From the monthly archives:

August 2006

On Top’O the World

by Andy on August 31, 2006

12 1 littleboyblue On TopO the World
I forgot that I had to blog today (even though I picked out the hoodie this afternoon from my big list) and now its almost 3AM, so I am pretty much phoning this one in.

Our zip-up hoodie is another super-soft but super-durable creation from our wringer-washed 380-gram fleece category. The Topo is discharge screen printed across the front of this jacket for a soft hand and features front and back Western yokes — a totally unique attribute for any hoodie. Topo signature stripe zipper taping and a custom zip-pull rounds out the look.

Check out the lines printed on the top of the hood, and that logo, it’s some kind of a rodent with wings, pretty bizarre, and yet pretty cool at the same time.

Costiness=$92 URL

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Soft Touch Reviews: Ban T-Shirts

by Andy on August 30, 2006

fortressamerica Soft Touch Reviews: Ban T Shirts
Ahhhh, political t-shirts, my favourite. If people have the ideas and knowledge to back up their wearing of a politically orientated shirt, then I’m totally cool with them, but otherwise, I declare open season on phonies, and yes, I am talking to you, Hollywood (I presume that at least one A-lister reads the blog). And I feel this after having just spent 3 years studying politics, so I hope you can understand my frustration with people that don’t seem to understand the issues.

Luckily for Ban T-shirts, they shan’t face my wrath, I think that they ‘get it’. Also, their designs are pretty freakin’ sweet, so I was very pleased when a mysterious figure from BT known to me only as ‘the Dude’ offered to send a tee my way. This morning I found a little USPS packet on the kitchen table (same size as when you get 1 tee from Threadless), which always surprises me, because how can such a small packet contain something that fits me?

Anywho, it can, and of course it feels nice because its American Apparel (the 2001 tee if I’m not mistaken), and the printing feels solid, though obviously I can’t comment upon durability (but I will stick my neck out and predict that it will last for quite a while, despite only being thin lines).

The barbed-wire outline of the United States on the ‘Fortress America‘ tee works really well in my opinion, with a powerful sentiment over the current immigration debate that is raging in the US (and in my country – the UK). Though funnily enough I can actually see this tee being worn by both the Left and the Right, seriously, what Minute Man wouldn’t want to wear this on border patrol?

Check out the rest of the Ban T-Shirts catalogue, because they’ve got a wide variety of shirts covering a lot of issues prominent in topical debates, as well as a few classics.

Costiness=$15.95 URL

Coming up sometime in the near future I’ll be posting an interview with ‘the Dude’ from Ban T-shirts, which should be an interesting read.

Two more pics after the jump
[click to continue…]

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My baby shot me down…

by Andy on August 28, 2006

bskcowboym My baby shot me down...
Ok, I know I seem to post about Backseat Kiss almost as much as Naive or Oddica, but if they keep kicking out awesome hoodies, I’m not really in a position to stop posting their super-cute model now, am I?

You all know that I like to see innovation in placement with my cotton goods, so when I saw a six-shooter holstered in the pocket I was immediately impressed, and the “official backseat kiss cowboy badge” looks pretty nice too, incorporating the robot logo into a classic icon, though if I were to be particularly pedantic I’d have to say that it was a sheriff’s badge, yes?

I’m sure that some of you might have some reservations wearing a hoodie that gives the appearance that you’re carrying some kind of weapon, especially since you apparently can’t wear certain items of clothing in parts of America now, but you know what, forget it, if you’ve got a cowboy/sheriff badge you deserve a screenprinted handgun!

Costiness=$39 (and it comes with a free tote bag as part of the ‘Back to School’ promotion!) URL

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I feel like a salmon…

by Andy on August 24, 2006

… because I always seem to be flaking on you!

There’s no (real) post tonight or tomorrow because I’m heading down to the Midlands for a wedding tomorrow and I’ve got to be up early tomorrow for the 170 mile drive.

But I promise I will have an absolute doozy of a hoodie for you on Monday, and there should be a hands-on review next week, and possibly even an interview, so whilst the weekend may be starting early at HYA, next week should be awesome.

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All politics aside

by Andy on August 24, 2006

AM1Z All politics aside
I always feel a bit uneasy when I see clothing that has political meaning, especially if it is Che Guevara or something derivative of him, but sometimes these crazy activists and non-violent freedom fighters actually come up with designs that I quite like.

Bureaucrash have achieved just that, and whilst I may well have picked their least obviously political hoodie, I still think it’s a bit of a winner. The symbols are apparently an ancient expression of liberty, if you’re willing to believe them, the only thing I can promise is that it doesn’t say ‘super homosexual‘. The blurb says that it’s printed on a 50/50 blend, which is usually code for Fruit of the Loom.

Costiness=$29.76 URL

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Death… and taxes… Well, I guess you can add a third one to that list, the continuing proliferation of design-submission-competition tee stores. There are a lot of them out there, and if the previous post about Threadless taught us anything its that as a business model it can be pretty darned successful, so I’m not one of those guys that rolls his eyes when I see another company that seems similar to the big T, because lets face it, it’s a good way to make sure you have quality (and commercial quality) in your inventory.

Styletax treats its artists a bit different to most of its brethren, instead one getting one lump sum as a prize for having a winning design, it’s possible that you could be earning cash off your design for the forseeable future. Styletax will give you €1 for every tee that they sell with your design on it, I think they do runs of 100 tees, so if you design a good seller then you’d get up to €100, but reprints are always a possibility. You also get a couple of free tees if your design is a winner.

There’s quite a lot of cartoony, bold vectored designs in the shop at the moment, but my favourites are actually the more intricate and subtle designs (such as ‘Drawing a Daydream’ and ‘Night Owl’), so there’s a nice variety

All the tees are a reasonable €15, but when you consider that worldwide shipping is €2.50 for 1 tee, then you’ve got a very good deal.

And if you were wondering why there is no picture or page links, it’s because the whole site is Flash and I’m not really in the mood to take a screen capture and crop it at 2am.

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Threadless is a giant

August 22, 2006

Very interesting article over at the Crowdsourcing blog about everyone’s favourite user-submission and rating tee shop, Threadless. As you would imagine, the article is about the economics of crowdsourcing and something called ‘long-tail’, which are a bit over my head (though it is fun to learn about the business behind the cotton), but there are [...]

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Oddica now Hides Your Arms

August 22, 2006

Thank God for that, I was starting to run out of excuses for running a tee company! If there was ever a tee design that was destined to be turned into a hoodie and be worn by record store owners across the world it was the Exploded Turntable, if I remember correctly, the artist actually [...]

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Seibei reopens, with a coupon code!

August 21, 2006

Seibei seem like a really nice company to me, cute graphics, a regularly updated blog (which isn’t just filled with encouragement to buy Seibei clothing), they’re happy to link to their competitiors (and me, top o’ the list y’all!), they mow their lawn in a bunny suit (the grass stains must be a nightmare) and [...]

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The only Fresh thing in L.A.

August 18, 2006

This hoodie isn’t the kind of thing that I’d usually go for, fake vintage and a biker theme with trendy sewn on patches, but even I have to admit that it’s pretty cool. And I wanted to do a recommendation from Revolve Clothing (just to avoid confusion, the hoodie brand is ‘Fresh’, Revolve is a [...]

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I pick Piqto

August 17, 2006

Quick post tonight because I’m so tired that keep hitting the wrong keys on the laptop (though it being dark and me being in bed may have contributed to that). On this hoody the main motive of the winter series is printed: hummingbirds, flowers and alternate «Piqto» logo in a brown-grey tone – jets and [...]

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Not a t-shirt blog: The Unknown t-shirt

August 16, 2006

Now, I’m sure that Nate from The Unknown T-shirt would be the first to admit that he doesn’t own the flashiest website in the world, but this guy is an artist, and I like his tees, so I ain’t going to rag on his site. A lot of the tees have some kind of an [...]

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Umm, dude, is there a half naked tiger-woman on your hoodie?

August 15, 2006

I don’t know when Digital Gravel decided that their store was big enough to warrant daily mail-outs, but I welcomed the spam today because it had rather a nifty hoodie in it. Now, I know what you’re thinking, oriental themed clothing can look a bit cliche, much like your ill-advised tattoo that probably doesn’t say [...]

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Threadless $10 sale

August 14, 2006

Threadless are having another of their famed $10 sales, but with an ever so slightly different theme this time. It’s a back to school sale, buuuut…. school is evil. Everytime that they have a sale the inventory seems to disappear within a matter of hours (well, that’s probably a bit exaggerated, but I need to [...]

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A mixtape for Backseat Kissing to

August 11, 2006

Y’know, I’d love to be like John Cusack in High Fidelity and have a zen-like quality for crafting perfect mixtapes, but I usually find myself dumping a few recently downloaded MP3s (legal ones, well, as legal as Stereogum gets) onto a CD and burning it before I head for a night out (its a 20 [...]

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Not a t-shirt blog: Zenorschnitzel

August 11, 2006

I don’t know when this blog was taken over by Mr. Listy McListerson, but here goes anyway.1. Zenorschnitzel is a great name. 2. The owner isn’t a tee artist, she’s an architect fresh out of college, but don’t all designers love putting things on soft soft cotton? 3. Firing a shotgun at a t-shirt sounds [...]

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The pain! The pain!

August 10, 2006

I had to write the title twice for two reasons: 1. I’ve got a migraine so I’m going to skip the usual recommendation for the day, and give you a link so that your visit wasn’t a waste (my pain, your gain!). 2. The pain suffered by small independent designers all around thw world when [...]

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Worse things happen at sea

August 8, 2006

Whenever Nico (or the talented contributor from stylebytes.net) from Teees does a post and mentions that the store he’s looking at sells hoodies, I always click those links, because a) he has taste, and b) it really helps me in finding new stores to check out. And today tattoo-to-tee outift Sailor Jerry was up on [...]

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Old MacDonald, yadda yadda yadda

August 4, 2006

EIO Clothing is pretty new to me, I didn’t even know they existed until Addicteed pointed them out last week. They do have some pretty good tees and hoodies though, with a style that is more akin to the higher-class of British high-street designers, particularly with their sweatshirt designs. Which is nice to see considering [...]

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