Slogan t-shirts.

on Jul 29 in Culture, Frivolity, Projects, Random tagged by Peter Blackman

I’ve submitted a proposal to talk at Ignite London. It was entitled  ’Slogan T shirts. What they say, and what they say about us’

The brief description that accompanied the submission went along the lines of “Why do we walk around with writing on our clothes? Why do we seem to be wearing more and more provocative slogans? Why do some of us buy our children t shirts which say ‘If you think I’m a bitch you should meet my mother’ ? We can all read what these garments say - but what do they say about us?  I’m going to speak to t shirt manufacturers, t shirt wearing teenagers and twentysomethings, parents and children, psychiatrists and psychologists. All to try and find out more about the compulsion that makes people pull on an item of clothing that says ‘I’m with stupid’

I’d love some help with this. I’d love to know what is the weirdest, rudest, most inappropriate t shirt slogan you’ve ever seen. If you can think of one - mail me at info@thefreethinker.co.uk or tweet one to me at @freethinkeruk Find out more about why I want to do this talk….

Well, long ago when the world was young, The Badger and I used to delight in trying to find the worst ‘US Marine Corps Disco Style Fun’* slogans on the backpacks, t shirts and stonewash denim jackets of (mostly) Japanese tourists in London. We did this for the most part on Piccadilly which was around the corner from the advertising agency where we worked. We were young. We were culturally insensitive. So sneering at foreigners came easily. The phrases we sought after the most were the sort of bad translations which the people at Engrish have taken full circle; from orginal, misconceived and mistranslated sloganeering on garments to a humorous website and then back into merchandising of their own. Respect. Here’s the kind of thing I mean:

I hadn’t been doing too much slogan spotting for a few years, until I started to notice that the ’statement’ t shirt industry was growing out of the local screen printing shop. Bigger brands were clearly employing copywriters, or angry disaffected individuals (obvious gag - these are often the same people) to devise angry, disaffected slogans to go on their quality heavyweight cottons. People could now buy t shirts which reflected their every mood, or indeed lifestage. For example students could buy ‘I’m out of bed and dressed, what more do you want?’, though I never found the companion ‘Resident’ shirt which replied ‘I want you to stop having parties, leave the traffic cones where you found them, and most of all, fuck off out of my town’.

But for every appropriate slogan - such as the student one above - I began to notice more and more ones which were either wildly inappropriate to the wearer, or made up of just the same sort of gibberish that the tourists used to wear during their visit to London. I saw a woman staggering out of A&E with a large bandage over one eye and an arm in plaster. ‘Angel’ it said on her t shirt. Hmmm, it didn’t look like she was.

I went to a party where the overweight host lumbered about in an overly tight, sequinned t shirt which brought sparkle to an already glittering evening by proclaiming ‘Smokin’ Beavers’. I have searched online using the words smokin’ beavers, and you get some very odd results. Some of which I have had to erase from my web browser history. What was clear from these searches was that this was an example of a very interesting sub-genre in the world of slogan t shirts - the invented US college / sports team. Does everyone in the world now own one of these? Who is to blame? Ralph Lauren? Tommy Hilfiger? Abercrombie or Fitch? Also, when did sequins and glitter become acceptable for Men? This surely is a  question which demands to be answered, even if it does lead us away from offensive sloganeering. So back to the matter in hand.

All of this t shirt spotting I found mildly amusing and diverting on family shopping trips. However, it wasn’t until I saw the aforementioned “if you think I’m a bitch you should meet my mother’ being worn by a young girl that I thought -  I have to find out more about this desire, this compulsion to be rude and confrontational to people through our clothes. Why wait to open your mouth? Offend whoever you meet via the medium of cotton garments.

So I’m going to find out. Whether Ignite London accept the talk or not. Then I’ll post about it here. I’ll have some t shirts made - with the answer. If there is one. Or maybe I’ll just work with my friends, family, and hopefully the audience at Ignite to come up with absolutely the best t-shirt slogan we can. I will send to The Badger. He’ll like that.

*genuine jacket worn by an Italian boy. #true fact!