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

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

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

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

I love anything with the word “super” in it…Super-duper, Supertoys, Superman, and of course supper-time (minus the second “p” it’s super-time and that’s what supper is…SUPER!). When I saw Superhick06 I knew it was a t-shirt for me. It’s tough to find t-shirts in the played out arena of hicks but this one satisfies my snobby standards (I think it’s the headphones with the dual antennae!).

• hick
• humorous
• joke
• T shirt Review

Do you remember that scene in dumb and dumber when Lloyd tapes their pet bird’s head back on and sells it to the local blind kid? That bird is now wreaking havoc cavorting and imbibing with these death ponies. What a life…flying around with a scarf made of duct-tape, getting drunk and spreading death and destruction to an entire planet.

• humorous
• joke
• ladies
• Pretty ponies
• T shirt Review

I’d like to take all the joke t-shirts on Funk Unlimited and bury them in the woods…except the Forest Shirt. Sure the saying is stolen from any one of a hundred or so National Park websites and it’s not even a joke. There are also hundreds of cruchy t-shirts with the saying slapped across the chest surrounded by air-brushed bears and eagles. None look as good, however, or are as cheap. Maybe I’m pushing it, just trying to find something, anything, of value on this run-of-the-mill site. Nah, it’s still a shirt I’d wear…especially for under ten bucks!

• forest
• humorous
• joke
• T shirt Review

It’s rare that I see a shirt that I like on threadless.com. There is something disconcerting about the endless numbers of cuddly aliens and ironic sayings that cover their shirts like road-flattened squirrels. Needless to say, I subscribe to their RSS feed and view their new offerings as fast as they post them. Wishful thinking? Yes! But today I actually found a t-shirt that I would wear. I love red tubes and this shirt has ‘em…plus it looks nice and the design doesn’t cover 95% of the shirt’s frontage (one of my major turn-offs to threadless t-shirts). And, finally, the model in the picture isn’t some socially awkward neo-seventies hipster hamming it up in the alley next to his/her apartment building.

• illustration
• pipes
• T shirt Review