Whistle or lose it

At a recent press conference at I.T Hysan One, design duo Dan Single and George Gorrow are living up to their reputation as enfants terribles. A bottle of shiraz is quickly emptying and it's hard to make out what they're saying between all the cursing and mumbling to themselves in heavy Australian accents, and whistling at beautiful women passing by.

But that doesn't stop hordes of hipsters, journalists and bloggers flooding the space to worship the co-founders of Australian cult haus of fashion, Ksubi.

Flown in from Sydney, they're here to officiate at their latest collaboration with local fashion empire I.T. They've set up Der Face, a retrospective exhibition of sunglasses from their previous collections, including frames created for the Black Eyed Peas, Weezer and British design wunderkind Richard Nicoll. Their sunglasses have a list of star followers including Kate Moss, Scarlett Johannson and Carine Roitfeld.

They've also arrived with their custom-made denim range. All pieces are one of a kind, featuring hand-stitched studs, paint splashes and sandpaper fraying. Of their signature denims, Gorrow says they've been experimenting with 'future primitive' techniques.

'We try the really futuristic printing techniques and also the really old-school methods - rock bashing denim, sandpaper, brick and mortar. Simple and basic stuff, but nobody really does it these days.'

The boys, with two other in-house designers, Toby Jones and Gus Carmichael, pose for the camera in front of a conceptual installation as if they're meditating. The 'Jean Machine' was created for the occasion - a pair of jeans stick out of a vending machine bought earlier from Sham Shui Po and filled with odd objects like bottles of Victoria Bitter, 'space food' and packets of Marlboro.