Very clever Laurent, I see what you’ve done here, you’ve taking a traditional image of advertising (the ubiquitous neon signs often found in the Far East) and then turned it around to advertise a hatred of advertising, I’m onto you and your games!

And see what I’ve done? I’ve made it seem as if I’m annoyed, when actually, I really like this design, I’m an enigma like that!

Costiness=€24/22 Links: Longsleeve/Shortsleeve

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So, do you love the fine city of Philadelphia enough to wear its skyline across your chest?

Personally, I didn’t even know that Philly had a famous skyline. Still, I like the imperfect print on the charcoal long-sleeve tee, and how damn long has it been since we had a long-sleeve tee on HYA (that wasn’t sent to me for review)?

Costiness=$30 (shipping included) Link

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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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I love this idea, black ink saying ‘black shirt’ printed onto… a black shirt.

Hi-larious.

Oh, and their tees are fantastic too, I was going to write about them, but this is meant to be a sleeved-blog and I feel like I’ve been neglecting that aspect somewhat recently.

Costiness=$34 URL

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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.

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It was a real toss-up between ‘Moon Kite’ and ‘Growth for the Sake of Growth‘ (from the Select line) this week, but I eventually sided with Monn Kite since, it’s cheaper, doean’t confuse me as much as those crabs (so over my head), and is available as a long sleeve tee, which is what HYA is for, after all.

This tee actually reminds me of one my favourite Threadless designs, ‘A Fathom Farewell‘, its kind of playful, whilst being a bit sad at the same time, and the subtle use of blue helps to set off the white as well, it doesn’t really feel like a straigh B&W design.

Costiness=$15 for guys, $17 for girls (equality? pah!) and $25 for the long sleeve. URL

Disclosure: all the links in this post are streetteam links.

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Even though This is Spinal Tap was made 22 years ago it has managed to retain lodged in the psyche of popular culture, and the infamous ‘eleven’ scene seems to have become a prime target for clothing designers. So I present to you a couple of designs that have caught my eye over the past week.

Both designs are pretty simple, and pretty subtle. Which I like, since ‘in your face’ designs that are meant to be funny aren’t really my bag, and these could happily fly under the radar if I met someone that didn’t know the joke, which keeps things simple, there’s nothing worse than having to explain a joke.

The first one comes from a pop culture and politics outift called Dumbgun, and whilst I don’t really agree with their choice of colour for the promo picture, I do think it could look a lot nicer in one of the other options that they give. The rounded nature of the design gives it a kind of stamp look, which is different (although I should note that it is screen printed). It costs a reasonable $29.95 and can be found here.

The ubiquitous Paul Frank brings us our second item for the day, with a more technically minded and sharper looking volume knob, printed onto a long-sleeve tee. Whilst I do like the design, I’m once again having issues with the choice of colour, perhaps black would have been more appropriate (and more rock!). Would I be right in thinking that this design is actually more accurate to Marshall amps (I only have a small Marshall that doesn’t have all the numbers)? It costs $36 and can be found here.

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Tags » blue • dumbgun • eleven 11 • hoodie • knob • music • spinal tap • this is spinal tep

Whenever Nico (or the talented contributor from stylebytes.net) from Teees does a post and mentions that the store he’s looking at sells hoodies, I always click those links, because a) he has taste, and b) it really helps me in finding new stores to check out.

And today tattoo-to-tee outift Sailor Jerry was up on the Teees smorgasbord of delights (geddit? Norwegian blog… smorgasbord? And yes, I know that word is primarily Swedish). SJ offer tattoo style designs on a wide variety of clothes, like tees, hoodies, long-sleeve tees, work shirts, there’s even tat-inspired even lingerie!

The hoodies are cool, they have kind of a biker feel to them, but I haven’t recommended a long-sleeve tee for a long time, and hey, that girl looks pretty hot (up the the nose at least). I really dig the classic anchor design, admittedly it might be a tad simple for some of you, but like their blurb says, “In a world loaded with bullshit, these shirts aren’t having any of it.” (I don’t really know what that means, but I think it illustrates my point)

The blurb also says that the shirt is manufactured in downtown L.A. (printed in Philly), so I’m gonna stick my neck out and say that it might be printed on American Apparel stock, though the price makes me wonder if that would be possible.

Costiness=$15 URL

• 3 Comments
Tags » American Apparel • anchor • blue • hot model • Long-sleeve T • sailor jerry • teees • Womens

If it’s good enough for Cool Hunting, it’s good enough for me.

It would seem that making clothing out of cotton doesn’t cut it anymore, bamboo is the de rigeur material. (that sentence sucked just because I wanted to write ‘de rigeur‘)

Bam Clothing don’t seem to be too into logos or prints at the moment (the furthest they go is some rather typical preppy-frat-boy typography that proclaims ‘BAMBOO’), but you can’t deny quality, whether it has pretty pictures or not. The most amazing thing to me is - if I’m reading this right - that the inherent properties of Bamboo mean the shirt is antibacterial, does that mean that this long sleeve tee actually has the ability to clean you!!?!?OMGZZZ Sure does sound like the future to me.

Costiness=£34.50 URL

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Tags » bam clothing • bamboo • cool hunting

I like the Handsome Sausage, there’s something about the collision between hand-drawn designs and super-soft printing that makes me feel good, it just seems like a company that wants to get things right, and do things in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you have a nice tee, but the person that made it got $0.01 for your pleasure. In the package there was a little thankyou slip explaining how the shirts are non-sweatshop (American Apparel), and printed using a non-toxic ink. I was amazed to hear a few months back on the news just how much ink is used to colour a single tee, I forget the figures now, but it was more than you would expect, so it’s good to see companies going non-toxic (I presume lots of other indies do the same, but I just haven’t noticed).

I got a little carried away with my review, so most of its size will be under a cut (kinda like an iceberg)
(more…)

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Tags » blue • handsome sauage • Long-sleeve T • pink • review • t-shirt • T-shirts • yellow