A little bit late for my 101 Robot Tees post I guess, but the Dept. have put together a really solid group of designs largely based on robots… and we all love robot tees, right?

Fair enough, the 79′ Battlestar Galactica MK-1 Viper on the tee isn’t a robot, but it’s being driven/flown/piloted by an android, so it’s totally a robot tee!

Costiness=$22 Available from the Dept.

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Tags » American Apparel • black • robot • robots • T-shirts • the dept

I think that the irony police might be on the lookout for the Disturbia crew after they’ve released these designs (which you can buy, by the way), about excessive spending. I really like the ‘Keep Buying and Stay Silent’ tee, which is another clever riff on the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster that you see so many variations of nowadays, and the biker-style track jacket looks pretty badass (the wraparound bit in the neck is a nice touch, but the Mastercard parody isn’t really working for me I’m afraid, it just reminds me of ‘funny’ tees you’d see in a souvenir shop on holiday, though it’s safe to presume that Disturbia’s take is produced to a much higher quality, so don’t let me hold you back from spending, spending, spending!

Disturbia Clothing

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Tags » biker • disturbia clothing • economy • funny • parody • T-shirts • text • Track Jackets • typography

Negative space printing in the house!

And yes, that was meant to be a pun.

Costiness=$19.49 Available from MySoti

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Tags » buildings • digisin • mysoti • negative space • POD • T-shirts • text • typography • white

One brand that it would have been nice to see in Berlin at T-Shirt Day (since it’s where they hail from) is Allmightys. They seem to have been a bit quiet recently which is unfortunate because when they release tees you can usually expect them to be of a very high standard, so I wish they’d release them more often!

The four tees above were all winners in their recent ‘Underwater’ themed contest. In the future Allmightys are switching from the themed competitions to a more straight-forward standard design competition that will be an open call for designs. For me this takes away part of what makes Allmightys special, I can understand why it has been done because as soon as you give something a theme you alienate some designers, but the themes were something different from what everyone else was doing (as a main part of their contest). Still, if it produces good designs then I won’t complain again.

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Tags » allmightys • berlin • design competition • design competitions • Germany • T-shirts

This past weekend I went to Berlin to take part in the International T-Shirt Day celebrations being hosted by Spreadshirt in the city. I realise exactly how crazy that sounds, but let’s be honest, if you have a good excuse to go to Berlin, you’re going to go to Berlin, right?

I’ll spare you the holiday snaps I took of the many, many, incredible architectural and historical sites (walk in any direction in Berlin and you’ll find something interesting, it’s a great city), and we’ll focus on what I was actually there to do, report on T-Shirt Day celebrations… and be a model on the Open Runway. Oh yes my friends, on June 21st I became the world’s least professional and most clueless model.

The event was held at the Kaiserstein bar and restaurant in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin, and there was a decent-sized turnout for the event, with lots of teeple meeting and mingling, I must admit that other than Spreadshirt & LaFraise (the event hosts) the only brand I recognised was Silberfischer, though the quality of tees being exhibited by the other brands was impressive. Speaking of teeple that you guys will recognise, I met Adam from Tee Junction, who had done a lot of good work promoting the lead up to t-shirt day by organising lots of competitions and getting lots of companies to have special one day coupons on T-Shirt Day. I also met Spreadshirt CEO Jana Eggers (and her husband Evan, who isn’t in the tee business, but was a great guy so he deserves a mention), who chastised me for having the audacity to wear a Design By Humans tee to the event, but I must say was very nice, how on earth she manages to be CEO and have the energy to participate in triathlons I have no idea, but then again I did consider the walk from the U-Bahn station to the event as my day’s exercise, so I’m probably not the best person to judge.

After some chatter it was time for the main event, the open runway. Despite all 60 spots for the runway being claimed on the T-Shirt Day website, there were actually 34 brands/groups represented, but with some brands showing off multiple tees with multiple models, the show was probably as long as it needed to be to ensure that people didn’t lose interest. With me going 8th people were still happy to clap, and there may have even been a small cheer when I took off my jacket and threw it over my shoulder as if we’d time-warped back to the 80s, but I would imagine that by brand 50 people would have been a bit bored even if the models were covered in fireworks. I can’t really remember that many of the brand names that were involved, so my apologies for the lack of detail to go with the captions of these photos.

These two totally worked the runway, they both started out wearing tees and stripped down to the vests, hot stuff!

You can't really see the tee, but this is one of my favourite photos from the day.

That's me! Click on the picture to see more pictures of the event taken by stylespion

You probably recognise this model from LaFraise... she's cute.

You probably recognise this guy from LaFraise shoots as well.

Jana, Evan, and Eike hit the runway together

I really like this picture, great tee too, if only I knew where it came from

Doesn't matter what you're wearing, you'll get a good reaction with a baby.

As you can probably see from a lot of the photos, there were a lot of photographers and some video/TV people at the end of the runway, which made me feel rather more like a model than just some guy walking on a carpet whilst people looked at him. In short, despite having no clue what I was doing, it was damn fun. I got the feeling that everyone else had a good time too, which is exactly how it should be at an event like this, you don’t need people pulling Blue Steel at the end of the runway, or models that believe smiling and currywurst are crimes, you just need people to have fun, and I think that Spreadshirt did a good job of making sure that happened.

After the runway there was further mingling and chat, and yes, some more beer (I do have a rockstar blogger image to maintain). There were also a couple of racks of LaFraise and Spreadshirt tees up for grabs. Adam and I decided that if you were giving away free t-shirts in England that the ensuing scrum for freebies would result in arguments, fights and probably some guys turning up with a van and just taking the whole rack, but apparently things happen differently in Germany, because people actually looked over the merchandise properly before taking it, and there were even some shirts left at the end of the event… perhaps the public hadn’t quite grasped the concept of ‘free’. I had a thoroughly excellent time at T-Shirt Day ‘09 in Berlin, so big thanks to the Spreadshirt and LaFraise teams for putting the whole event together and doing such a good job, specifically to Ami at Spreadshirt for helping to organise getting me there, and to Adam for saying “hey Andy, you should come to Berlin for T-Shirt Day.”

LOTS more photos in the gallery.
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Tags » a boat load of fun • berlin • Exclusive • Germany • hot model • lafraise • models • photos • runway • silberfischer • spreadshirt • t-shirt day

Lowdtown really impressed me when I first featured them back in April, so it’s pretty natural that I like their stuff even more when it can be picked up for up to 25% off the regular price, meaning that the tees weigh in at around $16 a pop. No need for a coupon code, the hard work of price slashing has already been done for you.

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Tags » lowdtown • mooks • sales • T-shirts

Dan from Urban Industry dropped me a note to let me know about a very cool Japanese brand that they’ve just began selling (and may well be the exclusive UK distributor) called It’s Our Thing. The tees aren’t cheap at £33.50 a pop, but you have to consider why that is; one, IOT are clearly a premium brand, two, it must cost a lot to import tees from Japan, and three, everything costs more in Britain. So, yeah, they cost a bit more than the usual tee, but if you like them then you probably shouldn’t let a silly little thing like money get in the way. Here’s a bit of background:

It¹s Our Thing is the collaboration between the graphic designer PMKFA,
based in Tokyo, and Osaka¹s finest screen-printer Sweatshop Union. It¹s Our
Thing materialized in early 2006 after both PMKFA¹s Micke and Sweatshop
Union¹s Matthias for years had by themselves grown the will to create
something of their own. The first line came out in April 2006, and named
³The First Ten², followed by the ³Third Vision² line that was shown at a
couple of exhibitions in Tokyo and Barcelona and contributed to spread It¹s
Our Thing to more shops worldwide. The third line ³Etno² that you can see in
the shop right now is a leap forward for us and shows the visual progression
we aim at. From the cartoon-ish and photorealistic style of the ³Raybat²
sweater to the subtleness of the first female-only sweater, ³Etno², that
came to also name the whole line. Keep it locked for a lot more stuff to
come this year

It’s Our Thing at Urban Industry

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Tags » It's Our Thing • japan • logoteesthatdontsuck • T-shirts • text • typography • UK • urban indsutry

Obviously this is a bit of a departure from our usual cotton-y focus, but I sure do like the look of these skate decks from FFee Clothing that are being produced and sold through Deckpeck.

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Tags » deck • deckpeck • ffee clothing • skate deck • skateboarding

In their words:

Hello Andrew,
Summer is here and to celebrate, we’re offering a 30% discount off the entire online INDVSL store. Just type in “ILOVESUMMER” upon checkout of any order on the site, including sale items. Enjoy!

INDVSL

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Tags » coupon code • Coupon Codes • Indivisual • INDVSL • T-shirts

I’ve always liked what Stereo Panda do, but their prices have always been a bit of an issue. It’s a problem that isn’t entirely their fault, the simple fact of the matter is that it’s hard to produce a quality product in Europe without the cost being higher than pretty much anywhere else in the world. Luckily, they’ve got a HUGE sale going on at the moment, making their goods distinctly affordable.

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Tags » Hoodies • sales • stereo panda • T-shirts