Gee, I haven’t posted anything from Karmaloop, have I?

Just from the name of the design it may be the case that a lot of you know what this tee is all about… the environment. Obey seem to be fairly involved with the 11th Hour Action group, the same group that brought us the Leonardo DiCaprio fronted The 11th Hour documentary last year, and this tee seems to be their way of promoting the group and the values that it represents.

Of course, the design is classic Shepard Fairey, although I would point out that the hands on the clock don’t actually seem to be pointing at 11 o’clock.

Costiness=$28 Buy the tee at Karmaloop

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Tags » environment • Environmental • green • movies • obey • olive • shepard fairey • T-shirts • the 11th hour

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

I know that as a Brit I’m meant to pretend to hate French people for reasons that most people are unaware of, but I just can’t do it, especially when it comes to t-shirt stores like Monsieur Poulet. They’re a French t-shirt design competition that are putting out designs with a distinctly European flavour (funny how design competitions all have different styles), and printing them onto fair trade cotton.

This t-shirt is definitely French, French down to its very core. For those of you that are unaware (and since most of you are American I wouldn’t expect you to know about this subject), the Chabal in question is Sébastien Chabal a French rugby-union player who can be described as ‘a bit of a beast’, when he comes on the pitch you know something is going to happen. From the looks of things Mr. P had a contest where Chabal was the theme and this design was one of the winners. I can’t remember what the rest of the French rugby team look like, so I’m not sure f this is the entire team with Chabal highlighted in a different colour, but its still cool nevertheless.

Costiness=€26 Link

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Tags » chabal • France • green • monsieur poulet • olive • rugby • sport

Big rectangular prints on the front of a tee are.. err… big, this season, I’ve noticed them cropping up more and more recently and its a style that I’ve come to really enjoy. For me, there’s a feeling that they are a good way to put art onto a t-shirt, the print conforms to the standard shape/dimensions that you expect to see in a piece of art hanging on a wall, and because of this I think it gives artists a bit more freedom to play in terms of their subject, even if they might feel a little constricted in terms of placement.

Great use of negative space on this tee, and I really like the look of the red-to-yellow gradient, although it is often pretty hard to print a nice gradient so its a pity we don’t have real pictures of this tee rather than just the mock-ups.

Costiness=$25 Link

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Tags » birds • gradient • little paper planes • Mens • negative printing • negative space • olive • Option G • t-shirt

Feels like a fair old while since I raved about a track-jacket, so let’s get back on track, you don’t want a hood all the time, right?

Strhess clothing, run by a guy called Derek Hess (who appears to be rather a busy man, a tour and a fest? The UK tour happened to swing by my city last month but I missed it), has some rather nice items for sale at their store. I did find many of the same items on sale at another webstore for almost 50% than the prices at the official Strhess store, so if you ever see anything of theirs on sale at another site, check if it’s in stock at their store, hopefully you’ll get the best deal that way.

Anywho, onto my pick of the bunch, I like the hemorrhage line of hoodies, it’s in keeping with Derek’s artistic style, no soft shapes here, there’s a certain amount of energy that can be found in his sketch like designs, it certainly does make for an interesting print when it’s on clothing rather than paper. The trail of blood kicks-ass too…

It comes in three different colours (a white zip-up, dare I?), sizes up to 2XL, and costiness=$40.

This is probably the first time I’ve ever written about something from Cleveland (Sthress HQ), but it’s not a prejudice thing, I used to enjoy the Drew Carey show, and Halle Berry can shake her wobbly bits at me anytime.

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Tags » blood • derek hess • green • olive • strhess • Track Jackets