Hendricks’ Happy Birthday Sale at CollarFree.com

Jimmy Hendricks (perhaps one of the coolest names of all time) is celebrating his 28th birthday (oh to be youngish) by offering a whopping 28% off all tees, available at his fabulous t-shirt crowd sourcing site CollarFree.com. I’ve watched this company leap from strength to strength over the last year with a mix of fond admiration and a tinge of envy. If you’re going to run a successful t-shirt label, Collar Free offers a textbook story of achievement and expansion that’s sure to make any CEO raise an eyebrow. With a strong range of graphic tees, a faithful band of designers and fans, and a savvy technical and business team working all hours behind the scenes, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s as near to t-shirt nirvana as you can get.

First things first, happy birthday Jimmy, may your all your birthdays be celebrated with as much success if not more! It does make me wonder if Mr. Hendricks lives to a ripe old age will the discount climb with him? It’s a long time to wait, but I’m sure it’d be worth the wait to celebrate Jimmy’s centenary on the planet. Although I’m sure by then accounting department for his multi-million dollar global fashion corporation (yes - I’m sure it could be if we wait long enough), will be shaking their heads as they wheeled him to the retirement home. Back to the present, and despite the fact it’s his birthday, here’s Jimmy’s gift to all of you! Just pick what you like and punch in the code “28on28” at the checkout.

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Nonoloa T-Shirts - International Art Meets Fashion

Nonoloa.com describe themselves as a ‘creative platform designing clothing from urban art’ - in other words they take from the streets, in this case the whole world of urban life, and transfer their unique art collection to a range of spectacular short and long-sleeved tees, polos, hoodies and sweatshirts. I recently visited their site for the first time and have to admit it is stunning in more ways than one. Apart from the beautiful and highly interactive design of the store, the products certainly do produce the wow factor, a very individualistic and inspiring range of t-shirts drew me in further

Enrique Flores, one of the people behind the Nonoloa label directed me towards Issuu.com which reveals more of the story and concept behind this avant-garde collective. Essentially they are as international as you can hope to find, their artists hark from every corner of the globe, ranging from as far and wide as Spain, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and even Tehran. I was astounded that a label could source so diverse a community of artists, each with their own pertinent input, both visually and conceptually, towards the Nonoloa platform. Incidentally some of their artists have even exhibited at the famed Tate Modern Gallery in Britain. You can see their works at Tate.org.uk.

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Blood Is The New Black

I only stumbled this one last night, yes at 3:30am, but luckily I still felt exactly the same about Blood is The New Black after a long sleep and an even longer grey British morning of slogging away at my (f)art. So what’s BITNB all about? God knows, but I love it. It’s like I’ve accidentally bumped into The Velvet Underground of the t-shirt world and I couldn’t be more pleased (with myself :p).

There’s flash. there’s plush, there’s cool, there’s funny, there’s crazy, and then there’s these guys, their style? Well if you can call it that, a ragtag muddle of crazy artists and designers, their style is so way off the scale I’m all out of adjectives (for once). All I can say is they make me feel sick in a good way, not sick with envy, not sick of the sight of anything in particular, but a strange and rather wonderful home sickness for a life I’ve never had.

If only the friends of my youth had been as together (and untogether) as this demoniacal motley crew I’d have probably started a revolution of some sorts by now, oh to be as reckless and carefree as these loonies. Read more

The Art of Rhetoric - Persuasion by Design

RhetoricTshirts.com officially launched on October 4th. An American clothing company focused on if not driven to the core by high-concept design. Their mantra states the use of the medium of T-shirts bears out two distinct design directives:-

Prints inspired by innovative examples of pop art, fringe sub-culture and youth.
Shirts that are custom manufactured from the finest textiles and materials including pima cotton.

In combination these two directives herald a direct challenge to the quality and integrity of competitors’, and t-shirt design and production in the general market. Read more

SeatShirt - T-Shirts Off The Rail

This is most certainly a new one on me, SeatShirt.eu offer designs from the seats from trains, buses and trams to your t-shirt! I’ve always been fascinated by the miserable failure of public transport textile design. Though personally as a Brit, seeing those infamously awful yet familiar tartan patterns of the old ’slammer’ trains replaced by plain and rather unnoticeable corporate patterns over recent years has been subconsciously disconcerting. I think I had grown to love the sad municipality of British design history without really knowing it, the home-made affair of ‘keen workers with an eye’ being given a chance (under union rules no doubt) to express their artistic bent in some small fashion.

Nowadays transport textiles are probably designed by corporate design groups armed with a team of hotshot psychologists and market researchers, however I can’t imagine what their remit would be? Something that doesn’t looked stained, even if it is, be it sweat, urine, alcohol, greasy takeaways or newspaper print. I’m not sure how often train seat covers are cleaned, but seeing as they’re stapled to the bench I doubt it’s very often. Read more

Another Hole In One By Glennz

If you want a chance of winning a $30 gift certificate from the awesome t-shirt designer Glennz, purchase one of his tees and take a pic of you wearing it. Upload the photo here and you’ll be entered into the monthly draw! Make sure it’s in landscape format so Glenn Jones, (Glenn from New Zealand = Glennz) can feature it on one of his product pages. Hey you could be famous and get yourself a few more tees to boot.

Anyway, here’s the latest fab tee from Glennz called ‘Puzzled Putter’. I’m not too keen on golf but I do love the M.C Escher twist in this design… Read more

DesignersBlock T-Shirts at Top Shop

If you haven’t heard of DesignersBlock before then you’re missing out. They’ve recently moved to a new 10,000 square foot HQ at 1 The Piazza, Covent Garden, London.

Just recently they co-launched a collection of art shirts with the high street fashion chain TopShop and unsurprisingly DB have made no compromises in style when it comes to entering the mainstream.

They also marked the event by creating an art installation at TopShop’s flagship Oxford Circus and Manchester Arndale stores, check out the video to see these artists at work. Read more

Kowtow Bows To No One!

Kowtow are shaking New Zealand’s fashion scene to its foundations. I never thought I’d put the words fashion and New Zealand together, but there’s always a first for everything! My partner Christina spent a good few years of her childhood over there when her father tried to seek his fortune as a landscape architect. It didn’t work out, mainly due to the abundance of other Brits who’d had the same idea at the same time, but what Chris bring back was the memory of a drab and rather conservative fashion sense which she spent her teenage years ripping apart as a goth, a hippy, a raver and so on and so on.

Luckily the current generation of NZ fashion addicts can rest easy, Kowtow.com has it all under control. They tick so many my style boxes, that it’s hard to fault anything about these guys. For a start their designs mix the absurdist theatrics and wordplay of the Surrealists with a highly acute sense of style, something reminiscent of both American underground comics of the 60’s and the early British punk movement of the 70’s. Stylish and funny, gritty and colourful, it’s been fun roaming their collection, there should be something there for all of you to enjoy. Read more

Eroteme - T-Shirts For The Dystopian Nostalgic

ErotemeClothing.com have only just launched their online collection of designer t-shirts this week, but are already causing a stir in the underground fashion industry. I think I may have met my match when it comes to Trey Romero, the designer and philosopher behind this radical label, have you ever read an introduction to a t-shirt store like this before?

Quote:- “In this day and age the t-shirt has become a universal medium of expression and creativity. While we do have the passion for design, our designs are incomplete. It is only with your participation in choosing the canvas that our designs truly come to fruition.“

A clear and concise mission statement which personally presses a great deal of psychological and emotional buttons for this reviewer. Trey has summed up a philosophy I have proposed for some months now. T-shirts are for the most part treated by reviewers and fans alike with a subdued contempt, a familiarity that belies the truth in what a t-shirt design can achieve in our society today. T-shirts are art. Something very strange is happening in our post-modern world of imagery and iconography. I was almost booted from my Fine Arts Degree course (many years back) for arguing the exact point with a senior lecturer at Brighton University. Art no longer thrives in the establishment of the gallery system. By the time art has made it’s way to a gallery wall it is purely a commodity, severed from social context, it loses its ability to change public perception and takes on the duller hues of self interest, commerce, and investment. The t-shirt is as much a canvas for ideas as any painting. Read more

Uniqlo - Everything Must Go!

Here’s a tip from one of Buy Tees female readers to take a look at the sale now on at Uniqlo - a high street favourite in Japan that has spread its wings as far as the UK. Elle Magazine even featured the store in April this year featuring actress/fashion impressario Chloë Sevigny sporting a groovy tee (see pic).

Their latest T-shirts on sale were originally designed in collaboration with iconic (famous in the 80’s) Australian artist Keith Haring, other t-shirts using work by the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as well as a line devoted to the 50th anniversary of Manga magazines. Usually on sale at £12.99 you can grab these groovy tees for as little as £2.99 whilst the sale is on! There are some real beauties there for men and women, and at these prices you can’t really complain, can you? Besides with the way that GBP Sterling is tumbling I’m sure most of the world will agree :p Read more

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