the district

The nation’s largest apparel trade show has introduced an ‘eco’ component to this August’s show with Ecollection.  The Ecollection will be one of many themed sections of Magic, which as the name implies will feature environmentally responsible labels in special recycled booths, with ‘green’ signage.  In addition to showcasing the green-labels , the show will house Lounge 22 for attendees, which will feature bammboo furniture and Cradle to Cradle certified textiles. To top off the new show, in typical Magic fashion (non pun intended) Ecollection will host its own seminar series with some very prominent speakers addressing topics of sustainability in the apparel industry such as representatives from Patagonia, and less obviously Nike’s corporate responsibility office. As usual, Magic will take place Aug 25-27 in Las Vegas.

Alright, I know its cliche to take pictures of graffiti on a rooftop, but I figured since the paint was pretty spectacular, and it is actually where I live it would be excusable. Here are some new pictures from my roof:

You can see the rest at our myspace page. Add us as a friend while you are there. Read more »

By this point in the game, there are a lot of Obama shirts out there, which in my mind is a net-positive despite relatively few noteworthy designs.  However, the fact that the Democratic nominee is inspiring people to want to make t-shirts at all should be taken as a pretty good indicator of the left’s interest in this election.  Frankly, this time in 2004 I don’t really recall any street-wear label’s rolling out their line of John Kerry T’s (and thank god for that).  Anyway, Thriving Ink, the East Bay “artist collaborative” is the latest to join Obama T-shirt mania with their “Hope Is Dope” collection, which donates an unnamed percentage to fight hunger in the Philippines. While these things are obviously subjective, I can’t say I am blown away by any of the designs, but they are definitely not bad just not tremendously original. For example, what the fuck is with the giant printing of EVERYTHING?  Now as previously stated on this site, I am a big Obama fan, but why the fuck would I want a giant Obama face t-shirt?  Now I recognize that this is popular right now, so I am not faulting Thriving Ink, but I still just don’t get it.  On that note, what’s with the resurgence of cassette tapes on t-shirts and tattoos? I may only be 28, but I remember with clarity that cassettes were not exactly the ideal media for listening to music, yet hipsters iconify the damned things as if they were the coolest shit since 8-tracks.  Forgive the off-topic rant, but to me this exemplifies the hollowness of hipster culture in general. Its as if some hipster czar randomly assign status to the most arbitrary items and they become cool despite their lack of any real intrinsic worth, just because some douche bag in Williamsburg thought “wouldn’t it be irreverant of me to put a cassette tape on a t-shirt?” Fuck cassette tape shirts.   You can check out the Obama shirts here.

Since everything has already been outsourced to Asia, why not an Indian Threadless for young Indian hipsters to flaunt their design prowess. From the downright awful to the just plain weird, Inkfruit.com demonstrates that the production of pop culture is just not one of those things likely to be shipped overseas anytime soon.  My personal favorite is the above warning (i think) that if drinking doesn’t kill you, it might give you some serious beer-shits. On a less foreboding note however is Sheetal’s fabulous “Let’s do party tonight.”

In the often heated debate to determine whether American Apparel founder Dov Charney is indeed a total douche bag or possibly just a misunderstood sexual deviant, this latest piece of news clearly lands in the DB column.  May 30th saw the filing of yet another sexual harassment charge against Charney in which he allegedly screamed at a female employee to “pretend to masturbate.”  Now I know what you are thinking, I must be reading old newspapers or something, but in fact this latest case is in fact entirely new (the fifth one).  Now aside from being a raging misogynistic douche-bag, who demands for someone to “pretend to masturbate?”  That’s just plain weird, Charney.

Go to TMZ to see the court papers, although they are rather blurry and completely boring. Except for the part about the screaming and the pretending.

Not wanting to be left behind in the new election year t-shirt mania, KFC will unveil its new t-shirt series celebrating the goodness that is fried chicken (or electoral politics, I’m not sure). The three shirts will feature “left wing” (blue), “right wing (red, of course), and “tastes the same to me.” Sorry for the lousy pictures, but that is all they have available. Shirts are $15 and proceeds help provide scholarships for chickens students looking to attend college. Buy them here, or if you are appalled that this site might propose supporting someone like KFC, go buy a I am not a nugget shirt at www.peta2.org.

Check out these new reversible organic totes from Toronto based Flip, featuring 3 cool prints of airplanes, guitars, and best of all lowrider bicycles. The bags are all made locally in Canada with low-impact dyes and non-toxic inks (I would hope-so). Prints on one side, blank on the other. If you don’t already have more tote bags than you could ever possibly need go get one at www.fliptoronto.ca (online store coming soon).

I got an email this morning from a T-shirt brand called Origin68 in Manchester. The fact that I only understood about half of it leads me to assume that they are from Manchester England, and not Manchester New Hampshire. That and they used words like pub and beavering. (oh shit, LL Cool J just came on the radio and totally destroyed what little train of thought I had going.)

Anyway, they make shirts and i write about shirts. Here goes: The first design “up in smoke”, I definitely like. The thing that I didn’t really get about the brand though, is that the designs have a lot of suggestion of social responsibility, but it doesn’t seem to go any further than that. There seems to be something deeply ironic about a t-shirt preaching against conspicuous consumption (below), because despite the fact that I make a living selling t-shirts, I am well aware of the fact that most people already have enough t-shirts in their closet to last the rest of their natural lives. Additionally, while Origin68 does print on Continental shirts (which have a pretty strong record on labor ) there is nothing above and beyond about their choice of blanks. Putting a “printed on recycled paper” stamp on the website is kind of cute, but it doesn’t really mean much either. Obviously, I like the socially conscious message of the line, but unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be much substance behind it. Check it out at www.origin68.com

How’s that for an exciting lead-in. Sears, which apparently still operates stores somewhere, has signed LL Cool J, who is apparently still around, to produce a line of hip-hop street clothes. Oddly enough, this story has lit up the news wires, but interestingly, it appears to be mostly getting filed under the heading of “news of the weird”. No pictures yet, but I can assure you they’ll be here when available.

As Inigo Montoya once said, let me explain, no no there is too much, let me some-up: Fresh Jive printed the t-shirt above, a lot of people got pissed-off and called them anti-semites. Urban Outfitters decided to quite selling the shirt, lest people actually associate them with progressive urban image they try so hard to maintain.
I’m assuming that the negative reaction is the result of an overly literal interpretation of the design, which would be that Fresh Jive is saying that all Palestinians are victims, so it’s okay to give kids AK-47s and tell them to shoot at Israelis. As street-wear legend Rick Klotz’s response clarifies, there is a lot more to depth to this shirt than inciting hatred. While I truly believe that the worst of it is over, I am truly saddened by the way that Americans have become so intolerant of any view points on the middle east that are more nuanced than, “You are either with us or you must be a terrorist-sympathizer”. Frankly, since Sept. 11 the censorship of mainstream American political culture far trumps the worst of anything we have ever seen from the actual government. Point being: what the fuck did Urban Outfitters think was going to happen when they put this shirt on their shelves? Let’s not forget that until very recently you couldn’t even critique the war without having your loyalty to America called into question. Regardless of one’s interpretation, this shirt is clearly making a bold political statement raising the question; Are Urban Outfitters’ buyers so naive that they didn’t anticipate this shit-storm? Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one, then they should at least have had the gumption to stick with the shirt once they green-lighted it in the first place. It is pretty shameful that at the first sight of controversy they would rather pull the shirt than let people react to it. Albeit a small one, this is just another example of tyranny of the majority in which any type of political dissent (or even commentary) is discounted merely for rubbing some individuals the wrong way. Urban Outfitters decision to pull the shirt marks another significant loss for legitimate political dialog.

Incidentally, these pictures of Mexican Man-vestites on Fresh Jive’s website was way more offensive than anything political could ever possibly be.