I’m thinking of dropping in some short morning posts, less of me yabbering on, more awesome clothes, everyone wins right?

I know I’ve used this blurb before, but it’s just such a great example of clothes industry balls that I had to use it again (that and I’m into Heroes, the show, at the moment):

“Every generation has its heroes. With their spring collection, Morphine Generation draws out the inherent Heros and Heroines that nobly reside in all of us.”

Costiness=$136 (Free shipping) URL

http://www.revolveclothing.com/productpages/MORP-WO38.jsp

• 0 Comments

It’s really hard to pin down the style of a label like Imperfect Articles. In general, I’d say that they have simple, hand drawn art t-shirts, but because they have a variety of artists, there is also a variety of spirit and emotion within the design lineup. They also have an unbelievable range, with more than 50 designs in their store, most of which I would be very happy to be found wearing. On IA’s ‘About Us‘ page they talk about how they’re taking the experimental approach of acting more like curators in a site-less gallery rather than the traditional clothing brand to artist relationship, and the more I learn about them the more I understand and agree with that approach. And, if the end result is cool tees like the ones they’re putting out, I think its an approach that is really working for them.

Just like it’s hard to pin down Imperfect Articles as a brand, it’s also pretty hard to pin down this design. I like it. I just have no idea what’s going on, is that a pirate hat?, some kind of a face made of diamonds? plants? several different kinds of berries? (or perhaps eyes?) And I don’t even know how to describe whatever that is on the bottom right! But still, I do like it, and I don’t really pretend to be someone that understands art… hey, isn’t there a popular saying that expresses that thought in a far more succinct way?

In terms of quality, IA are right up there. They print onto American Apparel blanks, so you know what you’re getting in that respect. The print quality is very nice too, I’m going to have to learn about printing one of these days so that I can explain it better, but it feels really light and soft, yet still inked into the cotton fairly deep, so my guess is that it will last pretty well. They also do this cool thing where there’s a sticker on the tee itself (pictured after the jump) which gives you the name of the original designer and those all-important washing instructions.

Costiness=$30 URL

Read the whole article to see a load more pictures.
(more…)

• 0 Comments

PICT2925 Hosted on Zooomrr

I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to be stroking my ego for a couple of sentences. Brad from Indie Threads (which has just been redesigned, it looks as sexy as… well.. me in that picture above!) asked me a few questions about myself, blogging, design and the t-shirt industry in general. I really enjoyed doing it since this site is more focused on products rather than the industry as a whole, so it was nice to write about that stuff for a change. It isn’t exactly a short read (you know how I ramble), so you might want to get comfy before diving in. There’s also a little exclusive in one of my answers, yeah, that’ll make you click through, won’t it!

You can find the interview here.

• 0 Comments

I usually try and let news items build up a bit before I post…. I may well have left things for a bit too long this time, since I’ve got almost a dozen sites/items for you to check out. Also, sorry about not posting on Friday, but when the sun is shining on Cumbria you’ve really got to make the most of it!

Rosa Loves: Very cool idea, even if they don’t spell it out simply enough on the info section of their site. As far as I can tell, tees are designed with certain real life stories as the inspiration, and some of the proceeds from the sale goes towards helping the people in the stories. Whether you’re down with the charity aspect or not, the tees look good, and the web site is nicely designed.

Shirt A Day: I was pretty skeptical of this site at first… when I didn’t understand it. Now I understand, and I like it. Shirts go on sale for one day, and one day only, the more people order the shirt the cheaper it becomes, at the end of the day everyone pays the final price (so everyone pays the lowest price in the end). Tees are then typically printed and shipped out in 4 days. The designs I saw were pretty good, although I guess they can be quite adventurous with their designs since don’t print up tees before they’re on the site, so they’ll have no stock lying around if they offer a lemon of a design.

Planet Truth: I’m not sure how much more environmentally friendly organic tees are compared to regular ones, but they probably use less water and chemicals (I think I read that in WorldChanging, not sure), and Planet Truth have some decent designs, so do your conscience a favour and check them out.

Oddica Hoodie Blowout: One of my favourite online stores are selling off their hoodies cheap for the rest of the month, I can testify that they’re nicely made and printed, so buy with confidence.

Imperfect Articles: Hands on review of them coming up sometimes next week (tomorrow, probably) but I like their designs so much that I thought I’d give them a mention anyway.

Aloha Victory: Only a small collection of tees at the moment but very cool all the same, some with a slightly retro vibe. I know what you’re thinking, they’re Hawaiian, nope, Florida. Yeah, I thought that was weird too. Oh yeah, they offer free shipping, yay!

AMP Street: Some fantastic designs from this Bangkok outfit, definitely worth a click and a few minutes of your time. I know it’s not exactly my area of expertise, but their bags look pretty cool. I’m very impressed with these guys, can’t wait to see what else they do.

Human Empire: Yeah, I’ve mentioned them before, but they e-mailed me and I was reminded just how good their designs were, how’s about you get reminded too?

Rote Raupe*: I’d never heard of Rote Raupe before, probably because I don’t speak German, but I really like this little project they’ve got going. Every three months they’re going to release a limited edition t-shirt by some of their favourite artists. In December it was Yack Fou, who I’ve mentioned a few times before, and this month it’s Human Empire, who I mentioned a couple of sentences ago. Hmmm, an indie website releasing clothes by their favourite designers, now there’s a thought…

[2 one 5] sale: Everything in the branded collection is down to $20.

Danger Russ: Fresh off having a design printed by Threadless as both a tee, a hoodie, and even baked as a cake, Taylor isn’t resting on his laurels, he’s trying to shift some of his old hoodies that were previously HYA mentioned, and offering a Threadless Gift Certificate contest as a sweetener on the deal. Click through to have it explained in a much better way.

Crooked Monkey: I know some people groan when they hear the term ‘funny college shirts’, and I would count myself among those people, but I must say that Crooked Monkey are of a higher quality than most, they’ve actually got some original ideas, and you wouldn’t be ashamed letting your mother wash them (which is always a big consideration for me!).

• 0 Comments

Sorry, but I’m going to be flaking out a little bit on this post, partly because I ended up going to the pub with my friends tonight and time slipped away from me a little, and partly because I just downloaded the Joost beta client and I want to play around with it. But the blurb from Krudmart is alright, so I guess it could be worse:

“We have not had a women’s sweatshirt on the site in forever and we’re coming back killing it.

This thing is really well constructed (I know I say that a lot but we really have a lot of well constructed hoodies), more on the thick side so it’ll be a little warmer and the cut is fitted to keep you from looking like a lazy lesbian.”

Lazy lesbian? I don’t get it…

Costiness=$144 URL

• 6 Comments

It’s not often that I’ll recommend a hoodie before it has even gone on sale (happened once before I think), but I’m sure I’ll forget about it on the launch date of May 1st, so it’s probably best that I mention it now rather than… not, later.

I know that the whole ‘things that fly spreading out across the design’ has been kind of played out, hell, I was wearing a tee with birds on today. But you know what? If it looks good, it looks good, and this one is a little different from the norm, because the bats are actually embroidered onto the hoodie rather than printed, which you don’t see every day.

They say that the bats are swarming out of the pocket, but it doesn’t seem that believable to me, what if the bats totally filled the pocket opening and swarmed over far more of the hoodie? Would that be something you might be interested in? (Sorry, I’m watching the mid-season opener of Entourage)

Costiness=$68 URL

• 1 Comment

As you would imagine, I was pretty happy to read that all this weeks new releases were being made available as hoodies/longsleeve tees, though you would have thought that Threadless would have done this kind of thing during the winter rather than in the Spring. Sure, its still pretty chilly during the evenings, but we’ve been enjoying some fabulous climate changing weather here over the past week, so my views a bit biased at the moment, I’ll probably be begging for new hoodies next week!

There was some decent releases this week, most of them work better as tees than hoodies, and I was leaning towards ‘Ballad of the Birds‘, but it felt a bit odd not mentioning a hoodie when they had so many available. I guess that sounds like I’m not really into my pick of the week, but I am, they’re just really different types of designs. Birds has been done before as well, not necessarily like this, but I’ve seen quite a few birds on a power line tees before. ‘Stick Figures in Peril‘ on the other hand, looks pretty original to even if it is a skull and crossbones design. The dedication to detail is amazing, I’d love to see it first hand because I would be willing to bet it looks fantastic.

As usual, tees $15-17, hoodies $40, longsleeves $25.

• 0 Comments

2one5 pretty much came out of nowhere, a couple of months ago I hadn’t heard of them, and now they’re a staple amongst tee blogs, with new stuff coming from them on an almost weekly basis. I could easily get jaded about brands that are new to me since I see so many every week, but there’s something refreshingly earnest about 2one5 and their approach to design. They also happen to make some lovingly crafted tees. Yes, quite a few of their products are logo based in some kind of way (and I know a lot of people hate that), but a lot of the designs are really far removed from their regular logo, so it’s kind of like they’ve just used 2one5 as a starting point or theme for their lines.

I really like this tee, the design is big, bold and bright. I don’t really know why, but I get a kind of retro Spanish vibe from this design. I guess the retro part comes from the nuclear atom-like curves and dots at the top of the design, but the Spanish part? I have no idea where that came from. There’s quite a lot going on in the design, crowns, loops, bridge towers, stars, skylines, and even a baseball, but it doesn’t really feel too busy, it all just kinda fits together.

I don’t know what stock tee this is, but it feels pretty good, quite thick and heavy, but pretty soft at the same time. The printing is high quality too, there isn’t a single defect across the whole image, which is pretty impressive considering how large it is, the ink is on fairly thick so it’s a slightly raised print. I sometimes worry about how such a big print will work out when it’s washday in the HYA household, it’s usually an unfounded fear (never wash above 40 degrees!), but I often find that large prints are quite susceptible to cracking, so I’ll probably update this post in a few months after it’s had a good run (maybe I should do that with every tee?).

Costiness=$35 URL

As ever, click through for more pictures.

(more…)

• 2 Comments

I dunno what’s up with me at the moment, I’ve had three migraines over the past four days and I have no idea why, I’ve been sleeping well, eating healthily, and drinking enough fluid, usually I can pinpoint a trigger for them, but I’m pretty flummoxed at the moment, hopefully this phase will pass pretty soon. I was pretty tempted to just skip posting tonight but I figured that since I skipped out last Friday I’d better try and keep on track.

From what I can tell, antlers seem to be really in at the moment, I dunno why, but I think this hoodie implements them pretty well, since they cross over the zipper really naturally and the (presumably faux) fur trim around the hood fits in with the theme. Another really nice touch is that the zipper itself looks like a rifle round, which is pretty clever, and would help people fit in around my area (we pretty much have more rifles and shotguns than people in the valley).

Also, does anyone else find that model really quite attractive?

Last thing, how great is the name ‘Cardboard Robot’ for a clothing label!

Costiness=$115 URL

• 3 Comments

I added in a blazer category a few months ago hoping to add in a bit more variety to the blog, I love hoodies, but sometimes its fun to change things up a bit. Unfortunately I haven’t found that many blazers and jackets that I want to put on here, so that category has remained pretty empty since its inception. Hopefully I can change that in the future, especially since I found out last month that I look pretty dashing in a jacket.

Anyway, that intro was way too long. I really like this blazer, like the CaliRoots people say, it is a “nice cut jacket!”, with a cool pattern (something which seems to be all the rage at the mo) and some interesting details, such as the lack of buttons on the front - is it a coat or a jacket? - and having a button on the left pocket but not on the right. Okay, fair enough, all the cool details seem to revolve around buttons, but I guess buttons can be pretty interesting sometimes.

Costiness= 600SEK (around $85.71) URL

• 0 Comments