“The frame of the cave leads to the frame of man.” To say 2020 and early 2021 have been a challenge would be the understatement of the century. We’ll probably never see another event that affects virtually every human being on the planet so drastically (I hope!) and for so long. While it’s been so eventful, it’s also been a time of no travel, a lack of social interactions, adventure and spontaneity. It’s felt very empty.  We’ve been relegated to our homes like cave dwellers sheltering from a harsh winter - modern day troglodytes. That thought led me to the quote above, from architect Stephen Gardiner. Our home environments have such a big effect on our mood and the effect...

I’ve had a bunch of people hit me recently about restocks. I appreciate the love and I feel your pain - I hate that feeling when I try to cop something (probably sneakers TBH) and my size is gone. In general though, you won’t see restocks from Cogs. That’s mainly because I’m a one man band right now.  The design, pattern drafting, material and trim sourcing, production, photography, social, website...right now that’s all done by me. When I’m doing production I basically give myself a period of time and then just go at it full throttle. I get tunnel vision so generally that’s all I’ll focus on for a time. It’s definitely rewarding, but it’s time consuming. When I’m done I’m...

This year has been crazy. A global pandemic shut down damn near the whole planet. Unemployment is at record levels in many places as we brace for second waves of the disease, and the full economic impact of lockdown measures to be revealed. I told my dad I can’t remember ever experiencing anything like this at the start of the lockdown. He said he couldn’t remember anything like this in his life either.  Then, as we were coming to grips with this new normal under the pandemic, the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd caused the anguish and pain of Black people, bottled up for so long, to be brought into focus through marches and protests in...

I remember back in the late 90s one day I was talking to my homie Jeff about something. He said something that has always stuck with me - he said “Toronto hates itself.” Looking at that today, it sounds like an insane statement. At that time though, it was perfect. It represented what I felt when I was at home or anywhere else. There was definitely a bit of self doubt in the city. It made sense because a lot of people really weren’t aware of us. I was in Brooklyn once and a guy asked me where I was from. I said Toronto, and you could tell he had heard of it before, but it could have been on...

First off, Merry Christmas to any of you that celebrated. I hope you had nuff sorrel, rum punch and mannish water with your loved ones. I won this camera on an auction site the other day. An old school SLR. To be honest, I didn't know shit about the camera before I stumbled upon it, but the lens on it is fairly rare so I figured I'd try it out and just sell the camera body right away since I'm not into film photography. Then I got this thing in my hands. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. First thing I noticed was how heavy it was. I know a lot of times when people talk about weight of an item, it's more a negative...

We did a photo shoot recently for our Terrace collection. Neither Aris or I are particularly skilled with photography, so we brought in the talented @thecanvas.jpg to tell the story. In the end we were really happy with how the visuals turned out. Our lookbook is live now, feel free to check it out! Anyway, the experience got me thinking about the relationship between art and clothes. It’s a bit complex. Are clothes pieces of art? I wouldn’t call a $2 t-shirt a piece of art. To make something that sells that cheaply, you can imagine the massive quantities that would have to be made. The decisions in that process will have been made based on reducing costs and selling...

You gave it a shot, Mickey   Let’s be real. We all judge people based on how they’re dressed. At worst, we mock people whose styles we find to be dated, strange, not well thought out, or a million other things. At best, we notice it but try not to let it affect the way we treat or view the person...but in the back of your head, you know you think that person’s style is trash! The joke is, while we’re all judging each other, a lot of us are also worried about other people judging our fits. Sometimes walking on the street I can literally see the fear in a person’s eye - “does this person think my fit...

The internet had democratized fashion, which is fantastic. You can participate almost from anywhere now. The downside though is that discovery is so easy now. You don’t have to go to your local shoe store, clothing store, skate shop or whatever to find out what’s out there. You can wake up, scroll Instagram...

I gotta say off top that I hate blogging, but my SEO guru told me if I did this shit we could sell more shit (shout out Jermaine!) so here we are. Gotta do what you gotta do, baby. I think the most logical place to start this thing off at is why. Why are we doing this? Nowadays there are only two types of people I meet - people who have been to Toronto and love it, and people who want to go there. Everyone knows the city is poppin. In the post VC era, the city has become confident enough to export our culture to the world, mostly through music. We haven’t had the same impact in fashion,...