The concept of subscription based t-shirts is becoming more and more popular. For those unfamiliar, basically you ’subscribe’, pay a monthly fee and receive a new t-shirt every month or so. Typically you don’t have a choice in design, but that’s really the fun of it.

Social-T is perfect example. Each month features a particular theme. The shirt has the artist statment printed at the bottom near the hem (see below). Our Does it Rule You shirt was nicely printed with some cool metallic ink no less.

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Farennikov Apparel dropped us a tee a couple weeks ago. I’d wish I’d gotten around to post on this sooner because I dig their stuff. The Everything is Falling design has a beautifully rendered graphic of the leaning Tower of Pisa. Equally impressive is their Skull and Trees (shown after on the jump). Our sample was one of those tees that is so soft it melts in your hand - no washing necessary. Super confortable. The only thing bad is that I want more! Right now their selection is a bit thin, but these guys are at the top of my watch list. Give them a look.

And if you’re looking for a bit more info on these guys you should check out their MySpace page as well.

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Vintage Vantage is one of those shops that just cracks me up. They’ve got a good-sized collection of vintage looking designs and no shortage of puny, silly slogans. Really, where else can you get a t-shirt with a slogan about shin splints. Come on.

Our sample tees rank super high on the softness scale. Awesome. Good fit, nicely printed. And if you really want a truly vintage tee, Vintage Vantage sells ‘em. A bunch of stuff you can buy for a fixed price off their ‘top shelf’ or bid on number of eBay auctions. And I can’t pass up mentioning their Duct Tape wallets. Ridiculous enough you just can’t do without one.

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PaperRoot recently dropped us a line and a couple very cool tees. Aside from having one of those cool names, Paperroot has killer tees. They quickly earned a spot in my unofficial mental list of the worlds softest fabrics. Damn. They just melt.

I really dig the 3-D people design (shown above). And the tapered fit women’s Shelled Out was nice. Couple other good ones below, the Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Hair family.

Everything is hand printed at the time of order using water-based inks. Nicely done and a nice clean site. Good stuff. (more…)

We posted on Prickwear.com in the early days of our t-shirt blogging venture. More than a year later and our paths cross again. Surprising it took this long really. Prickwear’s path is not one you’d easily forget.

If you’re looking for offensive t-shirts - and I mean piss-off-every-race-and-religion offensive t-shirts, well, you’re in luck my friend. Prickwear definitely has something to get the pissing going.

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I’ve not yet had the chance to visit Ausin, Texas, but from what I hear it’s a funky, creative place with a penchant for going Green. From what I see in Austin’s 302designs’ shirts, I’d say it all makes perfect sense.

Self described as ‘Poetic, Inspirational apparel‘, 302 creates rich, multi-layered designs. You’ll find more than a few animals and birds woven into a very organic palette. Interesting ink and fabric color combinations add yet another dimension.

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Your first question might be, “Just what are Barking Irons?”. Fair enough. A century ago it was slang for pistols. Today, it’s a unique apparel company with a design philosophy that the name only begins to hint at.

Barking Irons has earned praise and coverage everywhere from the New York Times Magazine to HBO’s Entourage - and rightly so. They’ve created one of the most thematically rich line of t-shirts and apparel I’ve ever come across. www.barkingirons.com

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I was kind of skeptical when I first heard the line on TenBills.com. T-Shirts for ten bucks? Seriously, 10 each? Everyone loves a bargin but would they look good? Man, was I blown away. $10 does actually buy something these days. Who would have thought.

I don’t know how they do it - black magic, fairy dust, whatever - it’s all good and so are the tees. Couple great picks below. The 8 Feet Under tee, designed by Doug Cowan is cool. So is Once Upon a Time (the owls). Stephanie Fabbri the designer on that one. Everything has a very multi-layerd, organic vibe to it.

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If you haven’t run across True Love & False Idols yet (TLFI for those in the know) you might need your vision checked. These guys are everywhere these days. From Hollywood’s beautiful to MMA’s bloody, it’s hard not to catch someone sporting TLFI garb. And for good reason - they’ve got cool stuff.

Big graphic prints. Front, back - everywhere. It’s a super-textural, multi-layered, organic explosion of design. Our sample tee’s a great example. The back also has silver layered over the print as well. It’s a subtle touch that adds nice dimension. The shirt is nice and soft and sized just a bit more generously than the currently popular vintage reissues - which tends to run small. Great fit.

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