East London cultured Carl-Jason Pidlaoan aka Mister Cee has been a member of the Ugly Kids Club from the very beginning. Ugly Kids Club creative director and cousin Mark ‘Mister Batlow’ Bajade provided the evidence that Cee needed to turn his vandal based hobby into tongue in cheek humour dripped in graffiti influenced colour ways that are worn with a quirky street style.

Best known for graphics that have their bold sense of eye-catching creativity, Mister Cee could rightfully be considered a strong bridge between a relatively misunderstood Graffiti scene and that of UK fashion. One may find it slightly difficult to categorize Cee’s varied talents, since he is mainly known for his customised fashion designs, as well as being an in-demand freelance designer working on logo’s for musicians and store window designs for denim brand Evisu.
“When it all started in terms of customising I was the new kid, I was just 16”

Seven years later, the sentiment remains very much the same for the Ugly Kids Club and as for its youngest component; the ball has only just started to roll.

Cee, for our viewers that aren’t too familiar with yourself, can you explain a little about Mister Cee?

Cee: I’m a student/designer. I’ve been customising clothes for around 4 years, so that was how I started getting into the whole UK urban clothing scene. My cousin Mark “Mr Batlow” has been customising for…how many years mark?

Batlow: 9 years

Cee: 9 years, so I get most of my experience from him. I started doing my first designs officially this year, I also deal with all the photography, and so I handle the blog and press shots for all our new products but I slowly moved into design. It’s easier to just call myself an artist. Because I sink my teeth in to all types of art forms.

When did your passion for Graff start?

Cee: I was about 12 years old man when I started looking at Graff, it would be on my daily route to school, on the district line and it started from there really. I mean Marks been doing graffiti for a long time now so obvious influences from him, and a lot of friends did graffiti also.

What inspired you to transform your passion for Graff into something that’s seen in a positive light by society?

Cee: Ever since I began customising clothes. It was a thing I did as a hobby, learning from Batlow and then turning what I’d learnt into pocket money. I didn’t have a part-time job so it became my job. It was a logical solution.

What were the concepts behind the early UKC designs and how have they moved on since?

Cee: You can answer that Mark

I normally hate these cheesy little sub quotes but at this point Cee’s dog was nibbling horridly on my air max 1’s!

Cee: Don’t watch my dog!

Batlow: Because we’re all artists, we’re all designers…actually we’re all customizers first of all, so the customs and the ideas that we put into our clothes became our first collection. So for example back in the day we were eating loads of donuts, hence us having donuts on one of our tees. Rizla obviously...you know what I’m saying, so it’s all the stuff that we’re into being from East London and also coming from London itself.

Cee: We pick up on seasonal things as well, for instance the Ugly Hearts collection which was in relation to Valentines Day. This year it’s the World Cup so we’ve got a little something coming for that.

How does being the youngest in The Club affect your work?

Cee: When we first started the whole thing in terms of customising I was the new kid, I was like 16 years old. They were giving me pointers, making me work harder, passing on experience, they still do up until this day. I’m still learning from Mark and the others, obviously being the youngest they take advantage of you…. nah I’m joking its all good. I’ve got a lot more freedom now that I’m sort of coming into my own, not quite there yet! But still growing…

How does The Ugly Kids Club see other London based brands, as competitors or as partners in moving the scene forward?

Cee: I see it more as do your own thing. “I see what your doing, ok, but let me get on with my thing.” It’s not like ‘we wanna sell more than you’ or ‘ we wanna be better than you’. It’s not like that, especially in the art scene. It’s more you observe and appreciate it, there’s no grudges held.

Batlow: He’s right man, everyone’s gotta eat and it’s all part of the scene really. Cee’s coming up in the scene and you guys are coming up but I was around before the scene was what it is, I’ve been around for 9 years now so I was around before people said the word ‘street-wear’ I was around before people said ‘street art’. When I was doing Graff it was Graff, it wasn’t like okay we’re gonna get into an art gallery or anything. It’s just what we do. These scenes come and go, it’s fashion. What the Ugly Kid’s Club are is a craze. So we create stuff that hopefully goes beyond this scene. Your wearing a Raiders hat, that wasn’t ‘cool’ say 5 years ago. Hopefully we can create stuff that is kind of current now, kind of dips but then you look at it in 10 years time and go “ooohhh okay I see what they did”. It comes back around again and that’s what we’re doing as The Ugly Kids Club, keeping it completely original. The elements we’ve got are from the UK rather than from anywhere else.

How did UKC develop such a deep following such as Pharrell Williams, Mariah Carey, Dizzee Rascal and even Vanilla Ice?

Cee: With Pharrell I guess we were just lucky. We had backstage passes and Bombs not here but he introduced all of our t-shirts to him and when we met, we gave him one. :When an opportunity arises then we’ll make sure that opportunity doesn’t go to waste. Carpe Diem.

Batlow: On our site I’ve uploaded ‘Who rolls with the Ugly’ which is part of our gallery section. Its basically just all the people that have been down with us, my computers not working properly but…. we’ve got as far as Dwain Chambers repping one of our stickers, we’ve got a whole bunch of porn stars and glamour models on there as well.

Are there any collaborations on the way in 2010?

Batlow: This year we’ve got SMUT clothing, who we do body painting with. Actually we’ve been working with them for about 2 years so it’s about time we did a tee with them. Everything’s in the pipeline sort of thing, so there are a couple of other labels that we’re working with but we don’t just do a collabo or just a t-shirt. We would work on other peoples designs and we will freelance around that, for example Bomb worked on the Dizzee Rascal ‘Bonkers’ tee last year so it wont necessarily be Ugly Kids Club x whoever.

Cee you’ve said in the past that UKC was a platform for you to get your name out, is that still the case?

Cee: Yeah i guess so, I mean for me now I’ve got one more year at uni, so I’m trying to get into being my own designer, as well as freelancing independently. The Ugly Kids Club will always be there at heart it’s just a matter of building on it now, making everything better than the last. Looking into cut and sews maybe.

Cee: Isit...Yeah jumpers. On my course at the moment I do a lot of pattern work, so maybe getting a pattern cutter to do some of our clothes but who knows perhaps jackets by the end of the year.

Do you personally have any solo projects your working on Cee?

Cee: Right now I’m still in connection with Evisu. I did an internship there so I designed a couple t-shirts for them. Other than working on logos for a few grime artists everything else is just in the pipeline.

A lot of love for this insightful chinwag and best of luck with everything surrounding Ugly Kids Club. Stay Bless.

Interview: Bakar Shariff

Photography: Shola Branson