tshaped - t-shirt reviews

When I was first harboring thoughts of a trip to Japan, the prospect of finding unique t-shirts was amongst the first of many visions that popped into my head. In between dancing bowls of ramen and frosty mugs of Asahi were bushels of interesting, unique, and completely incomprehensible tshirts! Unfortunately, the I wasn’t able to find such a cornucopia of tshirts as I spent most of my time juggleing suitcases and my large DLSR…that is until I came across UNIQLO. UNIQLO is a clothing store situated in malls across Japan and they have a fantastic selection of designs. Check out this animated GIF of yours truly modeling my tshirt haul!

• japanese
• T shirt Review
• unique

Surely by now you’ve all seen the sensor-embedded t-shirt Wearable Instrument Shirt (video) that allows its wearer to play air guitar when hooked up to a computer. WIS is an interesting technology that has limitless uses in the real world. Below I’ve listed what should be the first five real world applications. Some are for fun, some promote the arts, some will make money and be sold on TV and one will one day save the world.

1. Personal Train-ah

Wouldn’t you like to have Arnold Schwarzenegger as your personal trainer? You can with this version of the WIP t-shirt. As soon as your repetitions start slowing down, Arnold pipes up with garbled words of encouragement. With “Pump it…now!” and “You can doooit” ringing in your ears, vein twisted biceps and bouncing pectoral party tricks are just a few months away!

2. Lose xTra w!eght now!

Another way to help you get in shape, this t-shirt lectures the wearer on the benefits of eating less. As soon as the fork-to-mouth motion exceeds preset limits, Richard Simmons whines his way to your health! This same technique could also help alcoholics start on their road to recovery by blasting a vomiting sound into their ears. This could be the new ‘Step 1.’ Dudley Moore’s horrible drunk from “Aurthur” would naturally augment the audio.

3. Dog t-shirt fun

Does your dog have a barking problem? Give Fido a taste of his own foul-breathed outbursts with a t-shirt that barks back. Either your dog will tire from barking at itself for hours or submit to the dominant and relentless ‘will-always-get-the-last-bark-in’ t-shirt. All this barking will surely drive your neighbors batty, but what the heck - they stole the bucket of Halloween candy from your doorstep!

4. Pee-Wee Performance-Art Theater

Oh the soundtrack Pee-Wee could create watching one of his favorite porns while wearing a sensor-embedded t-shirt. The standard “Boom chica-boom” would of course be re-composed by the movements from the t-shirt. The t-shirts could be handed out to all audience members so everyone could participate in the most perverted way they choose. Bong chick-a-bong chick-a-bong chick-a-bong chick-a-bong Chick-A-Bong Chick-A-Bong Chick-a-Bong CHICKABONG CHICKABONG CHICKA CHICAAH CHCHCHCHCICHCHICHIC…A-BONG!!!!

5. Defend Us!

The Department of Homeland Security could be tasked with spotting new and obnoxious dance trends by hiding sensors in all shirts worn by the population of the world. As soon as a horrible trend begins, a few guided ’smart missiles’ would blow the next Macarena to smithereens before it taints every baseball event and SportsCenter highlight in the following months.

• Blog
• humor
• sensors

Great collection of unique t-shirts over at Kindred. Their most interesting designs contain hints of Gilliamations, urban art, and an awesome fascination with the dismemberment of large deciduous forest trees. Kindred also seems to understand the relationship between the t-shirt and the artwork. Their designs work with the canvas that is the t-shirt and don’t overly dominate it. I like that! Favorites below.
Mens:

• artistic
• illustration
• musket
• tree
• Vendor Review

Indieshopper.com is an online boutique that stocks a great selection of t-shirts from a wide range of designers. I won’t go into too much detail here but they are a great place to stop and refresh your collection. I also found one of the best dog shirts I’ve seen around, though I haven’t seen many and I don’t even own a dog. But if I did, it would be one of these and I would buy him a shirt that was way too small so he’d look like the HULK!

• artistic
• illustration
• mens
• Vendor Review
• womens

Human Empire has some gems hidden in their strange order by email site. Even stranger, every time I read their url, www.humanempire.com I read it as “Humane Empire” which I like much better than “Human Empire.” It’s got such an oxymoronic ring to it, doesn’t it? After all,  has there ever been a human empire that’s been even one cotton-fiber’s width humane?

• artistic
• illustration
• Vendor Review

Would you rather be an insect programmed to work fastidiously around the clock or a human forced to toil away every day? I’ll take the toiling human thank you…because bees can’t wear t-shirts like this!

• bee
• illustration
• T shirt Review

Beautiful Decay has a fantastic collection of artistic t-shirts from many different designers. Most of them fall in the $26 to $37 price range but even at those prices they still rock, although not quite as literally as this t-shirt.

Men:

Women:

• artistic
• illustration
• mens
• Vendor Review
• womens

Zach Braff of Scrubs fame can be seen modeling a Threadless overly-cute t-shirt. While the design itself is well executed, for me it falls into the “nice design but I wouldn’t wear it” category that typifies most of the t-shirts on Threadless.

Editor’s note: That’s Threadless’ image that has the title cut off…silly them!

• illustration
• T shirt Review
• threadless

Wal-mart, as nicely outed by Bent Corner, was caught hawking a t-shirt with Nazi imagery stamped across it’s chest. While the commentary at Bent Corner has taken a unpleasant tone thanks to a single-minded hate-huckster, I’d like to look at this from another angle. Where did the design come from and how did it make it all the way to Wal-mart’s racks? Perhaps it was simply an over-worked, understaffed, and underpaid design department needing something “edgy” so they raided history not realizing the significance. Or maybe it was decidedly more dastardly and Wal-mart is in fact still the reigning evil on the planet. I’ll stick with the later…

See this Adfreak post for more information on Wal-mart’s blunders.

• Blog

Wanna make a statement and look good doing it? Most political t-shirts available online were designed by stoned activists fumbling around in Microsoft Word. For your sense of fashion as well as your sense of civic duty I’ve collected a few politically powerful t-shirts that spread the word and are well-designed.

Is it Charlton Heston in full makeup? No! It’s George W. Bush and he’s leading the four horsemen right to your doorstep…or at least to the feet of the republican party!

I don’t get this t-shirt. I mean, Iraq is west of the eastern U.S. isn’t it? Therefore it should be covered by Manifest Destiny. Seriously though, isn’t this just another Heston Planet of the Apes t-shirt?

Sure it’s violent but if capitalism would just skip the bull it would certainly be easier than greasing the pockets of the local third-world oppressive government.

• humorous
• joke
• political
• T shirt Review