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

Straight off the bat, let’s be clear that this design is available for both guys and girls. As the following picture will attest.

Butterflies seem to be a staple of design in the independent t-shirt world, yet I can’t remember the last time that I mentioned one. Manchester-based Origin68 have released this great butterfly-based tee though, which reminds me that using a feminine image (butterflies ain’t exactly the most manly of symbols) doesn’t necessarily have to result in a tee that’s just for the ladies.

On the product page they’ve included one of Wordsworth’s most famous poems, the one about daffodil’s, which he wrote (or was at least inspired to write) when walking near one of my favourite bodies of water in the Lake District, Ullswater. I don’t really know why its there, but its always nice to see.

Costiness=£19 Link

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Tags » ash • butterfly • grey • manchester • origin68 • UK

If you don’t think that a t-shirt consisting of video game control pads (with the notable absence of the Playstation clan) is awesome then I think you need to take a long hard look at yourself. Seriously dude, you used to be cool.Costiness=€16 Link

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Tags » a better tomorrow • ash • games • geek • Germany • grey • naritia • t-shirt

I actually picked up a couple of Doraemon money banks on a Hong Kong night market, so I feel slightly more justified in posting this Doraemon x Spongebob character mashup hoodie than I usually would when I dip my toes into the bright and shiny waters of anime.

Wrongwroks themselves describe this as “the best zipup we have done so far,” something which they seem to attribute to the fact that there are more than 30,000 stitches on the Dorabob. I don’t know stitching all that well, but that sounds like a lot to me!This is a light American Apparel fleece, so it should be perfect for those not-too-hot not-too-cold Spring evenings that should be arriving any day now (snow? it’s nearly April!). Presumably this is also a rather limited edition piece, since most things Wrongwroks are, and this one is only being stocked in their webstore, and none of their myriad of retailers.

Costiness=$80 Link (WR are always awkward to link to, the two hoodies are currently at the bottom of the ’stuff’ section)

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Tags » ash • black • Doraemon • grey • hoodie • mashup • Spongebob Squarepants • wrongwroks

In a land of doves and picturesque mountains, bad days are hard to come by. Welcome to Dove Mountain. Design also available on a clock.

I love it when artistic blurb gives way to practicalities!

Costiness=$60 Link

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Tags » ash • bird • dove • grey • hoody • popjunkie

I don’t really get it when websites have hidden items and secret sales, it just feels like they’re trying not to sell what they’ve spent time and money making. Although in the case of Owl Movement, I’m willing to make an exception, because I know they’re only keeping it on the down low since their new hoodie is seriously limited edition (ie, there isn’t that many of them available) and presumably they want to give loyal fans first dibs on getting one.

And even when they wanted me to know about it, it still took me rather a long time to find out where it was hidden. Whilst I am a nice guy, I’m not going to spoon-feed it all to you, so you’re going to have to find it yourself (coughlookatthetitlecough).

As hoodies go, it’s got a lot to get you hot under the collar, skulls, diamonds, and yes, even an all over print on the back (which I guess isn’t technically all-over, but that seems to be the term that ‘we’ use). The detail on the front with the skull design is contrasted nicely with the simple diamond background, which has a subtle look with the light blue print laid over the heather grey fabric.

In keeping with OM’s idea of keeping things hidden and secret, you’re going to have to click ‘read more’ to see some pics.

Costiness=$40 on American Apparel, URL

(more…)

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Tags » ash • backprint • diamonds • grey • hoodie • owl movement • skulls

It’s started raining (the UKs two weeks of summer are over, I guess), so its time to get back to the sleeves!

Wemoto clothing from Germany produce some big, brash designs for their tees, but things get a little bit more subtle with their hoodie and zip-up track jacket collection. I guess that this is logo clothing, but since it is so subtle it creates a pretty nice effect, and the orange and white contrasts nicely on the navy and ash grey colours.

Wemoto print onto American Apparel, orders are sorted by e-mail.

Costiness=€64.90 (including Europe wide delivery) URL

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Tags » American Apparel • ash • Germany • grey • Track Jackets • wemoto

It’s not often that I recommend a sweatshirt, since I usually find prints on sweatshirts a bit more miss than hit, but I like this one a lot. It’s nice to recommend a UK label on a U.K. webstore too.I like the colour palette, even though you might say that picking green for the paratroopers was a bit of a cliche. I like the idea of the putting lots of paratroopers in, it really gives the design a lot of depth, and it has more paras printed on the back too! And my love of on-the-back-printing has been documented on these hallowed digital pages many times before.

Costiness=£39.99 with free postage in the UK (deal!), by Seventy Seven, available from Leapstore.

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Tags » ash • grey • leapstore • paratroopers • seventy seven • Sweater

I know you can’t buy Lenko clothing on the internet (well, there aren’t any sites listed on their stockists pages), and that most of my traffic comes from America, where they have no stockists, but they’ve still got some cool hoodies and sweatshirts that deserve a mention. It’s a hand-drawn, child-like cartoon type style, which looks far better than I’ve described it. And they make hoodies for girls as well as guys.

ILoveLenko.com

*EDIT* Thanks to the folks at Lenko who got in touch to say that you CAN get their stuff online, just head to YTBA to look at the wares of many antipodean designers and artists.

• 4 Comments
Tags » ash • cartoon • grey • hot model • lenko • Sweater

I was taking a look at the ‘web-based platform for publication and publicity’ (ummm, blog?) that is Design Spotters earlier today and loved the tee they were promoting from UK label Dead By Sunday, there was a really ‘rock’ feel to it, which didn’t feel forced or fake, like most high-street Iron Maiden tour ‘82 tees, so I thought I’d take a look if they did anything with sleeves. They do!

The hoodie that I’ve picked is certainly rather different in style to their tee offerings (one of which I think may be an homage to Rage/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello), but I still like it, even though I can’t decide if doing a yin/yang themed hoodie is a bit cliche. Whether its cliche or not, they’ve certainly pulled it off with some style, those koi carp (right? I don’t know fish) look fantastic.

Dead By Sunday is still in its infancy (check their about page, they sound like good people), so everything is made to order, but somehow prices are kept pretty low by British standards.

Costiness=£40 take a look at the rest of the range here, but I presume to need to order by e-mail (if they do mail order at all).

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Tags » ash • Dead by Sunday • fish • grey • hoodie • koi