I knew who David Lee Roth was since we’re both hard rockin’ amigos (though, admittedly, I didn’t recognise him from the tee), but Patrick Nagel was a new name to me, which I think shows my considerable lack of art history knowledge, but once I found this website about him I did actually recognise the style (I’m cultured!), and the t-shirt started to make a whole lot more sense.
I did something quite unusual with this t-shirt; I wore it on a night out before doing the review. Usually I take the pictures, do the review, and then I’ll wear it at some point in the future, but with this tee I took the pictures then wore it on a Saturday night out with my friends. One of the problems with everyone knowing that I have a large collection of t-shirts that have been sent to me for free rather than me picking and choosing them from shops is that they feel they can say whatever they want about my clothes. Reactions ranged from “that is a horrible t-shirt”, “that looks really weird”, to “isn’t that the guy from Twisted Sister?” Over an entire night only one of my friends realised that the image was of Diamond Dave of Van Halen fame, and none of them were particularly enamoured with it. Out of everyone I know, I’m the only person that actually likes this shirt, so I think that the Patrick Nagel style combined with Roth’s rather ‘unique’ appearance really makes this a ‘love it or hate it’ kind of design, although I guess it could be a British thing, maybe in the US where Van Halen were a lot bigger it would be a whole different story. But its not just the person that I find interesting about this tee, the bright, bold, and numerous colours of Roth and the pink stripes in the background being put over the dullness of the grey t-shirt work really well, providing great contrast.
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction have been impressing pretty much everyone with their designs, and I’m just as impressed with their quality level, and the press package that they’ve put together. I don’t usually talk about the little press bits that I get sent, but they looked really cool (pics below), and made it feel like they were a company who put a lot more into the design aspect of their business than just the end product. The blank tee is provided by American Apparel, so we all know what the deal is there by now, and the print is amongst the thickest plastisol ink that I’ve ever had (I could be wrong about it being plastisol though). I would imagine that the print is thick because they wanted to produce really solid, vibrant colours, in keeping with Nagel’s style, but it doesn’t make the tee feel at all heavy.
Costiness=$34 Link
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