chaunt: t<3    |

There are a gazillion places that you can buy a tshirt.  There are some online stores that are quite popular.  Then there’s Johnny Cupcakes.

Never before has a tshirt brand caused such a stir, with a legion of die-hard fans.  Here are some good examples of recent fanaticism.

1) The new LA store is due to open on August 2nd.  This guy had already booked a flight from Boston (where the other store is) for the opening.  Crazy.

2) June 13 2008 - news posted about some new tees going to be launched at the Boston store the following Saturday (June 21), along with some very exclusive designs available only in-store.

June 19 - there are peoplealready camping outside the store, two days in advance.

Damnnn! It’s little things like this that make me super excited to keep creating new Johnny Cupcakes’ recipes.

June 20 -  the number camping out has grown.  You’d think the new iPhone was coming out or something!

June 21 - the queue for the store was around the block. This to buy tshirts!

Crazy huh?  Well if you want to get in on the act, the new summer range has just been released - some 24 new designs!  Here are my favourites - dinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinnerdinner …

You may have heard of or about T-Shirt Hell?  Probably for all of the wrong reasons.  Personally I think it has some good shirts, very funny and not too offensive.  But it also has some that go a little too far, even for me.

Well now you can enjoy the slightly twisted humour of T-Shirt Hell without being offended, with the launch of a new and toned down site, TorsoPants.

 The site design certainly stands out from the crowd, it’s wacky, quirky and very visual with lots of hidden surprises (like the moving eye near the bottom of the front page).  But I am sure the cost of the design will be worth it and in the long run, the site may even rival T-Shirt Hell for revenue.

Part of me immediately thought “man, this is selling out to the extreme”.  But then my partner very wisely pointed out that people who don’t ’sell out’ (whatever that really means), tend to be poor.  Good point well made.

So to the important part, the tees.  Well there are a lot to choose from at launch which is good to ensure momentum, and most of them are at least mildly humourous.  But for me, most were just “eh” rather than “hold crap I want that”. 

One that did make me chuckle was this one, given that it’s one of my pet peeves with bowling:

Prices are $18 per tee but you do get the huge choice of styles and colours.  And the site already appears to have a big following - as comments are allowed on the tees (great idea), it’s clear that many people are taking the effort to have their say and get involved.

Oh wait, I almost forgot the important bit!  If you sign up to the site this week, you’ll get 8 TorsoWashingtons (basically dollars that you can only spend on this site) in your account!  Which would make your first purchase just $10.  Click below to go to the special promo page:

So good luck to TorsoPants, may all your non-offensive dreams come true.

Well at the end of the last post I apologised for the lack of updates and said I would be posting more often again.  Well, I guess I lied because work is a bitch at the moment and I don’t have too much in the way of spare time.

That said, I couldn’t resist posting about the Threadless sale going on right now, because it really is too good to miss.

Oh.  My.  God.

I don’t know if any of you have ever written a blog before, but posting something like this takes a little while.  And while I was retreiving the above image from the Threadless site, I noticed a tee I hadn’t spotted yesterday when I was looking at the new shirts.

I looked at it, thought about it and then had a ‘moment’ - “I NEED THAT SHIRT!“.  Now I’ve not had such a moment very often before, but when they come along you don’t really want to be around because I go a bit nuts.

The below tee might just be the BEST tee I have ever seen.  I have already ordered it, despite only recently placing an order with Threadless.  I am only gutted that the XL and XXL hoodies are already sold out otherwise I would have to have one of those too.

Do you agree that it is awesome?  Hmm, maybe you have to think Resevoir Dogs is one of the best movies ever made?  That probably helps.

Deep breath.  Okay.  That’s better.

I was going to post about this tee while complaining about the tee colour, but it’s almost meaningless now.  Ah well I’ll post it anyway because it’s cool.

[EDIT]Wait, it’s a reprint?  The best shirt ever made is a reprint?!  Why hadn’t I noticed it before??  I’m somewhat of a Threadless addict, so how the hell did I miss that?  Man alive, I need to be more of a tee geek in future.  Maybe I’ll as Karl for some tips!

The success of online tshirt vendors is being transferred to the high street, with big names in the online tee world opening up real life stores to sell to the non-online public.

Last year, Threadless opened up a store in Chicago and by all reports it seems to be going great guns.  A very innovative approach to marketing through scheduled events and regular display art has led to the store being a huge success (the display art sales alone have totalled almost $10k and sell out quickly).

Well another big name in tshirt design is opening up a second ‘real life’ store in LA, having one already situated in Boston.  Johnny Cupcakes has gone from strength to strength in recent years.  Check out the new LA store (due to open May 2008) and the change in warehousing facilities over the last five years …

“Warehouse” in 2003, his parent’s dining room:

And the new in-development warehouse, 2008:

Do you like to fuck with people’s minds?  If so then this might be the perfect tshirt site for you.

Disinformation Tshirts sell tees that at first glance look like a bog standard shirt.  Then you look again and wonder what’s going on, and then it clicks.  At least I think it would because I was obviously viewing these on the site knowing that something was wrong …

 See it says that Nixon made the quote, but it’s got a picture of Kennedy and the quote was actually made by Roosevelt.  In actual fact the shirt falls down slightly because it seems that the actual quote is “… the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.  Which isn’t quite the same, and isn’t, from what I can tell, intentional.

Anyhoos, here are another couple to play with your mind a little.  I have no idea if the image quality is really this bad or if it’s just their site … I hope the latter.

Threadless today announced a few changes/improvements to their offering.

1. They are now printing new tees exclusively on Threadless brand tees.  If you’re not a Threadless follower/fan, you might say “so what?”.  Well until now, Threadless has printed its tees on Fruit of the Loom and American Apparel shirts.  I can testify to the fact that the quality of these is variable and the sizes vary considerably.  The new Threadless tees are, apparently (I haven’t got one yet), much better quality and of course much more consistent.  So that’s good news #1.
2. Good news #2 is that they have added sizes.  You can now get XS girls, XS guys, 3XL guys and 2XL girls!  So really there is very little chance you won’t find a tee to fit you here.  Be warned that if you’ve bought before, the sizes might vary from the old shirts.  One example given states that a girly medium for example is now about a girly large.
3. Thirdly is that the new tee brand means that interesting new colours will be coming along.  I for one was getting somewhat tired of every other tee being on a grey tee.
4. And lastly, something that might or might not be viewed as an improvement (which is why I referred to ‘changes’ earlier).  Variable pricing.  That means that rather than every guy’s tee being $15, girl’s tees being $17 (I never understood the price difference really) and Selects $25, each tee will be priced according to its printing and decoration techniques (ie what inks and materials are used).  That means that a tee might be anything from $15 to $26 (maybe more, but that’s the priciest and cheapest on offer right now).

So what does this mean in real terms?  Well in a way, Threadless has grown up.  Design by Humans has been pulling away in the quality of their prints and tees and Threadless needed to act.  With the recent opening of it’s retail store in Chicago and the gradual introduction of its Threadless bran tees (until now limited to Select), Threadless has been evolving.  It can now compete not only in terms if range and design quality (it still attracts the best tee designers, in my opinion), but in quality and value for money too.  Which I believe it still is, despite this ‘cloaked’ price increase (granted it didn’t fool many, but it still wasn’t billed as an increase).

So I was planning a comprehensive review of Threadless, but now I must put that on hold until I’ve had a few Threadless brand tees with the new inks and materials.  I’m gladI didn’t start it yet!

In the meantime, here’s a very cool tee that was released today (though slightly ‘geeky’).

There are a few awesome tshirt sites out there who have fantastic designs … but their sites aren’t in English.  It’s such a shame because it wouldn’t be soooo hard for them to have an English option and ship internationally (actually they might but I don’t know because I can’t understand the damn site!).

First is Maryjane , a Russian site based on submissions and voting much like DBH and Threadless.  Here are a couple of awesome shirts I would love to order:

Then there’s Camiseteria, a Brazilian site in the same vain.  Oh how I’d love to get my hands on their catalogue!

Oh, and they have some hot models too (not that that would sway me …).

This one from Camiseteria was so familiar, I killed myself searching for it’s doppleganger - I thought it was a design on Threadless.  And then my other half said “It looks like Ah Munna Eat Choo!” (she’s a Threadless fan also).  And that was it, that’s what it reminded me of.  I think (if it really does exist elsewhere, let me know!).

One of my favourite sites for tshirts is designbyhumans.com - which works on a similar basis to threadless, ie the designs are mostly user submissions which are then voted on by other users.  The result is a tshirt of the day, which can become tshirt of the week and tshirt of the month.  At each stage the designer gets wads of cash (I think I’ll do a separate post about the amount of money designers can earn on these sites.

Anyway, one of the advantages I feel DBH has is that it uses multiple printing mediums, such as using gold leaf and texture for this fantastic tee:

And their prices are reasonable - slightly higher than Threadless at $19 versus $15, but great value.

tenbills has a new exclusive shirt, available today only and for Woot members only.  An interesting approach and for me, a great marketing tactic.  It’s sure to create a bit of a buzz around the site and a tie in with woot.com means a huge audience.  If you love the tee and aren’t a member, it’s simple to sign up.

The design itself is a nice take on the classic Hear See Speak no evil.  I think it’s pretty cool but doesn’t instantly make me grab my wallet  …

[this item was spotted on tcritic, one of the many tshirt blogs on the ‘net, but probably one of the few most recognised.]

T-Shirt Hell is probably the most controversial clothing store online today.  It is a massive site and I am sure it takes a hell of a lot of money each day.  But visitors either love the shirts, or a repulsed by them.  The owner’s newletter each week takes great pride in displaying some of the ‘hate mail’ he recieves from people who take offense.  And some of the shirts are very offensive.

So where do I sit?  Well, the fact that I’ve linked to the site is a clue.  I am one of those people who see the shirts and find them extremely funny (on the whole), but would never wear one.  Some of them are just fantastic, harmless humour.  Some are borderline offensive but funny.  Some are just ’sick’, and some are just downright intentionally controversial.  I’d wear the first two categories, but not the third or fourth.

A shirt from the first category, harmless humour:

One from category two:

Category three:

And the fourth:

So there you have it, the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ of T-Shirt Hell.  I can see the humour in all of these, even the third and fourth - but would I produce these tshirts?  No.  Would I wear them?  No.  However, I am quite anti-censorship and so if you are so inclined to buy and wear such shirts, please go right ahead.