36 Styles: Make Your Closet Your Temple

A Clothing Brand For The Kung Fu Movie Fan

The creation of the brand 36 Styles, was birthed the same way ‘ShaolinChamber.com’ and now ‘ShaolinChamber36.com’ websites were. At the end of 2004, when I first embarked on the unfamiliar journey of creating my first official site, the whole intention behind it, was to create a site in which I was always on the search for, one with the kind of things I was interested, and having it all tie together with classic martial arts films. 36 Styles was created for these same reasons. T-Shirts, in which I would love to have come across online (or off), ones that I would be proud to wear and publicly show my love and admiration for the genre of martial arts films.

My idea of creating “Kung Fu Movie” themed t-shirt’s began in 2005. Soon after the original ‘Shaolin Chamber’ website launched. The ideas and passion for creating this style of shirt was there, but the know-how and talent at the the time was severely lacking. Just as I had put up a “Closed For Maintenance” sign on my most recent site, Shaolin Chamber 36, I took several months to learn, pretty much from scratch the proper use of HTML and CSS to fully customize SC36 to the best of my liking. I spent countless hours, tinkering with the code, in just trying to figure out  a way to make the simplest of change, but it was something that had to be done and I was not going to settle for anything less than what I had envisioned in my head. I eventually relaunched the new and improved site dedicated to classic martial arts films on August 2, 2010, and the feedback and praise I had received from my fellow fans of the genre was beyond anything I had expected, I was truly grateful for the fact that all the hard work that was put into the rebuild was appreciated.

The conception of 36 Styles began pretty much in the same fashion (no pun intended) as the site. At the beginning of 2009 is when I started on the path to make the kung fu movie themed clothing brand a reality and more than just a dream of mine. At this time, I had also began to build a new website, one that I began working on, but never let anyone know of its existence, mainly due to the fact that I never felt 100% satisfied with the look and layout of it and felt at the time it was just not presentable. This of course eventually led to temporary closing of the site and the inevitable relaunch. So you can imagine while I was quite busy with the site, I was also heavily researching everything I could about the t-shirt business. Over the past several months, I had dedicated more of my time to research and doing what I had to do to come up with the final initial products. Shaolin Chamber 36 is always the main focus and will hopefully be around for as long as I am, possibly even longer. I want to assure you that the idea for creating these t-shirts was not just thrown together on a whim and more importantly, that it is being taken extremely seriously, and handled with the utmost care, from everyone involved.

What’s In A Name?

The name ’36 STYLES’ was not something that came about so easily. As I was trying to come up with the name, that possibly would have several meanings embedded deep with in, in the end I felt the name ’36 STYLES’ made the best overall fit. Allow me to breakdown the name and its various definitions.

• The number ’36′ in the name, represents the website ‘Shaolin Chamber 36′ and by just using the best fitted part, which is the number, it’s just a shortened version of saying ‘Shaolin Chamber 36 Styles’. I am sure you would agree, using the full name just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
• In the name ’36 Styles’, the word ‘Styles’ of course often used in classic martial arts films as referring to different forms of kung fu styles, such as the Praying Mantis, Snake Fist, Dragon’s Fist, Monkey, etc, you get the idea.
• In the name ’36 Styles’, the word ‘Styles’ is also often associated with the fashion world, and being that this is a brand of clothing dedicated to the classic kung fu film genre, the word ‘Styles’ is quite fitting.
• You may be aware of the 1979 Joseph Kuo directed film, ’36 Deadly Styles’, this name while sounding very similar, was not intended to reference said film.
• The number ’36′ in the name ’36 Styles’, is in no way an indication of how many t-shirts/designs will be made available or amount that will represent the brand. If the shirts are received with a positive response, and the fans like them and do not hesitate to make a purchase, I then plan on far exceeding the amount of 36, most likely hundreds of different designs in various colors and eventually evolving in to different forms of clothing, beyond just t-shirts.

A Collaborative Effort

Though I have been wanting to start a clothing brand like 36 Styles for many years now, I knew that I would need some help with the creation of the designs. Fortunately, after many failed attempts of trying to get this particular person on board with the project, the last time I asked, he finally agreed. This person is none other then the king of alternative cover creations, Golden Swallow. While we worked together in coming up with ideas for designs, GS works his magic and made them a reality. So while I have spent quite some time in research and securing all the necessary equipment needed, Golden Swallow does what he does so damn well, and gets those final, print-ready designs created. This partnership will hopefully lead to hundreds of uniquely designed t-shirts dedicated to the martial arts film genre. .

Another person I must mention, and someone who was definitely a part of the beginning process of this all, and will definitely be a part of design creations, is my good friend Kung Fu Bob. For those of you that don’t know, Bob is a pure class act of a person, they just don’t come more genuine than him. He also is a dedicated artist who has created some of the most breathtaking pieces of artwork, honoring the martial arts film genre that you will ever see. Back in 2009 when I finally came up with the name 36 Styles, I turned to Bob in hopes that he could create for me a unique logo to represent the brand with style. The monk posing with Eagle’s Claw hand formations, as well as the brushed stroked number “36″ that is placed behind the monk in the logo, was skillfully hand drawn by Bob to perfection. Bob also came up with the “Make Your Closet Your Temple” tagline. To view some of Bob’s priceless but very affordable artwork, click here.

The Shirts

To view the shirts that are currently available, please visit the following page, and PLEASE make sure to click on “View Details” to visit the shirts individual product page for more info and to view images of the design.