After 3 years of work, time to don those Play Cloths

As of today, you can officially add "designers" to rap group Clipse's resume. After nearly three years of planning, their streetwear collection, Play Cloths, has finally hit the market and will be formally unveiled tonight at an event at the boutique Commonwealth.

"This whole line was birthed off of the enthusiasm of fans," says Pusha T, one-half of the acclaimed rap group based in Virginia Beach. "It was the fashion sense they saw we had when they would see us at shows. The music is a great platform for clothing and vice versa."

He says they'll soon distribute a Play Cloths mixtape through Complex Magazine, the buying guide for men centered around urban music, gadgets and clothes.

Play Cloths - there's no "e," Pusha says, which represents doing what he wants - was conceived and developed in Virginia Beach.

He says he is not a designer in the formal sense. Pusha and the other half of Clipse, his brother Malice (Terrence and Gene Thornton, respectively), began their line with "inspiration" boards and input from their friend local artist Doug Dozier.

"We initially thought about our inspirations clothingwise," Pusha says. "We thought about the brands we loved in our youth and collected like Polo, Nautica, Hilfiger and Iceberg. We were in there with the mood boards, and I would cut out and Xerox things from the early '80s up until now."

Clipse, regarded as hip-hop trendsetters in part for their early adoption of the Japanese cult line A Bathing Ape, partnered with the RP55 group in Virginia Beach. A leading player in the streetwear industry, the company acted first as a consultant just on good faith. That relationship blossomed into design and then production.

"He just knew what he knew," says Duane Smith, head designer at RP55 group, a Virginia Beach clothing company. He spent a year working with Clipse to get Play Cloths to look right. "He had a keen eye, and we just went for it."

Pusha says the ability to invent and actually produce his clothing line in Virginia Beach had tremendous benefits. "Virginia has all the elements that all these other big cities have. Being able to go in there and touch the staff and talk with them right up the street from me was a plus beyond plusses."

Play Cloths' debut collection consists of T-shirts, denim, varsity jackets, hoodies, sweatshirts, jackets, belts and skullcaps. The brand is following the new-school standard route of having its line carried only in boutiques and specialty shops - among them Commonwealth in Virginia and the ultra-hip Colette in Paris. (Pusha says he was dismayed that logistical problems prevented it from being carried in his other favorite local sneaker boutique, Cream, in Norfolk's The Galalery at Military Circle mall.)

He calls the look clean, grown-up streetwear. Its logo is a Prohibition-era youth wearing knickers on the run. It represents youthfulness, Pusha says. His name is Jack.

"It's that whole notion of having to go home and change into your play clothes before you come back out. When we were kids, we had to come home and change out of the good pants, the good shoes, the good socks."

Unlike some streetwear brands that ask $500 for a pair of jeans and $100 for a T-shirt, Play Cloths is pricing its T-shirts at around $40, and jeans in the $200 range.

"We didn't want to turn anybody off," Pusha says. "It's affordable, it's reachable and it's credible. We want the people to be able to be a part of our gang."

Tonight's launch event in Norfolk brings Play Cloths' local love full-circle. "Commonwealth has always been great supporter of Clipse, and it's probably one of the most acclaimed streetwear stores in the world. They're really good at what they do, and we couldn't ask for a better springboard to be embraced by."

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662, malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com