I’ve been a big fan of Go Ape Shirts ever since I first encountered them, and usually when a company comes to me to send me a sample to say thanks for my posts or for a review I let them pick the tee themselves. Not so with Go Ape, I know that they’ve got loads of great designs, but I’ve had my eye on Kill-o-vision since the day it came out, so when Josh asked me if I wanted a tee one day, I knew exactly which design I wanted to turn up at my doorstep. I should make it clear that I wasn’t sent this tee for a review, Go Ape were just being nice guys, but I like this one so much that it felt almost criminal not doing a review of it.
The second paragraph is where I usually discuss the design. Where on Earth do I start? There’s just so much stuff going on. The Space Invaders? The slogans in the form of adverts? The woman holding a razor blade? The birds (doves of peace?)? The skull and crossbones with mickey mouse wearing a gas-mask as the skull? The stars? The inverted cross? So… much… imagery… head… going… to… explode!
The funny thing is, despite all those elements, it feels like a well-rounded design that is actually pretty well balanced against the rather subdued slate-coloured AA tee that the design is printed on. As with most of my favourite tees, I don’t really get the message, perhaps its something about how media has such an effect upon culture, I dunno, I’m just a guy that looks at tees and goes “ZOMG, Space Invaders!!!”, and sadly enough, that is a straight quote from my mouth.
In terms of quality, the stock tee is American Apparel, so draw your own conclusions from that, I’m a fan, I know some people aren’t, I certainly agree with some people’s reservations about their quality control not being as good as it could be, although I’m sure that most tee brands check over the tee before they print on it so its not usually an issue. The print feels pretty good too, with a print of this size with so many colours you never really know whats going to happen along the line, but I’ve washed this one about three times already and have noticed very little change in the vibrancy of the print. The way that go ape have printed their tag on the inside of the shirt is nice too, very Threadless-like in the way that they incorporate the design and their logo into it. I’m afraid its sold out in all but guys XL and XXL at the moment (which makes a change from the usual), but you never know when it’ll be reprinted.
Costiness=$18 Link (previous Go Ape Shirts coverage on HYA)
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