Mister Black and The Children of the 80s

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     80s t-shirts, 80s tees, Ghostbusters, Mister Black Tee, Spanish t-shirts, cartoon tees, graphic tees, retro tees, robot tee, toon t-shirts

Spanish tee label Mister Black celebrate the lowbrow visual culture of the 1980s, harking back to a time when the Internet was still a military/educational project, the nearest Brits could get to Anime was Battle of the Planets, when a Walkman was the nearest you’d get to an iPhone, and almost every action packed Hollywood blockbuster was aimed squarely at the funny bone. It’s in this slice of history that you’ll find Mister Black’s diorama of mass cultural iconography and artefact, scraped from the underbelly of nostalgia, and jazzed up for our now far more sophisticated palettes.

If you like your art to lean decidedly on the toon side, wallow in the veritable delights of TV and movie nostalgia, and have an eye for sharp swift graphic illustrations, then Mr. Black has what you need. All the tees on offer are large prints, superbly detailed (I’ll include some photographic proof of that in a moment), cartoon friendly and essentially a lot of fun! I love the site/store design too, the house style is very reminiscent of the artwork of animator Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of classics like Samurai Jack and Dexter’s Laboratory. Just check out Mr. B’s Xmas logo to see what I mean.)

All the tees come in a range of blacks, well what did you expect? Available for guys and girls at (around) €22.99 to €24.99 each although the listed prices on the homepage are correct, the prices displayed in the men’s and women’s sections are incorrect so that needs some fixing! However you can get yourself some free shipping by using the code MERRY XMAS at the checkout until the 7th of January! Anyway here are my faves…

Gonna Call Tee

Yes, if you’re a Brit then Ghostbusters will have been ruined for you by the heavily advertised directory services company The Number. Still, this cool tee should help deprogram you and get you back on track for some fond and funny memories. Love the detail on this one, in fact nearly all Mr. B’s tees are amazingly detailed.  Sorry girls this one is sold out… but if you’re into Gonna Call then there’s a few more tees like this one including the Action Tee, the 007 Tee, and the Director Cute  Tee.

Big Robot Tee

Perhaps my overall fave, this one’s cheaper at €21.99 each for guys and girls. I’m a sucker for robots, although not in the way some guys love their vacuum cleaner. The girls’ version is sold out, there’s a another version called Big Robot II. but there are only guys sizes left – I have a feeling that the highly organised female collective mind might have bought all their tees early for Xmas.

Face Tee and Doll Face Tee

If the Mr. Men and Little Misses had been French they’d have looked as stylish as these two!

Afrodita Tee

Here’s one just for the girls, seeing as Mr. B has sold out so many others! “For those who are like Sayaka Yumi!”. Only available in sizes M-XL though :/

Mister Black is definitely a popular label, especially with the ladies, he must be a very smooth talker ;) See more, read more, buy some at www.mbtee.com.

Fat Gold Are No Fools

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     80s tees, Add new tag, cool tees, disco tees, fashion tees, fashionable t-shirts, fat gold, fat gold clothing, fat gold t-shirts, killer tees

All that glisters isn’t gold, and Fat Gold Clothing are certainly not as precious about ideology or concept as some t-shirt labels out there, but there’s definitely one thing you can expect from FGI and that’s attitude by the bucketful – and by that I mean this ‘their tees are so in your face you’d need surgery to remove them’.

The site is sharp, slick and well organised** yet leaves you unprepared for the raucous behaviour in textile printed form that awaits you. They do a very nice sideline in badges which feature all their mad, bad and dangerous to know creations, and a blog that’s well worth a lookie, I particularly enjoyed their features on a midi controller that looks something like an old Midway arcade game and a fab video of Only by Nine Inch Nails, as well as (of course) a little background info on all their designs. The truth is Fat Gold is more of an attitude than a brand, a mentality than a brand, you’ll either be into it or not.

There’s one particular t-shirt at FGI I absolutely love, Fat Gold Skull (I’ll show you it in a minute), it sums up everything about the label for me, scary and funny at the same time, reassuringly anarchic, totally off the wall but grounded in a great deal of common sense. They spoof where they have to but this isn’t a “funny t-shirt” brand, this isn’t a trendy for the sake of being trendy company, Fat Gold follow their own sense of style (and do very well by it), I’d love to see a lot more tees in the future from these guys, and I do hope they don’t make the mistake of being a slave to “Seasons” like some of their competitors like to do, the fact is “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

I don’t want to see their best work disappear for the fear of keeping everything fresh, sure add more designs (the more the better) but don’t lose the old favourites. (This last opinion applies to almost all the up ‘n’ coming labels in the market not just FGI). I’d love to see them hold on to a few more of the older tees in stock, such as their Ku Klux Clan spoof of Ghostbusters and most especially their robot tee, but I suppose it all comes down to economics, you have to follow your instincts when it comes to selling tees.

Anyhoo, let’s get down to the nitty gritty and take a big bite out of Fat Gold and see if you like the taste. read more