I knew who David Lee Roth was since we’re both hard rockin’ amigos (though, admittedly, I didn’t recognise him from the tee), but Patrick Nagel was a new name to me, which I think shows my considerable lack of art history knowledge, but once I found this website about him I did actually recognise the style (I’m cultured!), and the t-shirt started to make a whole lot more sense.

I did something quite unusual with this t-shirt; I wore it on a night out before doing the review. Usually I take the pictures, do the review, and then I’ll wear it at some point in the future, but with this tee I took the pictures then wore it on a Saturday night out with my friends. One of the problems with everyone knowing that I have a large collection of t-shirts that have been sent to me for free rather than me picking and choosing them from shops is that they feel they can say whatever they want about my clothes. Reactions ranged from “that is a horrible t-shirt”, “that looks really weird”, to “isn’t that the guy from Twisted Sister?” Over an entire night only one of my friends realised that the image was of Diamond Dave of Van Halen fame, and none of them were particularly enamoured with it. Out of everyone I know, I’m the only person that actually likes this shirt, so I think that the Patrick Nagel style combined with Roth’s rather ‘unique’ appearance really makes this a ‘love it or hate it’ kind of design, although I guess it could be a British thing, maybe in the US where Van Halen were a lot bigger it would be a whole different story. But its not just the person that I find interesting about this tee, the bright, bold, and numerous colours of Roth and the pink stripes in the background being put over the dullness of the grey t-shirt work really well, providing great contrast.

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction have been impressing pretty much everyone with their designs, and I’m just as impressed with their quality level, and the press package that they’ve put together. I don’t usually talk about the little press bits that I get sent, but they looked really cool (pics below), and made it feel like they were a company who put a lot more into the design aspect of their business than just the end product. The blank tee is provided by American Apparel, so we all know what the deal is there by now, and the print is amongst the thickest plastisol ink that I’ve ever had (I could be wrong about it being plastisol though). I would imagine that the print is thick because they wanted to produce really solid, vibrant colours, in keeping with Nagel’s style, but it doesn’t make the tee feel at all heavy.

Costiness=$34 Link

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Tags » AITA • Aperican Apparel • Art in the Age • David Lee Roth • grey • music • negative space • Patrick Nagel • T-shirts • Thom Lessner • Van Halen

Every so often I get reminded by people just how much water and chemicals it takes to make a t-shirt, I’m pretty sure that they’re just jealous because my t-shirt collection is so awesome, but they are making a good point about how I’m destroying the planet by having tees in my closet that only get worn every few months.

I know I’m being flippant in the above paragraph, but seriously,
Continental Clothing are attempting to do their part in the global war on climate change with their new Earth Positive range. Over the past couple of years Continental have been trying to make the company more environmentally friendly, they’ve managed to reduce the carbon emissions of the entire production and shipping process for a basic white tee (size large) by a massive 89% to just 671 grams. It should be noted that this isn’t done by carbon offsetting, they’ve physically reduced the amount of gases that are being emitted from production, in part by only using green energy suppliers that use wind and solar power, using biodegradable packaging, no airfreighting, . This particular tee is also 100% organic (are you surprised?), as certified by the Soil Association, and produced under the Global Organic Textile Standard from Indian Cotton.

These steps have led to the Carbon Trust (a UK governmental organisation) asking for Continental Clothing to serve as a case study for the clothing industry so that others can benefit from their research and development, so they’ve clearly done some impressive work here improving their products.

Its quite hard to review a t-shirt like this, because even though you know it is much better for the environment, it still just feels like a normal (albeit high-quality) t-shirt. Obivously, that’s a good thing, if a t-shirt sucks, people probably wouldn’t buy it just because it wasn’t bad for the environment, so creating something that is either better than the original, or of equal quality whilst resulting in about a tenth of the emissions is a great step for them to make. I had noticed Continental Clothing becoming popular with more and more brands (including perennial HYA supporter Turtlehead) over the past few months, and I would imagine that a tee like this would be popular with people that usually look towards American Apparel when they’re picking a stock tee to print their tees on.I can’t find any information about pricing in the literature, or on the websites, but I would imagine that it would be pretty comparable to most similar offerings from other organic and ethical producers.

You can see the whole range (more than just t-shirts) at the dedicated Earth Positive Online site, and there’s also some info on the range and everything else CC at the main Continental Clothing site.

Yes, I managed to take extra pictures of a blank shirt.

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Tags » continental clothing • eco • Environmental • green • review • Reviews • T-shirts

Clearly Social-T are trying to help me impress the ladies in my life (free t-shirts=love, right?), seeing as they’ve sent over this girlie sized version of their April ‘issue’. Since I covered their subscription model fairly extensively in my last review of Social-T it seems a little silly to go over the entire process again just a week later, so if you missed the first review then check out this post and you’ll find out what sets Social-T apart from other t-shirt companies.

Most of Social-Ts shirts have a social message or issue attached to them, and that is the case with this design. This one takes a look at over-development and pollution in coastal areas, and how that is threatening surf spots. I know, there are bigger things to worry about than where people can go surfing (of course, I don’t surf, so I would say that), but I’m sure that if I lived in a place where the water was rather more inviting then I’d be all over this like a rash, a rash that I would have presumably got from pollution in the water whilst surfing. The 20 spots are listed on the back of the tee in a highly, highly, stylised font, so it doesn’t look like a bands tour t-shirt, which is always a danger when you’re putting a list on the back of a tee.

The quality level, as you’d expect if you read the last review, is pretty damned good. The stock tee is once again provided by American Apparel, I don’t have much experience of wearing girls tees, as you’d imagine, so I can’t really tell you much about the cut, but it feels just as soft as the guys ones and that’s good enough for me. The print feels a little bit thicker than the other Social-Ts that I’ve reviewed, but that might just be because this tee has the largest coverage of print of the three I’ve seen. It isn’t a big issue though, the printing is still of a high-quality. As with their other tees, there is info printed on the inside neck of the tee instead of a hang tag, so there’s not even a chance of tag-showing embarrassment.

Costiness=$32 a month (discounts available for 6 & 12 month subscriptions) Link

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Tags » blue • review • Reviews • social T • Subscription • t-shrits • waves

The second of tee to fall out of the envelope from Your Eyes Lie this week was Skull Bow. Well, I presume its called Skull Bow, YEL don’t really name their tees, but thats what the product ID says so I’m going to roll with it. In my review earlier this week I spoke a bit about the passion that YEL have for their product and what they’ve been through to get where they are, and I’m not going to repeat myself about that, so check out the first review if you’re after some background on the company.

It seems like I’ve spent a lot of this week talking about how it isn’t necessarily that important to ‘get’ a design or understand the meaning behind a t-shirt, and when I’m presented with an image of a skull with a bow-tie wrapped around its non-existent neck, with three rings in the skull where the ear should be, I’m inclined to suggest that not understanding the meaning of the shirt is okay here too, rather than attempting some ill-informed pop-psychology. I really like the image itself, the black on white print in the photocopy style gives it a washed-out grittiness, whilst it also has a few lines around the top of the skull that make it look like an illustration that you’d find in an old school textbook. I do have to take issue with the three ear rings though, they give it an almost cartoon-ish quality that doesn’t sit too well with what I regard as a fairly macabre image, even if the bow-tie is probably there to provide some comic relief.

The quality is impressive, I know YEL spent a long time creating a stock tee to print on and I think all the effort was worth it, they really have produced a beautifully soft, high-quality t-shirt that I know lasts well with washing and doesn’t lose its shape. The print quality is decent too, and doesn’t fade too much with repeated washings, although I think that tees of this style are well suited to a vintage look, so fading probably wouldn’t be as bigger deal as usual if it were to occur, I guess.

Costiness=£15.50 Link

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Tags » Mens • monochrome • review • Reviews • skull • white • Womens • YEL • youreyeslie

HYAs latest advertiser, Social T, sent a couple of tees over recently, which is great because it gave me a chance to make sure that I was still advertising a quality product, because I want you guys to trust the people that I let advertise on this site. I think it says a lot about Social T that even though they’ve already sent me a sample in the past that they wanted me to check out more of their limited edition tees.

For those of you that are unaware, Social T is a company that runs on the subscription model that is increasing in popularity. Basically, you can pay each month, or a prepaid plan (2, 3, 6, or 12 months) and a new tee will arrive on your doorstep around the 15th of each month. Social T will only print as many tees as they have subscribers for that month, so these tees are pretty limited edition, if you’re into that kind of thing. Of course, you do have to make a leap of faith with services like these since you don’t know what will be inside the envelope each month. I quite like being surprised when I receive a tee (I make a point of never picking a certain design when offered a sample), but I guess its different when you’re actually paying for the clothing. Luckily, Social T do have a style that they don’t deviate from too dramatically, so you can judge from their back catalogue of ‘issues‘ whether your style fits with theirs, and hopefully you won’t be disappointed at what you pull out of the package each month.

I know I said that the house style at Social T doesn’t deviate very much, but that doesn’t mean that they’re sticking to a certain type of design, I just think that if you like one of their tees, its fairly likely that you’re going to like most of them. Social T aren’t just making tees that look good (hey, they’re called ‘Social’ for a reason), they’re also meant to help spread the message about social issues and spark up a conversation, and they manage to do it in a way that isn’t preachy. For example, today’s shirt (Issue 15, January 2008) is a bit on the lighter side and has “I resolve to be a better human being” written on it, a lot, obviously as a reference to people making New Year’s resolutions, which isn’t exactly a hard hitting social issue, and as such doesn’t serve as a very good example for what I was trying to say, but I would imagine it could have been a pretty decent pick-me-up if I’d got this in the mail in mid-January just as I was starting to lose track of my resolutions and think that “one doughnut isn’t going to matter.”
Quality is impressive (shocking, I know). The stock tee is provided by American Apparel, so the vast majority of readers know what you’re getting there (soft cotton, sweatshop-free, made in Los Angeles, slim fit, hipster friendly), and the printing is good too. You can feel the print, but it certainly is not rough. I can also attest to the print on Social T’s goods being long-lasting too, since issue 13 is still looking good in my wardrobe with a distinct lack of fading. Instead of a custom tag or the standard AA tag, Social T have printed a tag inside the shirt which has all the expected details on it, plus a mysterious ‘rn#103255′, which I guess might be some kind of print number, so that you know its limited edition, but I could easily be wrong, it has happened before… once.Costiness=$32 per month (some prepaid deals are cheaper per month) Link

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Tags » green • Mens • message • olive • review • Reviews • social • social T • Subscription • T-shirts • Womens

It’s always fun to get mail from unexpected places, and Thailand is one of those places. I’m pretty used to receiving mail from America by now, but the far East is still something of a novelty for me in terms of mail, and even though I know that Your Eyes Lie are a UK/Thai operation, I was expecting a package with stamps bearing the Queens face rather than a serious looking Thai guy. I’m sure the very mention of Thailand and clothes has immediately got some of you worrying about the conditions that these clothes were made in, but have no fear, these tees have nothing to do with little kids that have excellent sewing skills and a lot to do with a creative partnership between British graphic designer Ben Yarwood and Thai fashion designer Alisa Longsuwan.
I met Ben at Margin and we had a good chat about all things YEL and HYA, he told me all about the stresses of creating a tee to print on (no stock AAs here!), the significance of being picked up by Urban Outfitters, and gave me a better overall understanding for a brand that I knew I liked, but didn’t quite get.This tee is also something that I don’t quite get. The phrase ‘Hand of Prey’ is actually a Googlewhack, with the link going to a PDF about the History of Veterinary Medicine in the late Islamic Period… so I don’t think that’s where they got their inspiration from for this piece. But I think not knowing what it means is pretty cool too, t-shirts don’t necessarily have to mean something, and you don’t necessarily have to understand it if they do. The important thing is that they look cool, and undoubtedly this does, black and white tees always give you a lot of options when you’re pairing up your tee with something, which is why I like that combo so much.
Considering how much time YEL put into creating a quality t-shirt (I think they spent about six months testing and retesting different styles, cuts and material blends) its hardly a surprise that they’ve produced something impressive. The first tee of theirs that I reviewed is still going strong four months on, although you should bear in mind that since I own so many tees I don’t wear the same tee as often as most people do. It is quite a fitted shirt, and not particularly long in the body either, definitely a quality product, and the custom tags are a nice touch as well.

Costiness=£15.50 Link

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Tags » • bird • monochrome • review • Reviews • Thailand • UK • white • YEL • youreyeslie

I’m kinda worried about wearing this tee outside my house because I’m unsure over whether it counts as a ‘religious’ tee (though I will tag it as that). It isn’t necessary pro or anti Christianity, but I’m not sure that Christians would be particularly happy seeing Jesus puffing on a death stick. I’ll have to ask my designated Christian friend about it, even though we never discuss religion, presumably for fear of ruining our friendship. Can you see the risks that I take for you people!

Blasphemy aside, I think it’s interesting that Individualitee went with an image of Jesus that isn’t that cartoony, obviously it is a cartoon, but it doesn’t seem to be an image that is directly meant to make us laugh, which makes the tee slightly less whacky, and as I’m not a fan of wackiness, that is something that I’m happy about. One issue that I have with this image is that I always thought the phrase was “holy smokes,” but a quick trip to google suggests that both forms are acceptable, so that issue is probably all in my head.

I was excited to receive this tee because Individualitee’s website is powered by the Spreadshirt print-on-demand service. I know that there are some people will not buy tees from services like this, but when the quality is as good as this then I don’t really understand why. Though having said that I do think that Spreadshirt offer a rather more superior quality when compared to other POD services (though more research is needed on that subject). The main image is printed with flock, but thin and flexible flock, which I was impressed to see since the last flock item I got from Spreadshirt about 4 years ago was much thicker (hurrah for progress!). There is also a little logo on the left sleeve which is printed with regular ink (probably plastisol). The tee is from a stock that I haven’t experienced before called B&C European Style, the cut is of the regular style, similar to Fruit of the Loom, and I’d call it similar in terms of quality, possibly even a little bit softer.

Costiness=$23 Link

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Tags » ash • flock • grey • individualitee • jesus • religious • review • Reviews • spreadshirt • t-shirt

I wrote about this t-shirt ten days ago, and then it turned up in the mail a couple of days ago, so I’m going to ask again, Ferrari, if you want me to review an Enzo, I’ll gladly have one for the weekend. You have eight days to respond!
For those of you that are unaware, the slogan on this tee comes from a speech made by Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, and even though it isn’t mentioned explicitly, I think that the quote clearly relates to his sounds-nice-but-doesn’t-mean-a-thing messages of ‘hope’ and ‘change’. When I first wrote about this tee a commenter, Carl, said that the design was lacking since there was so much wasted space. At the time I thought that Carl might be right, especially as we all know that huge type looks sweet, but now that I’ve had it in my hands I feel a bit different, the size feels about right, perhaps not having it dominate the shirt is meant to make the message seem a bit calmer and less shouty than it would with a large type tee? Also, I really like the use of a full stop to try and reinforce the message.
This is an organic tee from American Apparel’s ‘Sustainable Edition‘, which presumably means that the cotton plants get massages just like the AA employees famously do. This is actually the first AA organics tee I’ve received, and I must say I’m impressed, it feels pretty much the same as a regular AA tee, which I guess is what you want, no reduction in quality whilst producing an environmentally conscientious product. I don’t know how they last through various washings, so if anyone has experience with them I’d appreciate an opinion. Print is fairly thick, I think its plastisol ink.Costiness=$18.50 Link

• 6 Comments
Tags » ban t-shirts • barack obama • black • political • t-shirt • text

I don’t really watch many horror movies anymore, not because I’m particularly scared of the content (I’m a man who proudly boasted in his Facebook status of my opinion that Sweeney Todd ‘wasn’t that gory’), just because there aren’t that many premises out there for horror movies that really appeal to me. One of the things that I don’t like about most t-shirt designs that attempt to appeal to horror fans is the way that they seem to be covered with blood splatters and unnecessarily gruesome images, its as if the designers are trying to create an offensive image that, to me, renders it unwearable in most everyday situations. Dance Party Massacre aren’t like that, if you’ll allow me to get poetic for a second, they’re like a breath of fresh air in a haunted house filled with the stench of stale blood (ooooh, dark!).

Let’s get this out of the way at the start, the face-mask glows in the dark. So you know that I’m gonna love this tee, and especially in the context that the thing that’s often so scary about horror movies is that you can’t see the scary thing, so DPM turned that concept on its head by making sure you can always see their object of terror. This design is typical of Dance Party Massacre’s style, they try and put ambiguity and angles for interpretation into each tee and this is no different. In their own words:

There’s evil out there, and in every slasher film it’s represented as the masked psychopath. This is our version of the boogeyman coming for us. And those hands inside of it—are they dancing, or reaching out for help?

In terms of quality, Dance Part Massacre manage to put out a pretty impressive package. In my envelope (I don’t know if they sent me any special freebies) there was the tee, a DPM printed plastic carrier bag, a load of promo postcards, a pin button, and a sticker. There’s big pics of all of them at the bottom of the post. The tee itself feels good, it doesn’t have a stock tag in it but I get the feeling that it might be AA, but I’m not too used to handling Large sized AA tees (no, I haven’t dropped the pounds yet, DPM don’t to up to XL yet) so I could be wrong. The print feels quality too, and I’ll be interested to see how the glow-in-the-dark treatment lasts with multiple washings.

Costiness=$28 Link

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Tags » dance • dance party massacre • glow • glow in the dark • green • horror • massacre • movie • party • t-shirt

I don’t usually wear review tees before writing the review, but I’d been unusually conscientious and taken both sets of Chaunce pics on the same day, meaning I could wear this one on a Saturday night out with my friends. On the whole, they liked it, there’s no need for me to tell them a story for them to understand it, and most importantly, I’ve never met anyone that thought a gorilla wasn’t cool. Maybe I should do test runs with every tee I get sent? That way I can judge it from a t-shirt obsessive’s point of view, and along get the view of ‘normal’ people.
Like I said in the above paragraph, gorilla’s are cool, couldn’t you just watch them all day? I wouldn’t want to be near a gorilla when its angry like the one on the tee, but hot damn I’d enjoy watching it on TV! I love the use of selective printing in the design, I’m sure that isn’t what you’d call it, but I wouldn’t really call it a high-contrast image, they’ve just printed enough to make it clear that this is a gorilla, and its pissed. I like the colourway, nice and subtle. Some of my friends did note that it was fairly hard to make out that it was a gorilla, although that was when we were under fairly dark coloured lighting in a club, so that might be an unjust slight on the design. And considering that in the black version of this tee the print is dark gray, I would say that its meant to be that way.
As with the other Chaunce tee I reviewed, this one feels good quality too (so the other wasn’t a one off!). Since I believe its a custom tee I guess you want to know about the shape. Compared to American Apparel, I think its ever so slightly wider, about the same length, a bit thicker and more heavyweight, the arms are about the same shape and its a little bit less stretchy. Basically, a slightly heavier fashion fit tee than usual. The printing is decent too, fairly thickly printed, feels as if its going to last. Much like the previous tee, this one also has Chaunce’s logo (a small gorilla) printed on the back lower right of the tee, and there is also a small, light blue tag on the sleeve, pretty unobtrusive, I actually like how it contrasts.Costiness=$24.99 Link

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Tags » • chaunce • chaunce clothing • gorilla • green • review • t-shirt • white