by Chris_S on May 21, 2012
Robots are cool. I think that much we can all agree on, right? I mean, there’s been a fixation on robots for about the past 70 years, with sci-fi films and utopian visions of the future imagining that we’d all be living in space pods, served by robots wearing French maid outfits with pneumatic silver boobs. For some reason, robots just capture the imagination. They seem to connect with us as an image of our potential: eventually we will be able to master creating humanity (of sorts) and will render it in metal.
Which is why I like these two shirts by Design By Humans quite so much. They popped up in my inbox as part of a regular email from the site, and I was drawn to them immediately. You’ve got two separate designs here, I think. Halftone Robot by Old30Bastard is very much a hipster Transformer. It takes up the whole tee, and its shapes are angular and true to life. I particularly like that the robot’s head looks like its a repurposed boombox. At $15, you’d be criminal not to get this.
Then there’s the slightly more expensive ($20) Violin Bot. It’s cute, it’s quirky and it’s the sort of thing you’d see in Futurama. In fact, I’m not entirely sure a similar idea wasn’t in an episode of Futurama when Bender starts a band, playing himself like a washboard. BUt if anything that makes me want this thing more. It’s a beautiful design and it’s sure to bring a smile to people’s faces.
Costiness: $15/$20
by Chris_S on May 7, 2012
I haven’t yet seen The Avengers. I haven’t yet seen half of the films which acted as 90-minute trailers for The Avengers Assemble. But yet I want this t-shirt. It’s a big deal, and it’s the sort of thing which is going to cross over into the mainstream from sheer nerdy geek chic. You’ve got to be careful with things that start in geekdom, though: often, what geeks wear isn’t what most of us (even though we’re at heart a similar breed) would wear in public.
But ‘United Colours of Avengers’ by Somethinggeeky does seem to bridge the gap. It comes in a t-shirt and hoodie, and at a smidgen under £12 it’s what I’d class as a bargain. Some people who know about The Avengers will get this; others who don’t will just see it as a cool, bold and colourful design. Whack it in your shopping basket and get it in your wardrobe rotation: that’s my assessment.
Costliness = £11.99/£19.99
by Chris_S on May 2, 2012
Okay, so given the frequency of posts about Glennz you might think we have a little t-shirt crush on him. But we can’t help the fact that the guy turns out fantastic designs time and time again. This one’s another major hit.
“Melting” is something I sometimes wish I could do to the Rubik’s Cube sitting on my bedroom shelf. It’s been there for about 10 years. Every few months I pick it up and twiddle it, often messing up any good work I’d done before. Then it gets set down again, ready to collect dust. If the universe wants to combine to concentrate the sun’s power on the cube and melt it to save me the hassle of having to attempt to be smart every so often (and failing miserably), I’d not necessarily be angry.
Costliness = $21.95
by Chris_S on April 24, 2012
hhv.de is seemingly some sort of music shop based in Berlin that does a lot of tees (2970, to be exact). Berlin’s a long way to go to buy a t-shirt, but thanks to the joys of the internet (uhhh duhhhh) you can actually get a lot of pretty good designs for relatively little money.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t a single label; rather, it seems a repository for a whole bunch of different labels. Some are big (Zoo York, Vans) and some are small. Similarly, there’s a lot of dross on the site – or rather, a lot of stuff that you can get elsewhere (I’m talking about band t-shirts here). But then there are also some absolutely stunning shirts that I’ve not seen many other places. Of course, everyone’s tastes are different, but there are seven that I whacked right into the basket in the vain hope that €144.48 + shipping would magically appear in my bank account (sadly, it didn’t). Of those, I’ve picked out a top four for you to take a gander at in case you have more money than me.
Above at the top is a shirt by Adam Hayes for 2K by Gingham, and I love the old-fashioned style text that’s on it. It’s the sort of thing you’d see on a 1950s poster for a speakeasy (I’m aware that’s historically impossible). For a smidgen under €14 it could be yours.
Another 2K by Gingham t-shirt, this is a mix of the geekiness of Threadless with the fashionable sort of tees you see people wearing in clubs. This one’s a little more at €16.95.
I wish I had €34.95 for this t-shirt – I really do. I love the typography on this, and the morose message that it gives off. It’s the sort of thing that people who live for Facebook will find amazingly cool from a distance, before realising what it says up close.
This is an elegant, springtime shirt from Sixpack France x Museum Studio, which is the costliest of the lot at €39.95 – but then again, it’s only been on the online store for six days. I like the colours and the gentle rose detail, and I think it’s the sort of thing which isn’t quite a brash statement t-shirt, but also isn’t your boring normal tee either.
Anyway, these is just the things I personally like. You really need to head on over yourself and take a look to find out.
by Chris_S on April 21, 2012
I’m an English Literature graduate. It was a couple of years ago that I graduated, admittedly, but you’ll find that almost all bloggers on the internet are those who took an unhealthy obsession with books to the extent that they paid thousands of pounds to be taught it in tertiary education. And so this post is for all those who spent three, four or more years of their life reading 5 full novels a week and writing about them.
Truffle Shuffle have a brand of tees called ‘Out of Print’, which are based on some of the best novels in history. They’re beautiful, retro designs, slightly aged for that dog-eared effect that you get from the best-loved paperbacks in your collection (no word on whether the t-shirts come with the fusty old book smell though). I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t crave these shirts – and badly.
The one problem? Cost. At £27.99 a shirt, it’s something that a guy who took a non-vocational degree has to press his nose up to the glass for and save his pennies over the weeks. But save up I will, and end up splurging my cash on one. The question is which one to go for: ‘Animal Farm’, ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘Catch-22′ or ‘A Clockwork Orange’? (PS. Truffle Shuffle, what’s up with not putting ‘Wuthering Heights’ on a guy’s tee? We like Bronte too!)
by Chris_S on April 19, 2012
I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but the three words “cool wrestling t-shirts” can in fact be used in the same sentence without the world exploding. Seriously, it’s not a contradiction in terms. Admittedly, professional wrestling hasn’t been cool since about 1997, but that almost doesn’t matter. I haven’t watched wrestling since I was 16 – these things called girls got in the way – but I can still appreciate the smart, snarky designs which are a mile away from the stuff the WWE (apparently the WWF had to change their name after the World Wildlife Fund sued them) produce.
Barber Shop Window has a simple motto: “to create shirts that wrestling fans enjoy, would want to own, and wouldn’t be embarassed to wear to the bar.” I’d argue they go further. These things can be worn by non- or lapsed wrestling fans like me.
They take an increasingly standard model of selling. Shirts are available for a limited time period and on a short print run, before being taken off-sale. Any leftovers (usually in odd sizes) can be picked up for about $25 (first-run shirts usually run $20). The shirt stock’s good, the printing lasts and is clear. I’m currently wearing the ‘Monsoon-Heenan 2012′ shirt pictured above; it combines my favourite commentary team from my formative years with my love of American politics (fuelled by The West Wing). I wish I had the Fuji Vice t-shirt, based on this…unique vignette from the 1980s. If you’re nerdy like me, the chances are you’ll find something here for you.
