Usually, I like to kick off reviews with a little story or memory, just because I like to personalise these things a bit. Unfortunately, I have no stories about safety pins, and any story about lightning would probably be pretty terrible without any pics attached, so I guess I’m going to put on my rarely worn hat of professionalism and dive straight into the meat of the review.

The design? I don’t get it, but then again, taking a look at the rest of Your Eyes Lie’s tees, there’s quite a few of them that I don’t get, so I’m not really worried about that, they’re just operating on a different plane (plain?) to me. Not getting it doesn’t stop me from liking it though, its simple, its stark, and the colours contrast just as much as the two subjects of the print, hey, maybe that’s what it means! There’s a really attractive dirty style to a lot of their designs, and a kind of rock n’ roll arrogance that

Quality: impressive, its a bit thicker than your usual tee, but that doesn’t seem to make it feel any less flexible than its less weightier brethren, though I guess it could be a bit less breathable during the summer months, but its not exactly the right weather at the moment for me to test that. Size wise, the tees run small compared to ‘regular’ sizings, so order a size up if you aren’t into showing off what you’ve got! The water-based ink feels like quality as well, and I can imagine it gaining a decent vintage look after a few washes.

One thing about this tee to note, I can’t actually find anywhere you can buy it. Your Eyes Lie are selling this exclusively through Urban Outfitters, and I can’t find it on either the UK or US site, so presumably its just not available yet, if/when I find out when it is available I’ll drop in the real link to the tee, but for now consider this a review of YEL overall, and the review has two thumbs way up.

Costiness=£?? Link

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Another design from my current brand-crush, Print Brigade, because, well, just look at it!

Oh, and get 10% off at the checkout with the coupon code HOLIDAY until Christmas Day.

Costiness=$16 Link

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Let it be said, the guys over at Kindred have absolutely no fear when it comes to making bizarre designs and pairing them with equally odd descriptions:

When bartering with a cannibal it is important to note that they take things very literally especially when it comes to payment. Godfrey learned this lesson the hard way after bartering for some shrunken heads in exchange for goat cheese and three fingers of Scotch. The cannibal mistaking him for a Scotsman came to collect payment. Godfrey protested and claimed to be French Canadian at which point the cannibal cackled away his protestations and produced a bone saw.

Waaahhhhh??? Ok gang, educate me, is this a film reference that I’m just not getting?

Costiness=$59 Link (not available for purchase at time of writing)

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Well, this isn’t going to be at all awkward. Me, a young guy who doesn’t have a girlfriend looking at an underwear site, and thinking that he should tell women what underwear to buy…

But! I See France aren’t exactly Agent Provocateur, they sell ‘cute underthings’, and I wouldn’t feel like I should stand outside their store if I’d been dragged in there by a friend. Okay, is that enough justification that I’m not a pervert?

They’ve also get a great big sale going on across the site, with some of their underoos going for the rock bottom price of $6, because nothing says ‘i love you’ like $6 underwear as a Christmas gift!

Costiness=$23 (top) $20 (shorts) Link

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I don’t know why, but I’ve been sitting on posting Print Brigade for a few months after finding them on Flickr, saving them for a rainy day of designs perhaps. In retrospect, that’s pretty stupid, they’ve got amazing designs and I should have posted them as soon as I found out about them.

Anyway, I really love their style, and this hoodie is just the tip of the iceberg, click on through for all the goodness.

Costiness=$35 Link

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I don’t think I would have dared to wear this on either of my past two trips to France, since they seemed to be frustrated enough by my inability to speak fluent French (ever tried ordering a mosquito blind when apparently you don’t know what either word is?) without me wearing a tee with every French stereotype there is on it, but it doesn’t stop me thinking that its a cool design now that I’m in the safety of northern England. Although, I guess that since it was designed by a Frenchman its all tongue in cheek, although it seems a little odd to me that all the words are written in English rather than French.

Costiness=€22 Link: Blue, Gold

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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