Sweet Tea Tees
I’m a Brit and so you’d expect me to know all about tea even if I am drinking coffee right now. On a couple of visits to Morocco I got hooked on Mint Tea, when I’m ill I will drink green tea, and if anyone in England needs cheering up someone will usually say they need “a nice cup of tea.” But sweet tea is a new one on me, it’s a traditional drink that harks from the earliest history of the deep South, first produced commercially in South Carolina in 1792 by a French botanist/explorer, and looks basically like its iced tea with a whole lot of sugar in it. All you need to know is that Graphic/Web Designer Michael Dorman is a fanatic for the stuff, what’s more he’s even dedicated his label Sweet Tea Junkie to the beverage.
First things first, Michael was kind enough to offer Buy Tees a discount for all you lucky readers – just type in buytees at the checkout for a very generous 15% off - it’s permanent and is featured in our T-Shirt Discounts section so you’ll never miss out in case you need a quick fix of his refreshing brew of street fashion. I’m definitely a fan of some of STJ’s tees, I do like the fact that he’s printed the inside of his shirts with a recipe for Sweet Tea which must come in handy for anyone with a less than perfect memory. However recipe or not this is a very novel idea, perhaps a lesson for all the t-shirt companies out there struggling with their branding, most brands will make a big fuss when they produce the odd reversible fashion item but the truth is Michael is doing it as standard. Outstanding.
All Sweet Tea Junkie’s shirts are printed on comfortable 100% cotton 4.3 oz Combed Ringspun shirts which means super-soft, lightweight, and slim-fitting tees, all preshrunk to minimize shrinkage and side-seamed for a tailored cut. STJ offers a very wide range of sizes too, from kids sizes (cut for boys and girls) all the way to 3XL, and every t-shirt is available for a reasonably priced $17.50 which seems something of a bargain when you consider the quality.
Fancy a brew? I’ll be mother…
Bloom Tee
I’d never thought about it before but it makes sense that if you grow tea the plants will bloom in the Spring. I really like this design, it’s definitely STJ’s strongest. As mentioned before this and all Sweet Tea’s tees are printed with a sweet tea recipe on the inside. The flower motif reminds me a lot of a Tudor rose, right down to the woodcut style of the illustration. It’d obvious why this shirt has been reprinted time after time, a big seller for tea fans.
Collage Tee
Now, I’m not quite sure what this one has to do with sweet tea, or tea in general, perhaps it’s inspired by a special breed of Peyote-based tea, or maybe the sweet tea experience is a lot more psychedelic than I had imagined. What I do know is that whatever the hell else is happening in this design, there are definitely some critters in there of some description chuggin’ away at pitchers of the stuff. A cool design but it needs more tea :o
1879 Tee
This shirt marks the year of the first published Sweet Tea recipe emblazoned with all manner of tea-related sayings and vintage typographies. A nice example of a type tee with a message, and that message is… Michael is totally obsessed with sweet tea! Lol. Seriously though I do wonder how many more ideas he can garner from this highly specific addiction, maybe it’s time to come to the dark side and try a few unsweetened teas. Or is that tantamount to heresy?
I have to admit I’m more of a tea addict than a sweet tea aficionado, however if I ran a tea-inspired t-shirt company the first thing I’d do is print an enormous tea bag on the front of my very first shirt, we’ve have all had our fill of polka-dot designs, but a tea bag design would be a real twist. Yes I’m sticking my oar in but the fact is big is better and I know that, at the very least, that the British hoi-poloi would go nuts for a truly trendy tea-inspired design. One to consider for the future I suppose…
If your thirst isn’t quite quenched then stroll over to www.SweetTeaJunkie.com for even more tea-inspired tees!
Tees That Don’t Suck!
Suck! Clothing are based in Italy and sell their funky t-shirts via their online store at www.suckmystar.bigcartel.com. First off I don’t know if the meaning got lost in the translation but I guarantee you one thing, Suck! Clothing doesn’t suck! In fact quite the opposite, their wild style designs and jampacked with strong colours, memorable designs and a great sense of humour. They seem to take their inspiration from everywhere including bad movies like Teenwolf, abstract and graffiti art, outer space, and surreal cartoons. Their latest and highly confident collection opens up a vista of Italian design sensibility that’s distinctly different to much on offer in the USA dominated t-shirt market.
Check out their video promo for their Sping/Summer 2010 collection, it’s not too informative but the music is cool heh.
Check out these tees:
Wayne’s World T-Shirt
The Wayne’s World T-Shirt says it all. If you still find yourself mumbling “Wayne’s World! Party time! Excellent!” from time to time, probably reluctantly and with a smidgeon of guilty pleasure then come out of the proverbial heavy metal closet and proclaim your love for this celluloid tribute to iffy rock and bad jokes. I don’t know what it is about Mike Myers, his movies, especially Austin Powers, seemed so funny at the time, nowadays they grate on my nerves. Still the t-shirt rocks, a great sense of perspective and superb old school colours. Get this tee for guys in sizes XS to L for $31. PLUS get a free limited edition hand numbered Wayne’s World poster (applies to first 100 customers).
Teenwolf T-Shirt
I like this one, hate the film mind you, but I like this shirt. Probably the smartest piece of brand placement I’ve ever seen, a great lesson for budding designers trying to think of a name for their label, make sure you can use your logo in your designs! College does suck, or rather it did when I was there, not as much as school mind you, not even as much as work, but sure, it sucks. Love the font on this one, looks like something out of a bad horror comedy, oh yeah it is heh. The face needs some work, if that is supposed to be Michael J. Fox under all that fur? I give it a 7/10, would give it a 9 if they sort that face out. Get the Teenwolf T-Shirt for $31 for guys in all sizes. Get a free movie poster with this order too…
Candies T-Shirt
Here’s a cutie for the girls, it’s called the Candies T-Shirt and the reasons why are self evident. Those lollipops look so real I wouldn’t be surprised if Suck! has deliberately stuck real ones on there to mess with your mind. If you have an extremely sweet tooth then you can get this tee for girls in sizes S to L for $25.
1969 T-Shirt
A lot of stuff happened in 1969, first off I was born the day before on New Year’s Eve, the world had succumbed to Moon madness, and everyone thought we’d be living there by now, don’t ask me why, I’d want to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. The hippies started kicking off, they’d come down off their seemingly inexhaustible supply of LSD and free love and started getting shot by bikers. Iggy Pop’s Stooges made a great song about the year, it doesn’t tell us much except that just maybe that the people were sick of putting flowers in their hair and wanted to riot a la the French. Cool t-shirt, nice sentiment, get the 1969 T-Shirt for guys at $25 in sizes XS to L.
See the rest of Suck! Clothing’s shirts at www.suckmystar.bigcartel.com plus check out their blog and Facebook page too!
Banksy Sculpture Vandalised by Spunky Tees Fan
You may or may not know that Banksy recently “took over” the Bristol Museum in the UK (I’m sure they welcomed him with open arms). Anyway Spunky T-Shirts have posted a rather amusing photo that one of their fans has sent in. It seems their fans are getting everywhere these days. For all those who (wrongly) argue that street art is merely vandalism, here’s an example of counter-insurgency in the graffiti scene to back up your view. Take a closer look, yes that’s a Spunky sticker, fame at last!
 |
Anyway whilst I’m at it Spunky’s legendary sale is still on so hop over there now and take a lookie ;)
Sounds, Sights And Tees With Spunky At Glastonbury
admin 
T-Shirt News 
Glastonbury, Glastonbury Festival, Spunky.co.uk, T-Shirts, funny tees, hippies, hippy, spunky, submit t-shirt design
One of, if not the biggest music festivals in the world, Glastonbury, is just around the corner and Spunky T-Shirts are preparing for their biggest bash ever at the hallowed grounds of Worthy Farm. What’s more Spunky are pulling out all the stops to make this year’s annual event bigger, better, louder and brighter than ever before. They’ve bought some new lighting for the party, replaced some of their speakers and got all their fave DJ’s lined up – with regulars Eddie Fett, Kidross and Danny Bionyc plus special guests including Mr Craig.
But the fun doesn’t stop there, oh no! Spunky are making a shout out for artists to paint some walls for us at Glastonbury, so if you’ve got a ticket and some skills, get in touch through their contact form. They’ll even supply the paint! But lest you forget, Spunky are famous for one thing and that’s great t-shirts! Hey, I know I’ve mentioned it a 100 times before but what the heck, I just received Spunky’s latest newsletter and was chuffed to see that my t-shirt design ‘Old School‘ is still selling well after what seems like a year on their prestigious label! You can get it for £24.95, if you fancy designing a tee for Spunky then check out this link, you get £150 and plenty of free promotions for your art. read more
Get Your Teeth In To FreeGums
So who, what, why where? Well it all began (for us here) when Rohan from Fabnob.com.au (a fashion writer and devoted fan of Buy Tees) told us about their latest interview with Alvaro Ilizarbe aka Freegums – we were pretty impressed with the interview and not being au fait with FG we decided to investigate further. Alvaro is what you might call a Renaissance Man, no I don’t mean he wears a doublet and stockings and a feather in a velvet cap quoting Shakespeare at any opportune moment, well maybe he does but he obviously keeps that aspect of his life close to his heart, no I mean the guy is multi-talented and happy with almost any creative medium. By the way in case you’re wondering the name ‘Freegums’ was originally the name of Alvaro’s party nights, don’t ask me why, I’ve no idea.
He used to run house parties, he once drove an ice-cream van full of art around South Florida promoting and selling new contemporary art, oh and as you might have guessed he makes great t-shirts. If you want the full low-down on what makes Alvaro check out this great interview at Fabnob otherwise stick around and check out what all the fuss is about! read more
Swine Flu? In Case Of Emergency Wear A T-Shirt!
Not any t-shirt mind you! T-shirt designer extraordinaire Tony Cavalier of ZombieStars.com has just sent me info on his latest designs, one of which is as current as you can get, the other, well let’s say the other maybe a glimpse into the future if the pandemic runs rife! I always wondered about pork, it’s a cheap meat, the smell of cooking bacon led me back to the dark side after my early venture into vegetarianism, yes I was the tender age of 11 and lived on Pot Noodles and Quorn for 2 years before nearly dying from malnutrition.
A piece of advice – if you do decide to become a vegetarian make sure you love vegetables! I can eat anything now including veggies and dreaded pork products and am still wondering if perhaps I and every other ex-vegetarian had caused this latest apocalypse with fervour for bacon sarnies on a Saturday morning.
Another worrying thing is our cats, in fact no cat I know of in the local area (I feed a few strays down the road (when they look skinny and desperate) refuse to eat pork, bacon, in fact anything to do with piggies. Perhaps they’re from a feline sect of the Jewish or Muslim faiths, funny that how certain religions have always turned their back on pork, maybe there is something in it? I even caught a clip of a 1976 health warning film from the USA the other day warning against Swine Flu, so I know that someone somewhere must’ve been waiting for this latest outbreak for a long long time.
Who knows if the disease transfers from human to human we may all be up the creek without a paddle, then again it seems you have to literally roll around with pigs to get infected, so as long as I stay away from any farms, wear a gas mask and one of Tony’s tees I should be fine…
To learn about the evolution of the Swine Flu disease and it’s possible effect on the human race check out Tony Cavalier’s two hilarious t-shirt designs on offer now…
Fera Fera – What Could Be Fairer?
OK, OK, it’s very very early days for Fera Fera, they have a very limited range of tees on offer, but we’ve had a very friendly email from Shawn who runs the label, and Christina likes at least one of their designs so we think it only fair to give the company a boost and feature what is currently their best t-shirt on offer.
We’d like to feature more of them but in all honesty we think the label needs a little work all round, starting with the site/store/shop – it’s a real plain Jane and it’s crying out for some graphic finesse. That asides there are at least a few t-shirts that need to be abandoned pronto, it’s hard for every designer to get off the ground, but take a look around our blog, you can all see what the competition are up to, and for the main part they are masters of the tee universe. Essentially great fashion design (which is in all honesty what t-shirt design is) relies on two main factors. Concept and Conception. You can’t just have a good idea, you have to deliver it too. That is most likely why at least one of their designs has some appeal. read more
Big Changes At Cameesa.com
admin T-Shirt News Cameesa.com, T-Shirts, cameesa, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, free shipping, t-shirt competition, t-shirt contest, tees, tshirts
If you haven’t heard of Cameesa.com before they’re a crowdfunding/crowdsourcing t-shirt store in the same vein as Threadless, Springleap and others in the market. They help connect artists with fans as many do however they’ve taken this business model a step further encouraging more commitment from t-shirt fans by encouraging them to be sponsors. We have featured Cameesa before at Cameesa.com Crowdfunding Fashion last September and they’re going from strength to strength, building up their fan base and database of top designers.
Here’s the latest news straight from Kamil, one of the team at Cameesa -
* They’ve lowered support amounts from $20 down to $10, so now you can support a tee for just $10 or wait to buy it for $18+
* There’s Free Shipping on everything from March 20th-27th so hurry down there now!
What’s more if your fave tee doesn’t make the grade you can reclaim your sponsorship, in fact you’ll get 110% back just for your trouble!
Whilst I’m at it here’s a few of their latest t-shirts on offer… read more
Win A MacBook Pro @ Teextile!
admin T-Shirt News T-Shirts, Teextile, teextile competition, teextile contest, teextile prizes, teextile t-shirt contest, teextile.com, textileTeextile.com have opened their shop and are selling top voted t-shirts everyday of the week forever! They have some great gear on offer (already), take a look here to see the première winners and their mad designs.
If you want to order any of their tees or help promote their site then you’ll need to sign up as a user. Whilst you’re at it why not tell your friends (and even your foes) and get a chance at winning one of these 3 fantastic prizes! read more
Cockney Empire Exclusive!
admin T-Shirt Reviews Chunk, Cockney Empire, Joystick Junkies, T-Shirts, amazing t-shirts, urban fashion, urban streetwear
Forget Pearly Kings and Queens, forget about doing the Lambeth Walk, don’t walk, RUN! This is the heavy heavy style of THE COCKNEY EMPIRE! Oh my gawd it’s been a long time since I’ve got this excited about a post, if any t-shirt company out there is right up my street it has to be these guys. Sure I’m not a cockney born and bred, well not at all, but my father and his father were born within the sound of Bow Bells so I have a massive connection with the East End (London) culture, and Cockney Empire are about to take it to the dizzying heights of a whole new level in London style.
Okay, okay so the website isn’t ready, but I was totally chuffed when I received an email from Mike “Mauler” Crosby and Steve “Guvnor” James at Cockney Empire who said that my recent review of Chunk T-Shirts and the big mention I gave them has given them a major proverbial kick up the backside and made them realise they’ve got to pull their finger out and start rolling out the fashion and online presence big time. But don’t think CE have been sitting on their laurels, it’s all go go go since they’ve started their promotions at this years Margin streetwear fashion trade show in London and you know what, I expect big big BIG things for Cockney Empire! They’ve already got international streetwear buyers clambering for their gear, so I’m sure when I say, these guys are heading for the big league, you know it makes sense buster. For More information on Cockney Empire and its fantastic range, contact Steve James on (00) +44 0208 519 2500 or email steve@cockneyempire.com.
Just take a look at their insignia for starters, I mean “maybe you have to be a Londoner” (cue music) to really appreciate exactly how cool it is but mixing up Two-Tone style, football and death, well you just can’t get better than that in my opinion. To be fair their influences stretch far further than the East End including New York’s Rockabillies and the Biker gangs of San Francisco, but expect a little more edge, a little more twist in their style compared to the usual crowd. Such as original, edgy graphics and quirky detailing, with classic to lightweight distressed V-necks and Crews, all constructed in top quality fabrics and superb graphics for starters! Anyway let’s take a look at the amazing tees they are already knocking out. They’re set up as two halves, a design agency that creates stunning work for the likes of Joystick Junkies and Chunk (Mike Crosby is an Ex-Chunk senior designer BTW) and their own exclusive fashion label that offers NO licences, that’s right you’ll only be able to buy these from the Cockneys, so keep your eyes peeled and polish your knuckle dusters, it’s time for a fashion beating! read more
Follow us on Twitter!Featured Websites
T-Shirt Discounts
Blogroll
- Annie Spandex
- Beautiful Decay
- Color Overload
- Defunkd
- Fat Seagull
- Graffiti Art
- Links
- Pop Culture Tees
- RedBubble.com
- Retro God
- Shred News
- Smart Geezer
- Technocrati
- Thunderfrogs
- Urban Art
- Watchteev
Archives
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
