Jeff Staple, aka Jeff Ng, first made a name for himself when the Parsons design student's homemade T-shirts attracted the attention of the fashion industry. A decade later, Staple has a graphics agency, a hip Lower East Side boutique, and a cut and sew line under his belt.

Now into its 11th year, Staple Design's clothing arm offers understated, grown-up streetwear and warm, autumnal colors in its fall '08 collection. As always, the functional surfaces of Staple garments conceal myriad witty and wonderful touches, like the thin gold 'staples' that adorn the button-down shirts.

Check out the new line and our Q&A with Staple below.

Jeff Staple Designer Profile

    What are the different challenges associated with clothing design as opposed to graphic design?
    The beauty of it, sort of the gift and the curse, is that they both use completely different parts of my brain. On the one hand [with graphic design work] you're servicing a clients needs. They come at you with a problem and it's your job as a designer or a creative to really formulate the solution that's best befitting to them, adding in your own flavor as well. I like to have our projects be mysterious. You may or may not know that Staple Design worked on them because there isn't necessarily that trademark signature in every piece.

    Jeff Staple

    On the clothing end, at least the state that our clothing is currently in, there isn't that mentality of servicing a client. This is our 11th year now, we're starting to get into the mode of thinking where we're actually maybe listening to buyers, listening to salespeople and maybe looking at a trend here or there, but for the past 11 years, it's really been like 'what do we wanna rock?' There's been no client, so the clothing line is really our creative playground...

    Jeff Staple

    The attention to detail in Staple clothing is interesting to us. Is that something that is particularly important to you?
    It started as an attention to detail in the graphics [of the T-shirts]. When we moved into more complicated cut and sew, doing outerwear pieces, sweaters or knits, we didn't want necessarily to have like loud graphics, because that's not our style. So then the attention to detail was honed in on the stitching, the construction, the interior, the linings, the trims and that sort of thing.

    Jeff Staple

    Also Japan is a huge influence just because it has always been an early adopter to what we do. When I was hand- silk screening T-shirts out of Parsons, Japan was our third order. I average six trips a year to Japan and everything there is all about putting things in their right place. Whether it's a toothbrush, a toilet or your bowl of ramen, everything is so perfectly positioned. That mentality just filters into our clothing.

    Jeff Staple

    What is the central theme of the current collection and how does it differ from previous seasons?
    Every season we have a theme. The collection is always based around the umbrella concept of education. Each season we focus in on one particular class if you will. And this season we focused in on biology, anatomy and the science of life. Getting inspiration from my old biology class, dissections and things like that. It's called the Science of Life.

    Jeff Staple

    Which other designers have been a particular inspiration to you?
    RRL -- that's one of the few American brands I love to look at. A couple of Japanese brands are also really inspirational. One is called Visvim and then another one is Soph. I rarely reference clothing brands in terms of what trend to follow, it's more about the mentality that comes through in their collection. That's really what I look at.

    RRL is a good example. Our line looks nothing like RRL's and most likely never will but in terms of the way the brand is communicated throughout, from the collection to retail, to the staff, to the window displays, that sort of cohesive voice that it has, that's is what I draw inspiration from.

    Jeff Staple

    If you had to pick one item from the current collection to exemplify the line, which would it be and why?
    The Tibial. That one is just like the epitome of my biology teacher's plaid shirts, in wool. But we flipped it a little bit by adding a neck tie that comes with it, in the same fabric as the shirt but done on a bias. When you're wearing it just looks like a slight color shift in your vision. You might not even notice the person is wearing a tie at the beginning.

    Jeff Staple

    Where and how are the clothes made?
    All of our shirts are made in New York City, some of nylons are made in Asia, and our knits and sweaters are made in Japan. The process of making the shirts in New York is a very fun hands-on process, so we don't want to give that up.

    Jeff Staple

    What is the price range?
    Outerwear pieces are about $250 and up, shirts are $160 to $200 sweaters are around that range, $180.

    Jeff Staple

    Where can our readers buy them? Is there anywhere on the web to purchase them?
    Online would be digitalgravel.com, our fall collection will be in Bloomingdales and we have our own store in New York called Reed Space.

    Jeff Staple