Japanese Laundry

admin    T-Shirt News     British t-shirts, Japanese Laundry, Japanese t-shirts, Selvedge, UK tees

Japanese Laundry are a brand new label from the UK with a passion for all things (you guessed it) Japanese. It all started with a love for Japanese Selvedge Raw denim jeans, for 12 years they’ve been working on producing their own, and now they’re planning to release a whole host of Japanese influenced items including tees, polos, sweats and shirts. JL will be opening their doors or rather booting up the online store at the end of this month,  they aim to offer up their first batch of t-shirts at £29.99 each in sizes S,M,L,XL which will be available for pre-order and available from April online and in stores across the UK.

I’ve persuaded Ross at Japanese Laundry to upload photos at Flickr, so this will probably be your first sneak peek at their shirts including their Harajuku Showgirls Tee. Unless of course you’ve read the technical review of their merchandise at DapperDude.co.uk. In the meantime feast your eyes on these which will all be available in a variety of difference colours…

Asai Tee

Yoshihiro Asai is a Japanese Wrestler, and is the only professional wrestler in the world to hold 11 titles at the same time. Better known as Último Dragón (ウルティモ ドラゴン) – his mask is the inspiration behind this design

Fukuoko 7 Tee

Nagoya Grampus 8, based in Nagoya play in the J. League. Originally founded as the company team of the Toyota Motor Corp. in 1939.

Nagoya Gampus 8 Tee

Nagoya Grampus 8, based in Nagoya play in the J. League. Originally founded as the company team of the Toyota Motor Corp. in 1939.

Safe Tee

This design features the “Love Cannon” condom box, one of Japan’s less strange condoms packets! The packet features Gundam the Japanese famous robot.

Lee Medlin Tee

“Pedlin” Lee Medlin’s first race for Kuwahara Cycles Ltd (only the finest BMX manufacturer in Japan founded in 1916) was the NBL Grand Nationals on August the 30th 1980. Pedlin Medlin rode No.7 in that first race.

Tokyo Fixed Gear Tee

Tokyo Fixed started as a web only shop in Tokyo, using small quality brands who have a passion for both style and function.

Harajuku Show Girls Tee

Japan is a place where everyone is individual – Harajuku became famous in the 1980s due to the street performers and wildly-dressed teens who gathered there on Sundays.

Keep an eye out for the grand opening sometime at the end of January at www.JapaneseLaundry.com.

Art Shirts @ Graniph

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     Graniph, Japanese t-shirts, allover, art shirts, art tees, artist t-shirts, cut and sew, jumbo prints

Graniph is a design house based in Tokyo, Japan. They offer plenty of very cool art shirts, cut & sew tees, hoodies and more plus they provide a great platform for artists wanting to get into the fashion trade. All the tees are on offer at JPY  2,500 which is roughly $29.69 each for guys and girls. There are literally 1000′s of tees on offer, too many too feature as it happens, but I wanted to share a few of my ultimate faves. Any of which would make a great late Xmas present if you want to risk the late post! Still worth thinking about for next year I s’pose! Don’t worry they have a translated section in case you haven’t brushed up on your Japanese lately. If you fancy trying your luck and submitting a few designs click here.

Anyway check these out:

Nicholas Lorden vol.02 Tee

An absolutely gorgeous ladies cut & sew tee by photographer Nicholas Lorden. Very moody. In case you’re wondering what the big deal is about a cut & sew tee, essentially panels of cloth are printed cut to size and then sewn together to create all over and jumbo prints. The same applies to side seam tees although they don’t seem as popular plus there’s also a technique using a belt screen printer which was big in the 90s. Check this post out at T-shirt Forums for some handy links.

Marcus Walters vol.2 Ladies Tee

A highly amusing tee by Marcus Walters featuring one of my fave artworks by the greatest conceptualist of all time. If you’re scratching your head right now, think about it. Over a 100 years ago a highly respected and influential artist ruins his career in order to point out the hipocracy of the gallery/salon system. Marcel Duchamp made the last factory worker on the line producing gents toilets to sign it, R. Mutt. Marcel was probably the nearest to a futurologist this world has ever seen, his conceptual ideas influenced most of the 20th Century, including artists like Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. Duchamp is the man, and La Fontaine is the most hilarious sculpture ever produced…

National Flag Skull Tee

A smart idea, not sure how well it turned out visually but I love the concept all the same.

Colourful Mushrooms Tee

I spent my late teens scrabbling around damp hills surrounding Brighton, usually in October, all for the love of shrooms. Crazy design, turn on, tune in, tee out. Love that generous print size right up to the seams!

Naughty Ape Tee

Very Banksy. Although I am getting a little sick of ape designs, this tee is definitely cute!

Swifty 001 Tee

This superb take on a classic Warhol is by Swifty, a highly talented UK street artist…

Jack a Dandy Tee

This one is just plain weird, which is good by the way lol.

Alice Wars 2 Tee

Another edition of the classic Alice Wars tee. Balloons and guns, a perfect combo!

Andy Smith vol.03 Tee

Love this one, it’s by the designer/illustrator Andy Smith. Flying rats never looked so cute.

See ‘em all at www.graniph.com and make sure you check the sizes though as Japanese sizes can be a little less forgiving :p

Uniqlo – Everything Must Go!

admin    T-Shirt News     British Design, Japanese t-shirts, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Keith Harring, art shirts, artist t-shirt designs, famous artist fashion, uniqlo

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 Chlo√´ 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

Akumu Ink aka Japanese Nightmare Tees!

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     Akuma T-Shirts, Blood, Edgar Allen Poe, Japanese horror, Japanese t-shirts, The Raven, gore, grudge, ju-on grudge, nevermore, the ring

I have left Dora from AkumuInk.com waiting in the wings for a few days whilst I took a brief but well deserved miniature t-shirt sabbatical -the truth is the best thing you can do when you’re hilt by the stultifying presence of mortality is to carry on doing what you did before, a little wiser, a little more focused than before, and so I want to give a mention to AkumuInk.com – a small but thriving independent Canadian t-shirt label offering something a little off the wall compared to most.

Akumu means Nightmare in Japanese. As Dora states – “We get our inspirations from Japanese horror movies and hardcore music. We translate these inspirations into large graphics that we screen print onto American Apparel t-shirts.” I’m a big fan of Japanese horror, in fact most Asian horror of the 1990′s and beyond have trashed anything on par from the States. Japanese horror dwells in places you wouldn’t want to dream, confronts ideas you’d rather not tackle, and delivers images that imprint on your subconscious far more deeply than any trash gore flick could manage. I was expecting to see some references to Original Japanese versions of The Ring or Ju-on: The Grudge, (not the awful American remakes), but copyright concerns mean t-shirt designers have to think “outside the box” when it comes to appropriated influences. read more