Preshrunk

While I'm normally not that fond of brown tees, I must say that I'm rather taken with this shirt from La Fraise. The simple silhouette is rather nice, not to mention beautifully executed. And even tho I'm a cheapskate, I'm debating breaking out my credit card and buying this [or Tape] despite the less than stellar dollar to euro exchange rate.

Now, I know that some people may be put off by the fact that store is in French. Unless you're a xenophobic wingnut, you really shouldn't be. We've been assured by a number of our readers that ordering is pretty self explanatory. So even if you don't parlez vous, you shouldn't have a hard time buying anything from them if you're really interested in what they're selling. And believe us, there are plenty of great designs that are worth your time if you think the whole silhouette thing is played out.

22.00 € | PayPal | URL

• Threadless Submission Of The Week: We may be a little late with this week's pick for our favorite submission, but hopefully the solid Rock HOWTO will more than make up for our tardiness.
• American Apparel Watch: The New York Times seems to have as much of a hard on for AA as we do. This week they're covering the three sexual harassment lawsuits that have been filed against AA head, Dov Charney.
• Desperately Seeking Slogan: Thanks to everyone's who's sent in a submission to our slogan contest. All y'all have sent in a bunch of awesome ones and a few not so awesome ones. We're going to have an extremely hard time picking - seeing as how we've got a lot of favorites - but we should have a winner announced on Wednesday.

  If you've got any ideas floating around, you've got until 11:59 PM PST on Monday, July 11th to send something in. So, uh, hurry or something!

• Well, it looks like Preshrunk pal Josh Spear is giving away a free Bamboosa shirt a day for the next thirty days. This is the perfect opportunity for you to give our favorite t-shirt a try without having to, you know, actually pay for one.

  Now, we're not trying to say that they're not worth every dime... We're just saying that free stuff rules. Especially when it's really high quality free stuff.

At $32.00 a shirt, Altru's Eveready logo reproduction tee can be expensively infringealicious - but the quality of the work makes it seem like it's well worth the cost. In fact, both their men's and women's reproductions are worth a look if the Eveready logo isn't your thing.

No really, there's a whole plethora of vintage logo reproductions that would seem at home in a Tarantino flick: RCA, Mo’ Better Meaty Meat Burgers, Yum Yum Donuts, Sunset Palms Motel. We could seriously write up loving, carefully crafted posts on all of these tees, but that'd make our carpal tunnel act up. And when our carpal tunnel acts up, we get cranky.

Still, you should be aware that if you end up browsing thru their store, you will very likely have a hard time deciding which one's your favorite. Hell, it took us almost a week to figure out which one we were going to run and we're professionals...

Okay, maybe not professionals. But you get the idea, right?

$32.00 | Credit | URL

Single, financially stable weblog looking for an attractive, witty slogan to be seen on our arm at parties and awards ceremonies. Must be cool with silly, irreverent and sometimes obnoxious humor. An unhealthy fascination with t-shirts is a definite plus. We'd also dig it if you were 800 x 600 friendly. After all, it's not the size of your resolution - it's what you do with it...

If you're interested, please send an email containing your slogan to talkback [at] preshrunk [dot] info by 11:59 PM PST, July 11th. Our favorite submission will be asked to move into our site's new header to keep the "Preshrunk" company. You'd be surprised at how lonely it gets up there.

P.S. So we actually get people sending slogans our way, we've decided to dangle a big fat carrot in front of your face. The person who comes up with the best slogan will receive a 1 year Flickr Pro account and a $50 Threadless gift certificate.

P.P.S. If you don't include the word "slogan" in the subject line, we may miss your suggestion when the time comes to figure out which one we like. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?

P.P.P.S. A few people have asked us if they can send mutiple slogans in a single mail. Our answer to that is a resounding "please do." As a matter of courtesy, if you plan on sending in multiple slogan ideas, do try to send them all in one mail. The last thing we want is twenty slogans in twenty seperate emails from one guy/gal. That the sort of shit that trips people's spam filters. Just sayin'.

• Wired's got a really great mini-interview with Shepard Fairey [of Obey Giant] and Rick Klotz [of Fresh Jive] about the re-appropriation of corporate logos on tees.
• A few of you have mailed to ask when we're launching our second weblog Drinkish. All we'll say is, it'll launch when it's ready. If you really want to know, join the announce list. Any updates we have will go there first, honest.

I've never been much for logo wear. That being said, I do sort of fancy the logo tee the guys at Blame Clothing have turned out. It's probably because the shirt has a really nice mix of print and embrodery. It's really refreshing to see a smaller t-shirt company do something like that to set themselves apart. Also, the fact that they're doing mixed techniques but keeping it under $20 makes the shirt even more attractive.

So while I still generally loathe logo tees, I honestly do dig this one. Then again, the syphilis may have rotted my brain to the point where judgement faltered. *shrug* Who's to say?

P.S. How rude of us not to mention that Ian Macnider was nice enough send this link along. Thanks Ian!

$14.00 | PayPal | URL

Since I'm not made of money, I don't get to do a hands on review most of the products I pimp here. Sometimes I end up lucking out and a smaller manufacturer is nice enough to send me a review sample after I post a link to one of their tees. It's more of a thank you, really.

So when the fine folks at Bamboosa sent along a couple tees, I buzzed with a little more anticipation than I normally do. After all, it's not every day that one gets sent free t-shirts made out of bamboo. What really sold me on them tho was Josh Spear's mini rave about the ones he'd gotten. He claimed that they were among the softest, most breathable tees he'd owned. They sounded like the perfect shirt for Summer.

After wearing the shit out of them for the past month, I've gotta say that my hunch was right. These tees are very warm weather friendly. They're also cut very generously. One of my initial worries was that they'd be more of an American Apparel fitted type tee. AA's tees force my 2XL frame into a "God I feel fat" 3XL, which I sort of hate. Bamboosa's 2XL on the other hand is a nice and roomy interpretation that feels just right on my large frame.

I don't know how my gal is gonna take this, but I think I'm falling in love with a t-shirt. How do I know it's love? Well, I haven't posted an after the fact review for any other thank you tee I've gotten. That's gotta mean something, right?

URL

The wonderful t-shirt re-creationists at Found Item Clothing have inspired me to rewatch some of my favorite films to scrounge up designs to fire off to them. Well, that's not my sole intent for rewatching them. Honestly, I just really like movies... Still, I find myself keeping an extra sharp eye peeled for a neat one off. *shrug* It's a better OCD to have than incessant hand washing.

As I watched "The Big Lebowski" with my girlfriend earlier this week, I thought I'd found the perfect one. When the Dude pays his second visit to the Big Lebowski he's sporting an awesome Japanese baseball jersey. The second I saw it, I remember pausing the movie and saying, "Oh shit. I wonder if the guys at Found Item are hip to this." I'm pretty sure the girlfriend rolled her eyes, but she does that a lot. It's almost like a reflex with her.

So imagine my surprise when I visited Found Item's website to find them already selling that exact design. It was almost creepy. Then it got even weirder... I dropped an IM to my interweb pal Matt Haughey to share my find. Apparently, he'd ordered the shirt mere minutes before my IM! Half jokingly, he urged me not to post the tee so he could have a little time with it before all the other cool kids got one.

Being the nice guy that I am, I told him I'd hold off on posting to give him a head start. Six hours seems fair, doesn't it?

Update, 07.01.05: According to the trivia section on IMDB, Jeff Bridges also wears this shirt in "The Fisher King". I don't have this movie handy, so it's a bit hard to verify that claim. Anyone care to do it for me?

Update, 07.05.05: Chris Ross and Christy Jewett both independently confirmed the "Fisher King" connection. Christy said that the t-shirt could be spotted roughly an hour and fifteen minutes in while Chris was nice enough to send along a nicely cropped screenshot. Thanks, you two!

$18.95 | PayPal | URL

• Threadless Submission Of The Week: Love Will Choke Up The Gun does a wonderful job of reinventing two well worn Threadless genres - the heart tee and the gun tee.
• American Apparel Watch: Fanciful Pop Music Theories has done up a wonderful little essay turning the Nike/Minor Threat controversy into a discussion of corporate policies - which eventually focuses on the sexual environment at AA. It's a worthwhile read even if you don't have the hard-on for AA that we obviously do.
• Go Ahead, Laugh: Although it's over a month old, Blagg Blogg has a scathingly funny bit on Urban Outfitters "ironic" tees.