A blog about hoodies & t-shirts, with news from the independent clothing world

Flickr Finds: Kiss Troopers


I know that everyone is going gaga over the new Star Wars x Marc Ecko line that is doing the rounds at the moment, but I found another collaboration (presumably not quite as official) on Flickr that I thought was really cool. Oh, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to find that this photo was taken at Comic Con.

Usual caveat: this picture is listed as ‘all rights reserved,’ but hopefully the photographer (earthdog) won’t mind me showing this awesome tee to a few more people.


Mainstream brand alert! Mainstream brand alert!

Have no fear, I’ll get back to posting about stuff that is printed by some dude in a poorly-ventilated garage, but sometimes I’ve just gotta post this stuff.

Natterjacks are selling two very limited edition Adidas tracksuits, the first is a black and red leather (yes, a leather tracksuit) number based upon the 80s original, which would be perfect for completing your Run DMC cosplay outfit if you’re happy to hand over £550 ($1010) for it. Up next, a track jacket that actually has stainless steel woven into the thread, which is fairly clever, but rather pointless and gaudy. In their product description Natterjacks say they they only have a couple of these so they’ll go quick, but I get the feeling that they might be hanging around for a while with a £400 pricetag, unless I have seriously underestimated the amount of disposable income that rappers in the UK have going spare for bling.

Since I wouldn’t want you to come away from this post thinking “that was fun, but why not point I out something I should buy Andy, you handsome devil?” I’ve found (ok, that’s a lie, I got sent an e-mail about them, blogging is so easy sometimes!) 3 tees from the Adidas Originals range that are about as retro as their track suits cousins, but you might actually want to wear them. All three are available from Urban Industry for £24.50, which is probably a bit pricey for our buddies in the States, but actually pretty good going for a UK shop.


Yes, this tee is by Art in the Age of Reproduction, and no, I haven’t made an error in the title, although I do think that if Art in the Age and No Age team up for a collaboration that that should have dropped the ‘the’ from the title. “Art in No Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” see? Much cleaner!

I’ve never actually heard of No Age, an experimental rock/pop punk/noisepop/powerpop/shoegaze (<-- whaa??!!)/what do genre labels even mean anymore... band from Los Angeles before I found out about this tee collaboration, but I think I stopped knowing what was cool in the music world a long time ago when I unsubscribed from Stereogum and decided that I quite liked ‘Girlfriend’ by Avril Lavigne.

The tee itself has a kinda grimy punk quality to it. At first I didn’t actually find it all that appealing, and as a tee on its own it hasn’t really grown on me, but I reckon that if it were being worn by someone with a bit of a rocker look that it would be pretty badass.

Costiness=$28 Men’s tee/Women’s Tee

7 New Shirts from Waterloo


Argentina’s finest have released seven fresh designs that keep up their tradition of paying homage to some of their favourite movies and bands. My particular favourite from this crop of tees is “The Dark Side Of Oz” which is based upon the urban legend that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon matches up with The Wizard of Oz at certain points, I’ve never put them together myself, but I’d presume that you need to have taken a lot of drugs to see/hear it.

Waterloo


… that title doesn’t make any sense, but I think you know that i was just going for a generic Chaunce/chance pun-based title.

This may come as a massive surprise to you, but the guy who was born and raised in rural Cumbria doesn’t really know much about hip-hop, unless knowing the theme to tune to ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ counts as knowing something about hip hop. But I do know what I like, and if Justin Timberlake is introducing the Cool Kids then they must be good!

You’re probably wondering what the devil this has to do with t-shirts, well, one of the members is wearing a Pistons-loving t-shirt by Chaunce Clothing, who you may well remember that I reviewed a few months back.


Time for a bit of lazy-blogging, here’s the press release:

This exclusive t-shirt is in line with Electronic Poet’s tradition of blending its fashion, art & science of music inspirations. Based on a traditional Family Tree, the t-shirt is hand drawn by hip illustrator Si Scott with the help of DJ and music journalist Ed Karney,. It shows how electronic music evolved, from cult pioneers Kraftwerk to today’s minimal heroes Matthew Dear and Luciano. The structure of the tree takes the form of stylized electronic wires and the result is totally unique and beautiful; the original artwork, ink on paper, was actually 1.5m in height before being reduced in size for the actually t-shirt design.

To celebrate Electronic Poet’s Autumn/Winter line (of which the Techno Tree tee is a part), they’re having release parties at Selfridges stores across the UK, starting this weekend in London.

If you’re that way inclined, head over to your nearest Selfridges store on the dates listed below to enjoy the Pioneer sponsored events, where you will be given guest list passes to club nights and entered into a competition to win a pair of Pioneer CDJ1000 digital turntables when you buy some Electronic Poet clothing.

London - Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd August (w/ Paul Woolford, Disco Bloodbath DJs, James Hillard and Simon Morell playing instore from 12pm to 6pm on the Saturday)
Birmingham - Saturday 23rd August (w/ Alex Shelton and Sub-An DJing)
Manchester - Saturday 9th August (w/ Unabombers, Andy Whittaker and Alex Morris providing the tunes)


Here’s an idea that makes you tip your head on its side and go “huh, that’s clever.” Shirts For A Cure wants to fight breast cancer using one of my favourite mediums; the t-shirt!

Rock bands (mostly pop-punk/emo) donate a t-shirt design to Shirts For A Cure, who then sell the tee and give the proceeds to charity. The tees are a very reasonable $12 a piece and I *think* that all $12 goes to charity. The range of bands is pretty impressive too, here’s a little selection from the range of more than 150:

Alkaline Trio
Blink 182
Fall Out Boy
My Chemical Romance
Midtown
Plain White T’s
hellogoodbye

Those were the ones I thought were pretty notable (Midtown aren’t really that big, but I love them), so clearly this project isn’t just little bands no ones heard of, they’re bands that have large followings, so hopefully they’re raising a boatload of cash for charity.

Shirts For A Cure

Art in the Age are the Walrus

Art in the Age loves the Walrus

Art in the Age loves the Walrus


*Sorry guys, as Kevin points out in the comments, I’ve actually already written about this design.

This tee gives a shout out to a Philadelphia music blog called The Walrus, which I’d never heard of, but then again, I’m not from Philadelphia, and the only music blog I subscribe to is Stereogum, so what chance did I really have?

But if you don’t know what the blog is, like me, it doesn’t really matter for this design, because you might just think that there’s a cool looking Walrus on a t-shirt, and that would probably be enough for you. And if you’re a fan of the blog then you’re in a little secret society of music lovers that rally around your big-teethed mascot and nod at each other whenever you spot someone wearing the tee.

Costiness=$28 Tee Link

Support NYC by Support Shirts

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When Tara from Support Shirts got in touch with me about her and Travis’ (her boyfriend & member of NY hardcore band This Is Hell) t-shirt brand, Support Shirts, I wasn’t expecting to see a tee in the style of the one pictured, and I’m sure that if you listened to a couple of This Is Hell songs then you’d be pretty surprised at what you found in the Support Shirts webstore too.

That isn’t to say I don’t like it, I just presumed that I was going to be find some tees with more of a hard rock and punk edge to them. But I guess that just because people like to listen to hardcore music doesn’t mean they have to make hardcore clothes. With a name like Support Shirts, you know that there’s a social element too. I don’t know the extent to which they’re involved in each charity, but they list quite a few charities on their site that they support, many of which are clothing and music related.

The reason why I picked this tee (beyond it having a cool design) is because recently I’ve been applying for jobs and internships in New York and seeing the skyline on a tee just makes me want to go there a little bit more.

Costiness=$20 Tee Link

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When the postman delivered the familiar screenprinted EIO envelope a little smile came across my face. There’s something about EIO clothing that makes me feel a bit like a rockstar, which may well be because EIO make tees worn by rockstars… and Mika.

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Things got even more rock when I pulled the tee out of its wrapping paper (not pictured, but it is a cool touch). This tee had gold foil on it, I’ve always thought that there was a certain audacity to printing with gold foil, its flashy, its attention grabbing, and almost completely unnecessary in the best possible way. I maintained my recent run of tee-test professionalism by wearing this tee last weekend, and people loved it, specifically my various lady friends loved it, the guys didn’t really notice, but that’s probably because the butterflies make it a bit feminine for most of my boys. Butterflies and a record player (or a ‘deck’ as the kids are calling it) might not exactly be a combination that everyone will love, but I can almost see a connection,

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I’ve never received a tee with gold foil on it, so its hard for me to tell how it compares to other tees with foil on them, but from what I can tell the printing is very sharp, especially considering that we aren’t exactly talking about big blocks of foil, there’s some thin lines and details there that have been dealt with very well. EIO do admit on the product page that the gold foil will distress with washing, and recommend hand washing the tee, so I guess that’s something that you should be aware of, I’ll try and give you an update on how well it washes, but considering how many tees I have it could be many months before I’ve worn it enough times for a washing test to produce conclusive results. The new custom hang tags look pretty freakin’ awesome too.

Costiness=£23.95 (currently on sale, regularly £29.95, both prices include free worldwide shipping) Link

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