Barcelona is probably one of my most visited (contintental) European cities, I think I’ve been there about five times, yet I’ve never actually spent a night in the city (the nightlife is amazing, apparently), its always been day trips from other holiday resorts, or stopping off on a cruise. I think I’ve seen pretty much all of Barcelona’s major attractions, but I certainly haven’t seen the more hidden aspects of Spain’s second city.

That’s kind of where inVIAGGIO comes in. I always think that the aspects of travel that I enjoy most aren’t the obvious ones, and they’ve followed this train of thought when it comes to their location-inspired tees. What’s the most famous landmark in Barcelona? The Sagrada Familia, right? So why isn’t that on the front of this long-sleeve tee? Because that’s waaaayy too obvious and will make you look like a tourist (even if you are one, you don’t want people to know!). They’ve gone for that little thing that you notice, that you will forever associate with that place and your experience. For me, that was having hot chocolate and churros at breakfast one time, I don’t know why, for inVIAGGIO its… whatever this thing is. A warning sign? Something from a bus stop? I guess that really it doesn’t matter, its whatever you want it to be. Their whole range of tees is based upon this kind of thought-process, and I think it does give a bit more depth to each design, though it should noted that ‘el barcelona’ is probably the most abstract of the designs, to me, at least.

Let’s talk quality. This is a quality product, I want to make that clear from the off, the 50/50 tee from Alternative Apparel’s vintage soft line is indeed very soft, and has a lovely worn-in feel. But, it is thin, they’ve gone for the burnt out look, and it works really well, I like the black/grey/white palette, but if I were a Hollywood starlet I wouldn’t be wearing it anywhere that the paparazzi’s flash bulbs could see me if you know what I mean. Although, when my brother put it on (the Andyman is not a friend of medium sizes) you certainly could not see anything that you might not necessarily want to be showing off (… your nipples), so that fear is probably a bit misplaced in my head. The print is quite rough, which I’m sure is a feature since it fits in well with their aesthetic, and feels as if it should last pretty well.

Costiness=$45 Link (Flash site, the tee is pretty easy to find in their shop)

• 1 Comment

Our friends over at Waterloo are celebrating their first birthday, and instead of receiving presents like the rest of us do, they’re actually giving them out in the form of a coupon code. If you want 10% off their fine designs, which are increasingly branching out beyond their previous realm of movie and music ‘re-imaginations’, if you’ll pardon my Tim Burton, then just input birthday at the appropriate time during checkout any time up until 11:59PM on December 14th (EST) and the discount will be applied. They’ve also redesigned their site very recently as well, so click on through to check that out.

Well done to them for getting through their first year, and huge thanks to them for being such great supporters of HYA.

Waterloo

• 0 Comments

Hurray, here comes another hoodie that has meaning behind it!

In their blurb, Glarkware have three decent sized paragraphs, at least in terms of product description, going on (and on) about how people get boxed into… boxes, people deciding who they are, judging books from their covers, that kind of thing. The last sentence in the blurb is:

This hoodie lets everyone know that although they may think they have a handle on you, all it takes to change your image is a set of plastic fangs.

Now, that’s a nice statement, and I like the way that they’ve made a message-based design without ramming it down your throat (whilst combining it with a lovely rasterised image). But, I can’t help but think that if someone saw me wearing this hoodie they’d just ask “dude, where’s there a pair of vampire teeth on your hoodie?”

Costiness=$35 Link

• 0 Comments

Its not often that I’ll look at a tee and lol, and its even less often that I’ll actually write ‘lol’, so the Germans at KeinGeschenk really achieved something with this design, bravo!

I think that skulls might be on the way out a bit in terms of tee designs, obviously they’ll always be a popular item to be used in designs, but I think there has just been so many of them in the recent past that there’s been a bit of skull overload. I don’t know how well this tee would come across to someone that isn’t interested in tees, I’m not sure they’d get the point, but I am interested in tees, so I think its awesome. And going beyond the actual joke, the shirt is nicely designed too, with the not-very-surprising (though thats probably the point) pink on black colourway and a well matched typeface.

Costiness=€25 Link

• 0 Comments

HYA fave and frequent Oddica contributor Troy Paiva has knocked another one out of the park by putting more than one ‘exploded’ thing onto a tee. More than one!

The all-over print represents a bit of a departure from the norm for Oddica too, since I think of them more as a front and centre print type company, letting the artwork do the talking rather than the placement. If my memory serves me correctly, a few of the items in the tee have been on Oddica tees before, but whatever that is in the top right is new to me.

In other Oddica news, they’ve launched the second stage of their holiday sale. You can currently get one AA printed tee for $15, 2 for $28, and 3 or more for $13 a piece. Hoodies are $24 and $30, which is cheap, damn cheap. Issue 6 of their ever in-house PDF magazine, packed full of cool illustrations, is out now too.

Costiness=$15 Link (also available as a polo)

• 1 Comment