January 2009

Off the bat, I think it’s important to mention what will probably be the biggest sticking point for most of you: the price. This t-shirt costs €105. Whether the economy was in the tank or not, that would be a pretty tough sell, but I do think that Cassida are doing a lot more than some other premium t-shirt brands to help you justify dropping that cash on a tee.

The metaphor is fairly obvious, businessmen are gladiators, and I’m sure that there’s a lot of people working on Wall Street in America and Docklands in England that would agree with such sentiment. To a degree I can just about see how that works, especially if you extend the metaphor to include what Michael Quester, the man behind Cassida who has also previously been a winner at Design By Humans, wants to bring from the brand; reimagining the extravagance and opulence of the Roman empire in his first independent line of clothing. I guess that explains the rhinestones and foil then.

There is some really interesting stuff going on with these Cassida tees, and I’m really surprised that there isn’t much mention of it on their site because there has clearly been a huge amount of effort put into producing a highly-customised tee of very high quality. Compared to a ‘normal’ t-shirt, almost every aspect of Cassida’s blanks has been changed in some way; there’s little cuts on the hem to create a vintage look, and it actually works, it doesn’t look like someone just got bored with a pair of scissors. There’s inside-out stitching all over the place, which adds to the interest, and I really like the quad-stitching (anyone care to enlighten me with a correct technical term?) around the neck.

The tees do run pretty small, but they feel really good, easily some of the best I’ve ever come across, and the printing is of a high-quality too, and that includes the oft-troublesome glitter/foil areas. The tees comes in a cardboard box that has the Cassida logo on it, which is a nice-touch and helps reinforce the luxury feel of the brand.

Cassida are clearly producing t-shirts of a very high standard, but it would be very hard for me to justify spending €105 on a single t-shirt, though having said that, judging by the shops I’ve browsed in St Tropez numerous times (but never bought anything), there is certainly a market for t-shirts around that price point, and people that are willing to buy them.

Costiness=€105 Buy the tee from Cassida

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