Now, I know some of you aren't too hip on printing on the back of a shirt. To be perfectly honest, I'm really not into it either. But in this case, it brings the whole tee together...
If you're as much of a Big Lebowski as I am, you'll probably dig this Achiever shirt from the dudes at Lebowski Fest. If you don't, pour yourself a white russian, put on some Creedence and chill. Maybe that'll put you in the right headspace. But if you do all that and you still don't like it, fuck it.
$12.00 | Credit | URL|W|P|111231106546996661|W|P|Achiever|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
When I was in 4th and 5th grade, we used to get an hour a week in our school's computer lab. Every week we'd arrive to three dozen Apple IIs loaded with Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail.
Ah, Oregon Trail... The bane of my existence. I spent three arduous weeks trying to circumnavigate the Columbia River. After that, I spent six weeks trying to hunt enough buffalo to feed my party. All the while my party kept dying of dysentery and cholera. It took me five months to beat that goddamn game, but I loved it.
Since I like to show off my scars and broadcast my shortcomings, I adore Busted Tees' "You Have Died Of Dysentery" shirt. It reminds me of swing sets, pizza day in the cafeteria, cub scouts and kickball. Besides, what's not to love about a shirt that basically says "you died from a bad case of the shits"?
$17.99 | Credit | URL|W|P|111225305416775265|W|P|You Have Died Of Dysentery|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
About a month ago Jason Kottke dropped out of the 9-5 game to do his weblog as a full time job. With the support of close to 700 people [which he has dubbed "micropatrons"] in the first month, we assume that he's off to a good start.
Jason was nice enough to set aside a few minutes to help us launch our latest irregular feature, "What's In Your Closet?" Yeah, we loved Gizmodo's "What's In Your Gadget Bag" so much that we had to make it our own. So without further adieu, let's take a look at some of J.Ko's favorite tees...
Flowers In The Attic
The version I have isn't pictured on the site, but it's red on red, which makes the design somewhat hard to see unless you're really looking hard at it in good light. That cuts down on the casual on-the-street mortification which is good because people usually don't react very well when they realize I'm wearing a tshirt picturing a little girl blowing her head off with a pistol. I've worn this shirt twice now when going through security at the airport and have gotten no comment either time, a lucky streak which I will try not to push to three.
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Design is a Good Idea
Classic shirt from Emigre. I've had mine forever now, probably 8 years or so, and I still wear it often. I don't know what brand of shirt and printing process they used, but I wish all my shirts held up this well...unless you look closely, you can barely tell it's been worn.
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Oral-B
This is a sentimental favorite, given to me by an old girlfriend of mine. It's an employee shirt from the Oral-B factory in Iowa City, probably purchased from a Goodwill or Salvation Army. I don't wear this one very often because the fabric is so thin (but soft!) that I'm afraid it's going to dissolve in a stiff wind one day.
URLWow, man... All of those were very choice tees. Then again, they're also totally sold out or hard to come by. Way to induce t-shirt lust, Kottke. On the flip side, thanks for helping us get this new feature off the ground. Mad respect to you.|W|P|111216956562753978|W|P|What's In Your Closet, Jason Kottke?|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
There's no way you're going to be able to make a high quality four color shirt by using this process. But if you want to step up from stenciling, this is probably the way to go.
What's really ingenious about this method is it requires very little other than some glue, an embroidery hoop, some sheer nylons and screen printers ink. I swear man, some of these kids on LiveJournal are too crafty for their own good.
As always, we advise you try this method on an unloved t-shirt that you picked up at a thrift store before attempting to screen a fresh, blank tee.
URL|W|P|111169664123396640|W|P|This Old T-Shirt: Cheap Screen Printing|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Alex from Death Attack has got a big old pair of balls. He's got a tee that's envisioned Mickey Mouse as a happy go lucky suicide bomber, complete with blood dripping off his hands and a turban. It's as powerful an image as it is ammusingly stupid, but it's still punk as fuck.
At $10.00 a shirt, we suggest you buy two before Disney gives him a smack on the back of the hands.
$10.00 | PayPal | URL|W|P|111161987202357207|W|P|Terrorist Mickey|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Sometimes I wonder if Anarchists ever get tired of wearing black. I mean, I do. Even if it does go with everything, it can get a bit monotonous to wear.
So if you want to overthrow the system while looking fashionable, Proletarian Threads has got your back. They've got a whole fleet of colorful, politically tinged shirts on fitted tees. My favorite has to be Anarchy Is For Lovers, even if the design is so emo that it hurts.
P.S. I'm sure there's a joke that I can do about Anarchists selling shirts, but I won't crack it.
$14.99 | PayPal | URL|W|P|111153717035605106|W|P|Anarchy Is For Lovers|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
The horribly named Brixwear 1000 from PodBrix is a limited edition tee that's got an interesting feature... A magnetic iPod Shuffle holder. So basically, it looks like the little Lego minifig on the shirt is holding your shuffle.
While the idea and implementation are cute, the shirt is really not my cup of tea. But since close to 20% of our audience are Apple users, I figured a few of y'all might get a kick out of it.
They go on sale tonight [03.21.05] at 9PM EST and have been limited to a batch of 300. Most of their other limited edition items have gone pretty fast, so get it while it's hot.
Update: Sold out in 18 minutes. Damn, yo.
$28.99 | PayPal | URL [via]|W|P|111145142327853896|W|P|Brixwear 1000|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
We don't feature a lot of white shirts around here, but we're going to make an exception. You see, we have a bit of a soft spot for Devo and this tee makes our inner mutant smile.
We've often asked ourselves "What Would Devo Do?" when confronted with a tough situation. Unfortunately, the only answer we've ever been able to come up with is, "wear tyvek suits and flowepot hats" or "whip it good" which is hardly useful in a crisis. Unless you're Indiana Jones, that is...
$12.00 | Credit | URL [via]|W|P|111143865055979611|W|P|What Would Devo Do?|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Much like the Pro account I once had, it would seem that my blue Blogger tee and hoodie are now relics. In their place, the Google store is offering two new shirts - a fitted brown tee and a ringer style gym shirt. Both feature the newer, more friendly rounded Blogger logo.
I really wish I could get one in blue though. While I look okay in brown, I really seem to shine in blue.
$10.50 | Credit | URL [via]|W|P|111120359911129204|W|P|Blogger|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Much like Kevin Smith grew up watching "Degrassi", I grew up watching "Saved By The Bell". The week to week adventures of Zack Morris and the rest of the Bayside gang got me thru many boring Saturdays.
Actually, if I can be honest for a second I'll tell you why I really watched "Saved By The Bell". The truth is, I was going thru puberty and Kelly Kapowski gave me chub. Hell, she still does. And now all I can think about is Tiffani Amber Thiessen in a cheerleader's uniform...
It always seems to come down to the base instincts with me, doesn't it?
$18.00 | PayPal | URL|W|P|111119770050254146|W|P|Bayside Tigers|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Add www.preshrunk.info to your bookmark bar right now because you're going to be checking it constantly. Every day, Jason Cosper scours the net for interesting, unusual, funny or just plain rockin' T-shirts, and posts a picture, description and a link with prices. From the weird ("Welcome squid overlords") to the quirky ("Bacon is a vegetable") to the sleek-design-geeky ("Futura," written in, you guessed it, Futura font), Preshrunk's got your tastes, and your torso, covered. Cosper has been pleasantly surprised by how popular his site has become only two months after its launch. "I really love T-shirts, and I think people appreciate that." He says the budding trend of narrowcasting - writing about one really specific topic - has contributed to Preshrunk's success. "When you want advice on something, you go to someone passionate about it," he says. "It seems that when people want advice on a T-shirt, they give me a holler."You said some very nice stuff there, Margaret. Thanks for the coverage! Your bribe should be arriving in the mail within the week.|W|P|111119297567544764|W|P|Look Ma, We're In Print...|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Now here's something you don't see every day... A squirrel playing the drums.
But I do. Every day...
Seriously, my girlfrend trained a squirrel to play the drums. Sure, it's cute at first. But after a while it's like, "Christ, can't you teach that thing something else?" I mean, if it played the drums and washed the dishes, I'd probably be a bit less bitter about it. *shrug*
$22.00 | PayPal | URL|W|P|111109176929820879|W|P|Squirrel Drummer|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Despite running all the "I [heart] whatever" shirts, I'm a "fuck Urban Outfitters" sort of guy. If I had my way, the streets of Silverlake and Williamsburg would run red with the blood of UO wearing hipsters. Oh, what a sweet day that would be...
This one from Cat and Girl is a take on all of those hideous tees with horrible state related puns. Why inform people that Montana got a big ol' Butte when you can let them know that Virginia was admitted to statehood in 1788? That seems much more sensible to me...
$14.00 | PayPal | URL|W|P|111102358901386005|W|P|Virginia|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Were I actually capable of comprehending French and converting dollars to euros, I'd be all over this tee from La Fraise. Unfortunately, I'm an ignorant American pig.
C'est la vie, I guess.
Anyhow, don't you just love it when communist figureheads and internet acronyms come together? I know I do. Hell, this shirt makes me LOL so hard my WTF KTHXBYE'd. And that's saying a lot...
20.00€ | Credit | URL|W|P|111096052276670102|W|P|RTFM|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
I'm probably one of roughly twelve straight men in the world that gets retarded over Paul Frank's gear. Yes, most of it is made for and worn by pre-teen girls. But I don't care...
For his Spring 2005 collection, Paul Frank has done a collaboration with hot dog and baloney magnate Oscar Mayer. Shirts, belt buckles, purses and wallets are all emblazoned with the company's classic Wienermobile. Which is one of the best mobile pieces of Googie art that I've ever seen. Yes, it may be sort of "corporate whore" of me to link this, but it is my weblog. So neener.
$20.95 | Credit | URL|W|P|111092916823782098|W|P|Wienermobile|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
People complain that a lot of the tees we feature are too expensive. So in the interest of pandering to all the cheapskates in the house, we've got this number from Y-Que that clocks in at a mere $12.00. And for the people who fret over the fact that we rarely feature anything over XL, you'll be glad to know that it's available in sizes up to 3XL.
Now before we go any further, I'm proud to say that I own this shirt. It's always nice to be able to review something that I've actually worn. My favorite thing to do is to wear it to the video store and say things like "'Fear and Loathing' is checked out? Guess we'll have to download it when we get home." or "I'd just grab this online, but it's so hard to find a torrent for 'Dolemite'." The clerks really don't think I'm very funny. Well, save for the one that offered to send me an invite to the private tracker that he's on. But that's another post for another blog...
$12.00 | Credit | URL|W|P|111087289697935955|W|P|I [pirate] Hollywood|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
I know you've linked Diesel Sweeties before, but they are doing this cool thing where they have a 3-way t-shirt death match. The shirt with the most orders gets added to their permanent list of shirts.My personal favorite is "I'm not going to waste my time debating with you. Does this look like the internet?", even if it is a bit wordy. + Congrats to Defamer for winning Best New Weblog at the 2005 Bloggies. If it wasn't for the fact that our boy Lev works on Gizmodo, we'd challenge the whole Gawker media camp to a steel cage match. But since there's one of us and a lot of them, a jello wrestling match with Wonkette will do. You hear that Ana Marie Cox? We're calling you out!|W|P|111082853215194479|W|P|Hang Tags - 03.14.05|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
I am such a hypocrite. Last week, I pissed and moaned over a $32 shirt. This week, I'm linking a $35 one. And I like it. Perhaps I don't like it enough to part with $35, but I am still linking it, aren't I?
But Built By Wendy has overhead. I mean, how much do you think having David Cross model your clothes runs? A lot, I'm sure. Besides, this runners number influnced tee includes saftey pins. Not silkscreened saftey pins, real ones. That sort of attention to detail has to count for something.
$35.00 | Credit | URL|W|P|111052578663501698|W|P|Marathon|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
I don't care if we've featured something from Sharp As Toast before. Or that their site still requires a 302 kb flash file to load before you can look at anything. This Taft/Shaft mashup tee is just too good to not run.
For those of you who don't know, William Howard Taft was America's 27th President. He also holds the title of "Fattest President" clocking in at a hefty 350 pounds during while running the country. After his stint as Commander in Chief he served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 to 1930 - which makes him the only former President to swear in future Presidents.
John Shaft on the other hand, is a black private dick that's a sex machine with all the chicks. I am also to understand that cat Shaft is one bad mother... Actually, I think I'm just gonna shut my mouth and let you buy the shirt. Can you dig it?
$25.00 | Credit | URL|W|P|111041404289736587|W|P|Taft|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Manischewitz is a corporate behemoth from Ohio - Streit's is a family-run business from the Lower East Side. Where's the love?Where's the love? Here's the love. Happy? + If you haven't been paying attention, we had to kill the direct links to the tips mail address. Seems the spammers figured a way around our method of obfuscation, which is disheartening. Anyhow, we have a brand new contact page which is just begging to be used. So, uh, use it.|W|P|111039819168683378|W|P|Hang Tags - 03.09.05|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
How many shirts do you own that have football helmet wearing smoking cats on them? I have four.
Not really. I'm pretty sure nobody owns a shirt with a football helmet wearing smoking cat. Well, maybe except for the people who've ordered this tee from S. Britt. And who can blame them? Not me, that's for damn sure...
Big ups to Drew for sending this one in.
$13.00 | PayPal | URL|W|P|111027253340044524|W|P|Yes Please Thank You|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
This shirt from Jewcy totally takes me back to my high school prom. One of our friends worked at a market and smuggled out a case of Manischewitz wine for our pre dance festivities. I don't think any of us were Jewish, but we all managed to get pretty kosher in the parking lot. If I recall correctly, the wine didn't taste very good. But I do remember having a good time, and I'm pretty sure that made the hangover worth it.
Of course, Manischewitz makes loads more than wine. In fact, they're the largest manufacturer of kosher foodstuffs in the United States. I'd assume some of their products are at least a smidge better than the bottle of fermented grape juice that I consumed. If they weren't, I'm sure they'd have gone out of business by now.
So if you have fond childhood memories of Manischewitz's matzo - or you just want to fake some of that Hebrew funk - then this tee is definitely a worthy buy. Passover is only a month and a half away you know.
$25.00 | Credit | URL|W|P|111024935945888807|W|P|Manischewitz|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
Were you one of those kids who had an elaborate plan for how they were going to dig to China? Do you look forward to getting brown lung at Burning Man? Were you one of the mud people at Woodstock 1994? Do you just like gardening?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, this tee from SUPERfantastico probably speaks to your inner Pigpen. If you didn't answer yes, you probably know somebody who this t-shirt is perfect for. Since I'm an OCD style neat freak, we'll go ahead and use my friend Queeg as an example. Queeg makes pools and fountains for a living. Because of this, almost everything he owns is covered in a layer of dust and caked on mud. It's actually sort of endearing, in a filthy kind of way. As far as I'm concerned, this shirt was made for him.
$20.00 | PayPal | URL|W|P|111022339365263201|W|P|I [heart] Dirt|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
I am not an HTML guru, but I sometimes play one at the office. Take this week for example, I've spent more time playing with HTML for an internal project than sitting in front of an open shell session. That should say something seeing as how my business card reads Junior Admin and not Webmaster.
Still, after all the work I've done, I'm halfway tempted to buy this tee from K10K and expense it. I wonder if our CFO will go for that.
$20.00 | Credit | URL|W|P|110989825833366287|W|P|Webmaster|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
We often get email from Preshrunk readers who are looking to do their own projects and want a high quality tee. Something nicer than a boxy old Hanes Beefy-T, but still relatively cheap. And while we used to be able to suggest American Apparel with a clear head, we really can't anymore.
Then we stumbled onto American Ringer, who has a really solid collection of vintage iron-on and blank tees. Their standard solid color shirts are the nice fitted variety and are allegedly just as soft as AA's. What's more, they also offer a really nice variety of American made ringers, jerseys and girlie tees at comparable prices. So if you've got a project you want to do - or you just like blank tees - then we wholeheartedly recommend American Ringer. And we'll do so until we find out that they have hideous business practices or their founders eat babies. But we couldn't find anything in the limited Google searching we did, so they're probably clean.
$12.99 | PayPal | URL|W|P|110981321360726812|W|P|American Ringer|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
$32.00 for a shirt with a heart and crossbones?! Tokidoki can't be serious! Were this a month ago, I'd have no problem wholeheartedly endorsing such a headspinning markup for Valentine's day.
To be fair, all of Tokidoki's shirts are $32. And the remainder of their artwork is wonderful for the otaku set - not to mention the white boys with yellow fever. The girlie shirts are pretty cute too. But $32.00 for a heart and crossbones shirt? I'll pass.
On the flip side, you do get free stuff with your order. So it sort of has that going for it.
$32.00 | Credit | URL|W|P|110981350565432845|W|P|Tokidoki|W|P|boogah@gmail.com
While all of ISO50's shirts are lovely and deserve their own post, I've gotta choose one. Luckily, Waterfall is an abolutley stunning tee. It gives off a modern classic feel that's sure to get plenty of comments from your friends and random people on the street.
And if you don't want to talk with random people, just do what I do. Crank your iPod and pretend you're deep in thought. It's the best social avoidance technique ever!
$19.99 | Credit | URL|W|P|110971943394346578|W|P|Waterfall|W|P|boogah@gmail.com