It's Bagels

It's Bagels arrived with a sharp point of view and no shortage of ideas, which is the best possible start to a merch programme. They set out to bring real New York bagels to London, and the merch had to carry the same idea. New York has a merch culture of its own. The deli cap, the corner-store tee, objects with a specific look and a specific attitude. The brief was to capture that and make it work on London streets. Authentic to the reference, never costume, and good enough that people would wear it because they liked it, not because it came with a bagel.

This was a real collaboration, and the work is better for it. It's Bagels brought the references, the instinct and a steady stream of strong ideas. We brought the product knowledge to make them real. We started where New York merch starts, with the cap. Built fully custom and drawn from classic American baseball designs, it became the anchor that the rest of the range hangs off. Around it we made the pieces that carry the brand day to day: tees, hoodies, totes and keyrings, each one specified to feel like the real thing rather than a souvenir of it. The same range stretches across three jobs. The uniforms the team wears, the signature pieces customers buy, and the limited drops that keep it fresh.

The cap did exactly what a hero product should. It became the recognisable face of the brand and ended up photographed in Vanity Fair, a long way from a giveaway cap in a drawer. The wider range did the quieter work, putting It's Bagels on London streets the way deli merch sits on New York ones. None of it happens without a client this engaged. The taste of New York made it across, merch and all.