T-shirt search directory
Please Dress Me have released a really cool set of information about the
t-shirt trends for the year. Well, I think it’s really cool, but I would, wouldn’t I?
You can see the top three tees of 2008, I’m not sure how that is judged, presumably by the amount of people that have viewed the page after seeing the thumbnails after a search. All three are Threadless tees, but aren’t necessarily the ‘famous’ Threadless designs.
The most popular searches of 2008 is the most interesting to me, since it is the most telling for what people are looking for and therefore the most representative of trends. Zombies are apparently de rigeur, as they sit on top of the pile, followed by the boringly generic search of tv show, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that people were on the hunt for Obama tees this year.
Anyone care to stick their neck out and make some predictions for hot trends next year?
[This picture is just to prove that I do leave the house sometimes and don't just blog about clothes]
You’d have thought that Black Friday would have been the high point for sales, but I think my inbox has actually been seeing more hot sale action than ever before over the past week or so. If I wrote a post about every deal I think I’d still be writing about them after Christmas, so instead of that, what follows will be an orgy of savings.
Random Shirts: They’ve marked all their regular tees down to $8 until Christmas, I think the discount gets added to your cart once you start the checkout process.
The Cotton Factory: This deal ends tonight at midnight (unknown timezone), use the coupon code REVENGEOFHOLIDAZE and you’ll get 10% off your order
Urban Retro: Up until Wednesday December 18th you can get 20% off clothes at UR by using the coupon code FASHION20.
XLarge: Get 10% off at XLarge by using the coupon code iheartxl. Unknown end date, all their hats seem to be 20% off at the moment too.
Spicy Brown: If you’re in the mood for some Japanese-inspired designs and want 25% off them, use the coupon code holiday08 before December 19th and you’ll get just that. Also, free shipping on order over $75.
Bean Dip Clothing: The BD crew are offering free shipping, presumably until Christmas, as it is their holiday offer.
Social-T: A t-shirt subscription makes a pretty good gift (a random, limited edition tee sent to you every month), and if you sign up now you get a free trucker hat.
ThinkGeek: This one is more than just tees, but TG are pretty much a one-stop shop for buying gifts for the special nerd in your life. Up until December 14th, you can get free shipping (in the continental U.S.) when you spend more than $40, by using the coupon code SHIPFREE.
Amorphia / Wear Science! / Teach the Controversy: Get 20% off at all three of those stores by using the coupon code AMORPHIAROCKS before December 15th. There’s also a few new designs at Science! that you’ll want to check out.
PleaseDressMe x BustedTees: These two have teamed up to offer you a selection of Busted Tees, uhh, tees for the low, low price of $7.77, which is $4.23 cheaper than the tees on their own sale page!
80s Purple: They’ve knocked 30% off their entire range of Obey Clothing, get in the action by using the coupon code OBEYME before December 15th.
Mustache & Friends: Get 20% off your order in their mustache-based store by using the coupon code apmustache, I’m not sure when this one ends.
Oath Threadline: Get 20% off your order at OT by using the coupon code apoath, I’d tell you when this deal ends, but I simply do not know.
Threadless: In addition to their current sale of $5, $10 and $15 tees, you’ll get free shipping ($7 off for international customers) when you spend $50 or more.
The Urban Shop: They have reduced the prices of everything in stock, with discounts of up to 60%.
Methods NYC: They’ve got a sale going on with up to 50% off some items.
AMP Street: There’s 25% off everything in store at this European streetwear store.
AAITSKI: They have a sliding sale, the more you buy, the more you save. Buy 1 tee and get 10% off, buy 2 and get 20% off, buy 3 or more and you’ll receive 30% off the cost of your tees.
I’ve read about
PleaseDressMe on a few sites, and whilst the idea of a t-shirt search engine sounds a little odd to me (I don’t go hunting for tees based upon their design elements), there does seem to be a lot of people that think its a great idea, so what the hell do I know?
For a search engine like PleaseDressMe to be successful, they need to have a massive amount of t-shirts in their database. Its not fair to judge PDM on that basis yet since they’re new and obviously still adding to their database, but I do wonder if they’ll be able to get enough tees that they can return adequate results for searches that are slightly more obscure than the typical tee fodder of ’skull’ and ‘heart’*. Tagging could be an issue too; the way I would tag a t-shirt might not be the same way that someone doing a search would tag a tee, or, more importantly, the way that PDM might tag a shirt, I guess they can combat that by tagging a tee with everything they can think of, but then there would be issues of accuracy. I don’t want to rag on the site too much though, it is well done, I can imagine it being a good way for people to find tees when they’re on the hunt for something specific, and the people behind it all know their way around the internet, so I’d imagine that whatever potential problems I can think of, they’ve thought of them too.
Please Dress Me
*Since I initially wrote this article they introduced an API (like all web 2.0 companies) and a vendor programme which will allow shops to add their own tees to the database, which will help alleviate the problem of having to add inventory themselves.
