Built by Wendy. Loved by all.

    T-Shirt Reviews     New York, built by wendy, celebrity fashion tees, celebrity t-shirts, movie t-shirts, movie tees, womens tees

Take a look at this star studded roll-call of famous clients of the NY based fashion designer Wendy Mullin of Built by Wendy fame:-

Sofia Coppola, Zooey Deschanel, Jack Black, Parker Posey, Andy Samberg, Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Williams, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig, Amber Tamblyn, Rashida Jones, James Franco, Zoe Cassavetes, Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzmann.

Yes this girl is popular and then some, and no wonder why! Her flair for designing all kinds of clothing and her undoubtedly fine talent for illustration has resulted in a cult fashion label that’s influence has spread far and wide around the world. Asides a vast range of original pieces like her beaded Native American belts, cabled fisherman sweaters, canvas tote-bag inspired dresses and much more, there are links to a wide range of men’s and women’s t-shirts that evoke a longing for the past, a great taste in old movies, and a hankering for a simpler more traditional view on the world.

If you love classic movies such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Ordinary People and Mean Streets, and would love to see their iconic imagery and mood deftly illustrated and supplanted to high quality t-shirts, then www.builtbywendy.com should be your first port of call. BBW (an unfortunate abbreviation perhaps) offer a glimpse into the past, into simpler times when fashion was more friendly, when the majority of fashion lovers would buy their clothes locally, or even create them themselves from professional patterns.

By no coincidence Mullin sells her designs as patterns at her store, reigniting the past practices of millions of home seamstresses across the world. Even I remember my mother and my sister for a while busying themselves at a pair of sewing machines, busily beefing up their wardrobes with all the latest styles of the time, created from materials of their own choice, they really did become rather good at it. Of course there was the occasional mistake, and after a moment of parodied parading they’d unpick the offending item and begin a new blouse, dress, pair of slacks or when they were feeling more daring perhaps a coat or jacket. If you’re not too confident at the sewing machine then you might want to try her SEW U series of books, which include plenty of patterns and tips to get you started.

Take a look at these fine examples of her work…

Mean Streets T-Shirt

Beautifully drawn and with a great sense of humour, love the moody style and sentiment. Wendy’s flagship store is based in Little Italy so she should know just how bad Little Italy’s Feast of San Gennaro really is. A quote from Wikipedia explains the situation… ‘Some residents of Little Italy dislike the noise, garbage, and crowds generated by the festival. Although it is portrayed as a neighbourhood event, most of the organizers, vendors, or attendees do not live in the area. For more than a decade, moreover, federal prosecutors have raised concerns that organized crime is involved in running the festival‘. Available for men and women. The featured tee is for the ladies and comes in sizes S to L and S to XL for men. Each are available for a rather high price at $45 however there are design differences in the embroidered details. The women’s feature an embroidered Italian flag and the men’s has an embroidered line in the colours of the flag at the bottom of the design.

Exploding Mouse T-Shirt

I love this design, I am with Bart Simpson when he states that Mickey is the mascot of an evil corporation, but this design clearly harks back to the very beginnings of the Disney empire. At a time when a rather badly drawn mouse did little more than jump about, squeak and occasionally laugh at very little. If only this particular rodent had met with a fateful accident we might not need to endure the likes of Euro Disney and awful awful remakes of classic literature aka Tim Burton’s pathetic reinterpretation of the classic novel Alice in Wonderland (even the cheap cartoon version fairs better). Still don’t get me started on Disney, back to the t-shirt, a classic in the making. Confusingly enough Wendy has decided to supply the same product photo modelled by a slightly ginger geek for both the men‘s and women‘s versions of this tee, so don’t worry if you think you’ve arrived at the wrong page, you haven’t. Again this one is pricey, I suppose you could argue that you get what you pay for, and when you want a quality t-shirt by a top NYC fashion designer $45 doesn’t sound so exuberant. Available in ‘athletic grey’ in sizes XS to XL for both sexes.

Dudes Gone Wild T-Shirt

Another fantastically well drawn design, love the play on words, subverting the whole College Break / Girls Gone Wild idiom, ever so subtly to the point that even mentioning it seems somewhat obtrusive, the Dudes Gone Wild tee features Warren Oats from Hired Hand & Cockfighter; Stacy Keach from Fat City; Harry Dean Stanton from Cockfighter & Cisco Pike; and Kris Kristofferson from Cisco Pike & Pat Garrett. Only large sizes left for women and sizes S to XL for the guys at $45 each.

Bloody Boys T-Shirt

Following on the rough and tumble theme The Bloody Boys Tee comes in heather blue and features Noah Taylor from “Flirting”, Malcolm McDowell from “If”, Bud Cort from “Harold & Maude”, Adam Baldwin from “My Bodyguard”. I love Lindsay Anderson‘s “If…“, and anything that promotes this superb film and director is alright by me! (If you love If then check out O Lucky Man!) Once again superb illustrations make up this unique design, available in heather blue in all sizes for both men and women.

Wendy’s t-shirts are like a breath of fresh air to the market, simple high quality tees printed with a beautiful selection of traditional illustrations featuring a blend of nostalgic and obscure imagery, reinterpreted for the 21st century with a gentle sense of humour and a highly delicate touch.

1998 saw the opening of Wendy’s first flagship retail store on Centre Market Place in the Little Italy neighbourhood in NYC. Her successful online shop launched soon after that, and in 2005 she opened her second retail store in the Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn. Her line is carried in boutiques and indie stores throughout the USA and around the world. Wendy has further built up the brand by venturing into publishing and numerous high profile collaborations. In 2003, Wendy was hired as Creative Director of Wrangler47, a limited premium denim line for Wrangler Jeans. The collaboration was highly successful and the line completely sold out across the USA.

There’s only one real criticism of Wendy’s store, either she should get some new models in (especially for the women’s tees, using a man is just confusing), or failing that get a better looking BF. Only joking lol.

See more of her work at www.builtbywendy.com.

The Sun Always Shines on LadyUmbrella

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     LadyUmbrella, art shirts, girl's t-shirts, girls tees, womens t-shirts, womens tees

For those of the female persuasion we have a real treat for you, a feature on LadyUmbrella, an art t-shirt company based in Ireland, and fuelled by the creative powerhouse that is the Spanish designer Elena Montes Casado. In fact it was her experience of arriving in rainy Dublin directly from the hot and spicy climate of her home in Madrid that prompted her to think of the name. “I saw lots of people with umbrellas and couldn’t really see peoples faces and from that I got the idea…”. Casado’s love of animals also shows through in a lot of her work, birds and beasts of all kinds appear in her art, in her own words “I can’t imagine her talking to human beings so instead she has lots of feathered friends (for now).”

LadyUmbrella is an immediately recognisable character for one very obvious reason, she has an umbrella for a head, don’t laugh, it’s poetic or symbolic or something…

I love the style, it reminds me of animation I used to watch growing up as a kid in Britain, it was so gentle and delicate then, a world away from the slick CGI of nowadays. Dreamy, that’s the word, something along the lines of Crystal Tipps meets the original Moomins.

LU launched their online t-shirt store on the 20th of January 2010 and have created a lovely site and store, and of course collection. The whole feel of the brand is light, slightly dreamy and very delicate, something rare in the world of t-shirt art. So… if you’re ready to meet LadyUmbrella read on! read more

Navel Gazing With Big Fluff

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     ASOS, London, UK art fashions, UK fashion, art shirts, big fluff, bigfluff.com, fashion tees, hand printed t-shirts, womens t-shirts, womens tees

Big Fluff have some big ideas which are perfectly transformed into hand printed high quality t-shirts for the connoisseur t-shirt aficionado. You can really tell that BF thinks long and hard about its concepts and performs the same due care and attention when it comes to the production of their high quality urban wear. Amongst their range of tees, tops, sweaters, hoodies and dresses are some superb large scale prints, many of which could as easily transfer to wall art if they chose to do so.

Using a simple, bold and effective stencil style, everyone of Big Fluff’s concepts are designed to make an immediate and long-standing impact on the wearer and those around them. What hits you first about their range is the generously proportioned size of their prints, almost all completely cover the front of their tees, I’d love to see them venture into all-over printing in the future as their ideas certainly lend themselves to an even greater artistic expression.

I’m not particularly keen on the store design, it doesn’t really do justice to the quality of their collection (although this could be very easily remedied), I’d rather be free to focus purely on the products in a plain and simple (even sparse) shop layout. I’d also like to see a little more customer interaction (although they do have a newsletter that seems a little “old hat” for such a vibrant company), perhaps a blog or a mere link to a Twitter account can do wonders! Nevertheless Big Fluff as a label are seriously going from strength to strength, based in London, their hand printed, coloured and finished tees are sold across Britain and the world both on-line and off-line, including the highly successful fashion catalogue firm ASOS and as it happens my GF Christina’s eye has been caught by their offerings as she’s a fan of ASOS herself. They’ve even been featured in Heat Magazine a number of times, so we’re rather impressed that BF have chosen our little blog to review them!

Expect the highest quality t-shirts, they use sweatshop free and fairly traded garments which are produced to very high ethical and environmental specifications and only the highest quality 100% cotton t-shirts and organic t-shirts where specified – using ring spun combed cotton for a smooth, soft feel as the standard. What’s more all their products come with free delivery for the UK!

Gaze in to the navel of Big Fluff and experience a bold and adventurously surreal vision of the world! read more

Freebies at Gurly Q …hmm

admin    T-Shirt News     GurlyQ, dodgy, female t-shirts, fraud, free t-shirt, girls tees, girly t-shirts, trick, womens tees, womens tshirts

Erik from GurlyQ.com (hey nice name curlicue, girlyq) wanted a quick shout for their latest offer, a *free t-shirt. As I’m sure you can guess this one is for the girls, but then again who knows, there maybe a few guys out there who want to discover their feminine side via the medium of t-shirt design. Then again this could be one big dodgy con… Erik won’t come clean! I’m still awaiting his denial! read more