Complex: In addition to the shoe, you just did a pretty cool series of T-shirts.

Amy Gunther: We just did a soft launch, so right now they’re just available in-store, but we will be selling them online [at kcdcskateshop.com] in a little and then we’ll be shipping some out to the West Coast and internationally when we do a second print of the graphics at the end of the summer.

Complex: They came out really sick.

Amy Gunther: Thanks! The whole thing with our shop is that I really like being able to showcase artists and artwork of artists who wouldn’t normally get a lot of press. We’ve been open for seven years, so we’ve really been able to work with a lot of very talented people.

Complex: You have some heavy hitters in there, like Jeremy Fish.

Amy Gunther: Well, you know we actually had Jeremy’s first NYC show ever. So we go back with him. I guess he’s kind of famous, but to us, he’s a friend. He’s been in like three shows at our shop.

Complex: So he drew a dog and a cat holding hands…

Amy Gunther: Do you get it?

Complex: Um…

Amy Gunther: [Laughs] “KCDC” is one of those things where we don’t really tell anyone what it stands for. About 50 times a day, I get asked what KCDC means, so for this series, we encouraged artists to do “interpretations” of the name. Jeremy’s is Kitty City, Doggie City.

Complex: [Laughs]

Amy Gunther: And then this other one, by our friend Beau Velasco, Barbaric of New York—with the chicken shooting lasers out of the eyes—his is “Kill Crush, Destroy Crew.” With that little neon chicken, it’s hilarious.

Complex: And who is this dude French who did the Viking shirt?

Amy Gunther: Another friend of ours, Marc Foster, who does Altamont, did a show at KCDC as well a little while back. But he brought in a friend of his, this guy French, and they did a group show. Through that, we became friends, and that’s French’s shirt with the Viking on it. I really like black metal, and French’s work is really demonic, so I’m psyched that we’re working with him. Since we started, we’ve always done evil shirts, always satanic and blood and things like that. But I had a request from my employees/manager that we lighten it up a little. So this series is a little more fun. No blood or skulls this time.

Complex: The other two shirts are by Grotesk and Adam Squires. Do you want to talk about those?

Amy Gunther: Grotesk lived across the street from the shop until about a year ago, and he also works at Zoo York, with whom we just did a project as well. We’ve always wanted to do something together, and this was an opportunity for us to make that happen. Adam Squires did the “Bless This Mess” shirt. That shirt is kind of a parody on the business we’re running over here. Sometimes the skate world gets a little crazy over here, but it’s our baby, you know? So “Bless this Mess” is kind of our way of saying you know, we love the place, but sometimes it’s just nuts.

Complex: So, you’ve worked with a lot of people to get this mini-collection off of the ground. Any dream collabos in your future?

Amy Gunther: A Manolo Blahnik

Complex: With Neckface?

Amy Gunther: Probably. That would be so sick.

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