Irish Design Spotlight: Visual Antics Apparel

Tell us about you and your brand
Visual Antics Apparel is the new-age comedy revolution hitting streetwear. Bold, hilarious and making people laugh across the country. We smash humour with style, turning heads and breaking norms. It’s the fashion rebellion you never knew you needed. Led by comedian Colin Geddis, we’re born from Northern Ireland’s comedy scene, offering unisex clothing made from recycled materials and powered by renewable energy. With a focus on laughter and inclusivity, our bold designs provoke smiles by leaning into the Northern Irish culture. Our vibrant Belfast office reflects our spirit, making us a standout in the world of streetwear and comedy. Join the movement and embrace the antics. 

What is your mission?
Our mission through Visual Antics Apparel is to redefine streetwear using humour and creativity. We provoke laughter with our unique one-off designs while championing ‘make cool sh*t’. Our brand is dedicated to providing bold, hilarious fashion that toes the line and welcomes everyone to join in the antics.

Did you always know you wanted to design merch?
Colin Geddis has been shifting his podcast merch for years, designed and produced by VA co-founder, Seamus Monaghan. We combined forces to create a wider fashion idea based and born from the booming Northern Irish comedy scene. Comedians and podcasts are the new rock stars and we’re following the already carved path of band merch but making it wearable. No more overpriced sh*t stock T-shirts with album cover artwork. We take unique moments and jokes and blow them into a wearable streetwear collection. We’re caught in that crazy space between merch and fashion, and we love it. 

What kind of items do you stock?
We offer a range of streetwear essentials, including graphic T-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, caps, and accessories. Each item features a bold and humorous design, reflecting comedians’ laughable content. Our unisex products ensure inclusivity, welcoming individuals from all backgrounds to join in.

What new brands or items are on your radar?
We’re all ‘streetwear heads’ in the studio, following and critiquing current fashion downfalls like Palace collaborating with McDonald. Come on lads, you’re better than that! Our Design Director, Seamus Monaghan, has worked on some of the biggest streetwear labels you have in your in drawers. He wears a lot of the clothing he’s designed; brands like Carhartt, Stussy, The North Face, New Era. His favourite new item is the underpriced P&Co wrist watch which everyone should go buy now.

Was money/funding a concern when starting out?
Money was and is at the forefront of our strategy since conversations started during a stag do in Galway 2023. We knew there was something great in our midst but didn’t have the capital to kick it off. We decided to focus on designing funny ideas and asking people what they thought. Our thought process was: if we create great products, then people will follow. We didn’t want to follow a TikTok trend, create one T-shirt and offer it in a new colour every season. We wanted to make people piss themselves laughing with funny graphics printed on the best quality T-shirts. Wearing something you’re proud to wear. After a positive response following a market feedback session (pints in the pub) we decided to give it a run. We knew our initial market share would be small so we worked around a potential first-month income as our budget to build stock. And that’s how we’re slowly growing and growing every month; we know how much money we can potentially generate every month and we prepare for that. It’s like a snake eating its tail, you have to spend money to make money and you have to make money to spend money. 

Best business advice you’ve gotten
Build it and they will come. When building outstanding products, focus on what you would wear, not what product trends you see on the high street or TikTok because you’re setting yourself up for failure. We’re here now and we’re here to stay. We’re not building a brand for the next four months, we’re building one for the next 40 years. People trust and buy into brands that they know will be here for a long time. Give your products meaning, make them cool, repeat.

Favourite fashion/design accounts you follow
You name a large streetwear label, we like it; Carhartt, New Era, Stussy, North Face, HUF, New Balance. We’re sick of the Supreme brigade, a queue to queue to queue to get into their store, to try and buy 1/100 T-shirts. It’s funny when you observe the people queueing, it’s no different than the crowd who used to hang outside Hollister a decade ago; 14-year-old teenagers with their mummies. But we’re in love with some mid-range clothing brands like P&Co and TSPTR. We miss old streetwear labels like Upper Playground, Fly53 and Fresh Jive. We wish those brands still existed today, and we’re smashing the streetwear culture with controversial new products rather than watching the Gap logo beside the Palace logo.

Best fashion purchase
A watch. Get rid of that digital £15 Casio and buy a mid-range watch from a new watch brand. We’re are all avid low-mid-price range watch collectors in the studio. There are so many great brands like Vertex, Hamilton and Baltic. Just buy one, they’re all sick brands creating top-end watches.

Other Irish brands you love
We’re big friends with ELN (@by.eln) and love what she’s doing. Designing and hand-making everything herself and creating unisex streetwear for all of us. Check out her store in Banbridge, Co. Down.

Most useful learning since setting up a business
The thing we’ve learned most (and already knew coming into this) was to make a profit. We can’t create great products without a percentage increase month by month. We know it’s the slow way to build a brand but we’re here for it. We can’t compromise or overstep our product range, we have to get it and bring our customers on the journey.

Our proudest moment so far
Easy. Our proudest moment was last week when we hit our 300th order within the first year of trading. A big moment for us and we are now striving for our 500th.

We want our brand to be remembered for… we want Visual Antics Apparel to be remembered for making streetwear funny again and sticking a middle finger up to the streetwear establishments. 

If we could have anyone wear our designs it would be… our goal isn’t the dated influencer model: ‘Get David Beckham wearing a T-shirt’, or ‘get TikTok star XYZ wearing a hoodie’. We are deeply connected within the Northern Ireland comedy world and have the majority of those comedians wearing our gear on a daily basis. What more could we want and ask for? We’re proud of it. We’re happy with it. This comedy scene has the best arsenal in Europe and we want to grow with them and their fans.

Imagery courtesy of Visual Antics.