by storm and we’re willing to get caught up and follow them.

“We are valley girls. We sing the blues. We play rock’n’roll. We sweat. We move. We groove. We are Deap Vally. xx”

Well after months of anticipation, the Underground X House of Hackney collaboration is ready for its debut.

The playful and quintessentially British brand known for their nature inspired repeat prints and varied palette, have created a line of Wulfruns that exude their luxurious, feminine house style whilst in keeping with Underground’s strong rock heritage.

Drawing on a colour scheme and print style signature to the brand, each style is based on a pastel palette awash with a detailed print including flowers and feathers. Available on double, triple and a wedge sole, the lifestyle brand have made their delicate mark on the creeper, whilst the identity of the Wulfrun remains strong with bold soles and distinctive D rings.

This weekend we saw House of Hackney launch their very first store, and so to show our support and check out our creepers, we joined the celebrations and headed down to 131 Shoreditch High Street to take a look around.

A haven of subversive prints on cushions, decadent lamps, loungers and of course wallpaper, saw the brand’s exotic plants, delicate flowers and bright stripes not only line the interior but the products too. There were shelves filled with opulent pillows, rows of mirrors gilded with bold leopard print and rails of the brand’s simplistic clothing line accompanied of course by our creepers, playfully positioned with their corresponding print.

A proud to be British brand, designers Javvy M Royle and Frieda Gormley’s mission is to challenge conventional in house ideals whilst providing support to UK craftsmanship and specialist factories.

It is this winning combination of print, shape and ethos that caught Underground’s eye and as a result has encouraged two opposing house styles to join blissfully creating the perfect shoe collection for Spring Summer 2013.

The Underground X House of Hackney line is now available to buy at Underground’s flagship store on 8 Berwick Street, House of Hackney’s store on 131 Shoreditch High Street, Urban Outfitters and Opening Ceremony in Tokyo.

Prices start from £125.

Wednesday 19th June marks one year since we opened our doors on Berwick Street to a neighbourhood of music shops, independent boutiques and bespoke eateries. The ideal home for our flagship store, this past year, 8 Berwick Street has seen more footwear, fans and festivities then we thought possible.

There has been seasonal collections including collaborations from Cassette Playa, Ashish and most recently House of Hackney, successful in store events including Record Store Day, Underground X and of course the Launch Party, and a number of interesting visitors including Paloma Faith, Billy from ZZ Top and rapper Eve.

So to celebrate this momentous occasion we are inviting both the press and public to join us at the store from 6pm, for a night of music, drinks and our iconic footwear. We will also be running an exclusive promotion at the party on the 19th; anyone who attends wearing a pair of Underground shoes will receive a £10 voucher which will be redeemable at our Berwick Street store until the end of the year.

The most exciting part of the festivities? We need your input.

Over the forthcoming weeks we are venturing across London photographing as many Underground shoe wearers and fans as we can find. Once we’ve snapped you, not only will you feature in our #8BERWICKST social media campaign across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but you’ll also appear in the shop. We are going to create a gallery installation compiled of the photos taken, so if you want to be immortalised in Underground’s unique #8BERWICKST window then keep an eye out for our Underground camera on the streets of London.

For those of you who can’t make it, thanks to the realm of social media we are reaching out globally. In the run up to the big day, we are asking Underground followers to log on to Facebook and Twitter to share and retweet the event. Everyone who joins in will automatically be entered into a prize draw, and the winner will bag a pair of Underground creepers.

Of course it wouldn’t be a party without music, we have a special guest music aficionado putting together an official Underground playlist, but we also want you to request your favourite tracks to pump through the store on the night. Like us on Facebook (undergroundengland) and find out how you can get involved.

So whether you come down to the store, appear as part of our anniversary window display, or join in the fun via Facebook and Twitter, Underground’s 1st birthday celebrations are sure to go off in style.

For Underground’s first Sample Sale, which took place on the 24^th-26^th May in Brick Lane, we created a live Pinterest wall where we pinned images that define the brand and interest us, from our historical roots through to modern day.

Music is an important part of the brand’s heritage and if you look closely you’ll see images of musicians, captured by famous photographers which mark a certain era or seminal moment in music. There is a Patti Smith’s 1969 Polaroid picture of Robert Mapplethorpe at the Chelsea Hotel in NY, Debbie Harry by Andy Warhol from 1980, Kurt Cobain by Jesse Frohman and The Sex Pistols in Soho, home to the Underground flagship store.

You’ll also see grafitti art by Banksy and less well known talented street artists, pictures of festivals like Field Day, where people partied on the same weekend as our Sample Sale and the infamous Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada in the US, as well as Instagram pictures taken by Team Underground from our travels to cities like New York and Berlin.

Underground followers were also invited to contribute by sending their favourite images to be featured on the gallery wall, which grew in size over the three days of the event. If you still want to send us an image that inspires you, email us at vip@underground-england.co.uk and we’ll upload the best ones to our Pinterest page.You can also check out our Pinterest boards for ‘Sample Sale Style’ pictures of our fans who flocked to Brick Lane to buy their authentic limited edition, collaboration and original Underground shoes, many of whom were also incorporated into our live pop-up Pinterest Wall.

The finished piece…

During the Sample Sale we spied many of our customers rocking individual style, which we captured in photographs posted on Instagram and also contributed to our live Pinterest wall. Our Pop Up Pinterest was a live gallery of images which define the brand, from places to people, with a strong homage to the music and art that inspire us, and was displayed and added to throughout our Sample Sale.

Here are some images taken during the three day event, of customers styling our iconic footwear:

@carolmantuan’s favourites were the black suede Barfly and the black leather Apollo creepers, which completed her leopard print legging look. She flew back to Brazil with both pairs in her luggage.

@FutShitUp made a statement with these Underground limited edition shoes with zip and buckle detail.

The Underground knee-high creeper boots add a subversive twist to this laid back outfit.

White leather winklepickers complemented the rocker style of @brandyrow.

Our red velvet Wulfrun creepers add a rock and roll edge to this feminine outfit.

Blogger @joshuajames_h came down and added three pairs of Underground shoes to his collection. We took a picture of him wearing his much loved tartan Wulfrun creepers.

To complete our round up, these apple suede triple sole Wulfrun creepers and brightly coloured socks are the obvious choice with acid washed jeans.

For more pictures go to our Instagram account @undergroundshoe, and follow us to find out about new styles and upcoming events.

We’re Not Here To Sell Clothes: The Making of BLITZ Fashion

Launched in the UK in 1980 alongside  i-D, Blitz was a style magazine set up by two Oxford students, Carey Labovitch and Simon Tesler. It documented clubbers in Heaven, Taboo and the London venue that shared its name. A name which we also adopted for our iconic winkle picker Blitz boot.

The magazine’s shoots have been archived in a book, As Seen in Blitz and London’s ICA is hosting a series of talks this weekend, organised by Iain R Webb who worked as fashion editor on the magazine from 1982 to 1987 and who also edited the book.

We’re Not Here to Sell Clothes puts London’s 80s vibrant club culture on the spotlight and precedes Club to Catwalk, a major exhibition of 80’s fashion housed at the V&A from July.

Noise of Art

Noise of Art starts its celebration of 100 years of electronic music with a rare chance to see the Eccentronic Research Council, featuring Maxine Peake, live on May 17th in the Victorian warehouse and graffiti-covered Jubilee line train carriages that make up the Village Underground studios.

The celebration will see a series of music and cross platform art events taking place over the next year. The Launch party references the role Sheffield played in electronic music and the era defining sounds that came out of London’s clubs at the turn of the 21st Century.

What Happened – Great Britain

What Happened – Great Britain comprises of black and white images of working people in the north of England, taken by British born Chris Killip in the 1970s and 1980s. After spending months immersed in several communities, Killip documented the disintegration of the industrial past from a poetic and highly personal point of view.

His work is featured in the permanent collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The exhibit is showing until June 30th at The Photographer’s Gallery and is admission free.

Feast of Fools

Feast of Fools, by the artist known as DRB is a solo show that plays with reality, perception and cultural expectations. The artworks are an exercise on looking beyond the context of the scene. The artist takes everyday objects, highlighting the mass produced world in which we live in, and makes the viewer consider them in a new way by subverting their intended message.

The exhibition is located at A Brooks Art and is open to the public from June 6^th – July 20^th.

Art Car Boot Fair

We’ll become art collectors for the day on June 9^th in Brick Lane and celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the event that highlights fresh talent each year, with hand picked artists exhibiting their work from their car boots.

Established names and new talent include Gavin Turk, Bob and Roberta Smith, Polly Morgan, Billy Childish and Pure Evil. Pop art legend Sir Peter Blake will also be creating a special print to mark the occasion with all profits going to Just for Kids Law, Kids Company and Help for Heroes.

The Alternative Guide to the Universe

This exhibition surveys the work of individuals who explore art, science and architecture outside of established channels and official institutions.

Original, eccentric and rebellious, it showcases the work of physicists, inventors of new languages, and artists who map cities of the future or design imaginary technologies that re-define our social and cultural conventions in ways that fearlessly question accepted ways of thinking. The exterior of the gallery has been transformed into a parallel universe, which is often decorated with quirky installations.

Showing at Southbank Centre Gallery, the exhibition runs from June 11^th – August 26^th.

Withnail & Me: The Finale

Taken by photographer Murray Close, from Camden to Cumbria, this collection of iconic shots and selected unseen prints is on show at Proud Camden from June 21^th to September 1^st, and is a curated archive of the 60s cult classic ‘Withnail & I’ movie, know for its many quotable lines and a rare appearance of a recording by The Beatles, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.

In Bruce Robinson’s film, unemployed actors Withnail and Marwood (Richard E Grant and Paul McGann) decide to depart London for an idyllic holiday in the countryside, staying at Withnail’s uncle Monty’s country cottage. The holiday doesn’t quite go according to plan, with bad weather, little food or supplies, and the locals who are unwelcoming.

Follow us on twitter; @UNDERGROUNDSHOE for more recommendations and to find out what is happening at Underground.

Sunday Best is an independent boutique that opened its doors in 1971 in Lancashire and since then has homed a unique collection of womenswear, accessories and shoes.

Their search for unique, original and striking pieces from around the world has secured them a Winner of the Daily Telegraph Magazine’s award heralding them as ‘Best for Womenswear in Britain’ in 2011. Alongside brands such as J Brand, MinkPink and Vivienne Westwood, the shop offers Underground classics including the single sole, boot and wedge Wulfrun and the Barfly creepers in store and online.

We talked to Jan, the owner of Sunday Best, who said that Underground first caught her attention when the whole Sunday Best team wanted to wear our original creeper shoes. Here is what else she had to say in the full interview below:

What was Sunday Best’s ambition when you opened the doors 43 years ago? To be the best! To source and clothe our customers with unique, unforgettable and iconic fashion.

Who do you have in mind when you are choosing the brands to stock? Mill-workers, mill-owners, the uber cool and the free-spirited risk-takers.

What do you look for in a potential Sunday Best brand? Shoes wise, the fit, the leathers and the colours.

What have been your recent best sellers? Initially, the classic black Wulfrun creeper whilst we introduced the collection to our customers, and educated them on how and why they must incorporate them into their wardrobes! The coloured Wulfruns are also selling well for the SS13 season.

Underground is new to the store’s collection, what is it about our creepers that attracted you to them? All of the team of 17 at Sunday Best wanted to wear them, so that obviously got my attention!

What is your favourite Underground style from the collection? My red leopard print Barfly creepers! Also, the Barfly pink pointed toe style.

If you had to create a look from the brands you stock, what would you style with Underground creepers?
I wore my leopard print Barfly creepers to the 2012 York Races where I was a guest judge with Jeff Banks for ‘Fashions on the Field’. We also style them with super smart & sophisticated collections like High by Claire Campbell and Marithe Francois Girbaud for an uber dead cool look.

8. Would you ever consider branching into menswear? When Sunday Best first opened we stocked both menswear and womenswear. But, being biased towards women (being a female myself!), I wanted to focus purely on a carefully curated female wardrobe, although we do get men in buying for their partners.

9. What should we expect from Sunday Best in the future? A strong shift in brand awareness. We are working hard to scream and shout the Sunday Best brand across the online stage.

10. Finally, what collection or trend are you most excited about for the Spring/Summer 2013? A strong defining trait of the Sunday Best brand is that our staff and customers don’t get completely caught up in trends. I mean, at the moment we’re obsessed with layering neon upon neon for the season which is always a key trend for this time of year. But our staff and customers play around with their own looks and are confident stepping out in their Sunday Best. We receive so many compliments from friends and customers insisting that they can spot a savvy ‘Sunday Best’ shopper a mile away!
If I could convince all of our customers to rock a neon beanie, which was a micro-trend on the SS13 catwalks, I would!

 Sunday Best is running a competition to win a free pair of Underground Creepers, to enter the competition head to their website or (www.sundaybestonline.co.uk/blog).