Branded T-Shirts Suck

admin    T-Shirt Articles     advertising, brand identity, brand tees, branded t-shirts, brands, consumer rights, designer brands, history

I’ve said it before and will probably say countless times more before I’m done, don’t buy branded t-shirts, don’t advertise the company that has taken your rather than vice-versa. The whole of history is on my side, take “Back to The Future“, the moment where Micheal J. Fox‘s character “Marty McFly” has to clear up the confusion about his name.

“Marty McFly: Calvin? Wh… Why do you keep calling me Calvin?
Lorraine Baines: Well, that is your name, isn’t it? Calvin Klein? It’s written all over your underwear.”

Historically uniforms are for war, not entertainment, and rarely for the purposes of fashion.

Perhaps with the exception of the Swiss Guards…

But asides this weird exception, uniforms might display an insignia, or word, their battalion, their country, a flag, their rank, but never the clothing manufacturer, or rather yes, but in a small internal tag the size of a thumb, just above the washing instructions, but never in enormous bold letters across their chest. When clothes jumped in price and slumped in quality, they exploded with choice, most brands were either out of the reach of the everyday person on the street, or not worth advertising. The price made all the difference. brands became a status symbol for fashion, however unlike almost any other product, it can literally take over until all you are wearing is a word.

I remember things swimming along rather nicely in the eighties, I was at school, some kids were still wearing hand-me-down flares, everyone had a Parka jacket in the winter, the sixth formers donned army surplus jackets as some mild form of resistance against the school and of course the uniform. I spent the last two years at my Grammar School wearing tight black jeans, we all broke the rules in some way or another. Then came along Fila, soon followed by Nike and even a resurgence of Adidas gear (which had become seriously naff by the end of the Seventies).

I was a little older and wiser, I joined the freaks and bought jumble, wore Kung Fu shoes and DM’s and forgot about it for a while, still the trend grew. Brand names seem to be an excuse to produce absolute crap at the lowest possible prices, because the kids would pay anything for the right brand name. Soon the poorer kids were rushing down the markets with their mums – buying cheap fake copies of everything under the sun. They were ridiculed by the rich kids, the Jocks as the yanks would say, they word sports clothing anyway, now they just wore it all the time.

Fashion had been reduced to a word, and that word was advertising. However many arguments I had over the years I couldn’t compete with flashy TV ad campaigns and world famous sports stars. The truth is most heavily branded clothes are made as badly as their copies, no one in their right mind would want to advertise anyone anywhere for free these days, the logos are shrinking again, there are even companies who pay you to wear their clothes (refer to EyeEarn post) and what’s more I’m relieved.

Welcome back originality, individuality, and death to the herd mentality! One of my pals on the net Tony Piro of CalamitiesofNature.com is a great cartoonist – I think this piece says it all.

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