Parental Instincts, Spring/Summer 2011

 I have two competing thoughts here:

1. Who lets their kid's picture end up on the internet?

2. My kids are going to be so stylish.

Fashion Week in Newcastle

Listen, you're not going to make it on this site all bundled up in the snow (cf. last post), so you'd better dress up/down and hit the British winter streets.

See, this one's got it:

!

Best of the Piracy Collection, 1701-1800

"But what is the black spot, captain?" I asked.

"That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and I'll share with you equals, upon my honour."

[...] 

I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand there was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side. I could not doubt that this was the BLACK SPOT; and taking it up, I found written on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message: "You have till ten tonight."

"He had till ten, Mother," said I; and just as I said it, our old clock began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly; but the news was good, for it was only six.

- Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

Ah, Moscow, Winter 2011

When you open up the Random Livejournal Picture Generator, you hope and pray for something like this. And not just because that small hat is clearly covering her own budding horn. Mimicry is an evolutionary trait, and it exists.

Seriously, though, hats off (!) to this photographer, because this picture is a 2001 romance starring Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez.

The Belaboured Shirt by American Apparel

Let's take a poll: these tees that require explanation, they be good or bad? I'm referring to the ones that hinge on a pun or related wordplay, like taking some familiar expression and making it literal, with art. I can't decide whether they're smug and "ironic" and something else like that, or novel and "witty" and something else like that.

Is the point to encourage cute strangers to walk up, study your shirt, you say "Get it? They're communists who party," and they get it, with a drawn-out vowel sound as proof, and you two hit it off and spend the rest of the night trading anecdotes on the porch, and by next August you're engaged!...? Or is it more to confuse the elderly?

Both? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa. To the phones!

"Disc Jockey" 

"The i in TEAM"

"Medium Difficulty"

"Hypotamoose"

"Steven Seagull"

I have an idea for a convention where guests wander around in t-shirts, taste-testing to see if they can get the joke without reading the tags on the back. The Teexpo.¹ Anyway, no disrespect to the fine designers of t-shirts around the world, who are far handier with Illustrator and one of them pen-mouse things than I'll ever (care to) be. Also, these are just tees, and it's not even summertime. Chill, sweater, chill.

---

¹ This, of course, is a real thing: teexpo.com. They seem to sell Greenpeace shirts, which, hey, cool, whatever. From their "About" page:

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

Nice.

Marc Jacobs presents "Relevance"

I believe him. An ironic shirt would certainly have a better color scheme. 

How has your Sunday been?

Oooh Winter '98

I love this t-shirt because -- wait, what? WHAT KIND OF BLACK MAGIC IS THIS.

(Threadless)

The Brain Freeze Collection, Spring 1988

"But what of the universe inside the image within the image? How does one contextualize reality under a recursive mandate whilst capitulating oneself to the iridescent majesty, the sheer joie de la confection of the sugar cone?"

The Misconstrual Collection, Fall 2010

I like different music than you, except for stuff I used to like but still like, which we both like. The music I like now but have never liked before is music you will not like. Likewise, the music you like, if I did not like it before, I will not like.

Support this designer's education.