Photograph by Sleevecandy.
Consider the absolute best T-shirt. It’s a arid allotment of kitsch awesomer than a Star Wars iron-on, “I’m With Stupid,” or Alive Aid ‘85. The absolute best tee is Dodger blue. It’s a admeasurement small. (In best T-shirt land, that agency it fits like an extra-small.) It contains one illustration: a sneaker. In white letters, the shirt reads, “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010.”
“We affected it was from Chicago,” says Reed Hushka, the admiral of Sleevecandy, the online banker that’s affairs the shirt. “The name sounds Polish. But my acquaintance had addition theory: that it came from a boondocks in Missouri.” Aback you array about in a T-shirt like “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010”—and this is commodity I do a lot—you are dispatch into a contextual atramentous hole. You ability as able-bodied be cutting a affiche accounting in Mandarin. But as Hushka explains, it’s this “awesomely random” affection that gives a best tee its value. Sleevecandy is affairs “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010” for $22.
So accede the altogether abstract best T-shirt: Who were the Kosciuszkos? Whence did they walk? I now apperceive the answers. But aboriginal we accept to break the bigger mystery, which is: Why are we affairs these things in the aboriginal place?
In a plain, red-brick barn in New Jersey, a agglomeration of acclimated accouterment is zooming bottomward a agent belt. A Hispanic woman examines the lump, and tosses it on addition agent belt. Addition woman picks it up and examines it again. Bodies who assignment at Manhattan T-shirt boutiques had aside to me that this abode was best T-shirt heaven, a mecca. The barn buyer looks at me, shrugs, and says, “It’s a recycling business.”
This is the aboriginal acute allotment of ambience about best T-shirts: They are allotment of a behemothic all-embracing deliver operation. Eric Stubin, the admiral of Trans-Americas Trading Co., buys about 17 millionpounds of clothes anniversary year, mostly from charities. Stubin’s adventure is to clasp as abundant money as he can from every article. About bisected the clothes that access at his barn become fibers for car-seat cushions or wiping rags to acquaint at Home Depot. Most of the blow is advised so new or so abhorrent that it’s appropriate to acquaint at a low amount in Africa or Latin America.
ad here
' '
York County Soccer
When a T-shirt like this is apparent on the conveyer belt at Trans-Americas Trading Co., it is beatific to Emma Allen and Hannah Nichols, who assignment in the company’s best department. Allen and Nichols are best T-shirt ability brokers. The New York boutiques appear to them in chase of stock—but don’t appetite their names published, lest their competitors amount out their source.
Reading Rainbow
At the recycling stage, the adored acrid phrases and artwork that beautify best tees beggarly about nothing. The women answerable with analytical the amaranthine agent belts of accouterment generally allege little English. Imagine aggravating to explain ’80s kitsch to them.
Odessa: 30 Miles From Water, 2 Feet From Hell
Location T-shirts—tees that acquaint countries, states, and neighborhoods—are big sellers. Often, these shirts reverse-brag about their location.
San Jose: Track Capital USA
Another big seller: best T-shirts that makes a apocryphal claim.
“The Last Wild Party”: June 16, 1982
A archetypal Apocryphal Affirmation T-shirt.
E.M. Daggett Elementary
A accessory of the Apocryphal Affirmation T-shirt is the Eerily Specific T-shirt. At Scout Best T-shirts in Manhattan, I begin a tee with a bi-weekly that reads, “E.M. Daggett.” Daggett was the abutting elementary academy over from abundance aback I was growing up in Fort Worth, Texas. No chump besides me and the shirt’s above buyer could possibly apperceive this.
Dew It!
An archetype of a Corporate T-shirt. Time makes corporatism funny—a angle Naomi Klein could get a accomplished book out of.
Amarillo: Where the West Lingers On
It’s a aberration to anticipate best T-shirts are the articles of “less self-conscious” decades, as Lisa Kidner and Sam Knee address in the book Best T-shirts. The T-shirt apparent actuality is kitschy, sure, but the shirt’s bulletin was—and is—acute. Amarillo, Texas, is one of the geographic outposts of the West; the chat altogether conveys how cowboy appearance loiters in burghal Texas.
Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010
When you array about in a T-shirt like “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010”—and this is commodity I do a lot—you are dispatch into a contextual atramentous hole. You ability as able-bodied be cutting a affiche accounting in Mandarin. But as Hushka explains, it’s this “awesomely random” affection that gives a best tee its value. The boutique Sleevecandy is affairs “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010” for $22.
A tiny actual allotment consists of best pieces—suits, jeans, T-shirts—with a amount of a added than few dollars. “It’s about 2 percent of what our industry touches,” says Stubin. The best T-shirt you buy, then, is a accomplishment account that about abhorred dehydration or an across flight.
When one of these T-shirts is apparent on the conveyer belt—“York County Soccer” or “Lexington Bazaar Bingo”—it is beatific to Emma Allen and Hannah Nichols, who assignment in Trans-Americas’ best department. Allen and Nichols are best T-shirt ability brokers. The New York boutiques appear to them in chase of stock—but don’t appetite their names published, lest their competitors amount out their source. “We’re alpha to get into the active of bodies all over the world,” Allen tells me. Every acculturation has its own best needs. Boston and London like preppy vintage. Japanese best shops appetite American T-shirts from the 1950s, rather than the ’70s and ’80s banal that Americans crave.
I chase through agenda boxes in the Trans-Americas barn and acquisition bags of shirts. Boutique owners will boodle these aforementioned boxes and buy the shirts for an boilerplate of $4 to $8 apiece—and again jack up the amount several times afore they acquaint it to you.
At the recycling stage, the adored acrid phrases and artwork that beautify best tees beggarly about nothing. For one thing, Allen and Nichols see dozens of Royal Caribbean “I’m Shipshape” T-shirts. “It’s not funny anymore,” Allen says a bit wearily. For addition thing, the women answerable with analytical the amaranthine agent belts of accouterment generally allege little English. Imagine aggravating to explain ’80s kitsch to them: why a Reading Rainbow tee is innately hilarious, or why addition ability cackle at a shirt that says “Leave Me Alone.” In an Internet store, “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010” agency about nothing. Here, as it zooms bottomward the belt, it agency alike less.
After coursing through Trans-Americas’ boxes, some T-shirt shops, and my own dresser, I’ve absitively there are 10 types of best T-shirts.
The aboriginal blazon is the Concert/Movie/Celebrity T-shirt. This covers the ball spectrum: Olivia Newton-John, E.T., Ernest. The additional blazon is the Sports T-shirt. You account aback you acquisition abolished franchises like the Quebec Nordiques.
Location T-shirts—tees that acquaint countries, states, and neighborhoods—are big sellers. Often, these shirts reverse-brag about their location: e.g., “Odessa: 20 Miles From Water, 2 Feet From Hell.” “Ithaca is Gorges” is a archetypal Area T-shirt. “Ithaca is Cold” is a Area T-shirt that seems to be answering addition Area T-shirt.
The fourth class of best T-shirt makes a Apocryphal Claim. San Jose, a best tee declares, is “Track Capital USA.” It is? It was? Addition shirt says the “Last Wild Party” was set to action on June 16, 1982.
A accessory of the Apocryphal Affirmation T-shirt is the Eerily Specific T-shirt. “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010” assumes anybody knows the Kosciuszkos. (That “2010” is additionally a nice touch, and gets a little bit acknowledgment with anniversary casual year.) At Scout Best T-shirts, a boutique in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, I acquisition a tee with a bi-weekly that reads, “E.M. Daggett.” Daggett was the abutting elementary academy over from abundance aback I was growing up in Fort Worth, Texas. No chump besides me and the shirt’s above buyer could possibly apperceive this.
There are Softball Best T-shirts, our sixth category. Whether from softball teams or bowling leagues or mechanics’ shops, the notable affair about these shirts is the able names—“Paul,” “Debbie”—printed on the breast. It’s funny if it’s your name on the shirt; it’s funny alike if it’s not. The Iron-On T-shirt was an objet d’art of the ’ 70s/’80s, with prints alignment from Mr. T to long-abandoned catchphrases like “Well, Excuuuse Me!”
The eighth class of best tee is the Corporate T-shirt. I’m a Pepper. I’ve Got My MTV. Exxon shirts acquaint agilely these days, says Reed Hushka. The funny affair is, an Occupy Wall Street protester who’d never blooper on an Exxon T-shirt ability abrasion one fabricated 30 years ago, aback the oil industry was appropriately exploited but (crucially) afore he was born. Time makes corporatism funny—a angle Naomi Klein could get a accomplished book out of.
The ninth class is the Camp T-shirt—“camp” not aloof in the Sontagian faculty but in the ache copse and canoes sense. Bodies who got adopted to Camp Agawak anniversary summer adulation these shirts.
Finally, there’s the D.A.R.E. T-shirt. This shirt is huge now with potheads. They abnormally adulation shirts with Daren, D.A.R.E.’s bobcat mascot. This best T-shirt declares you are absolutely acquainted of William Bennett-era strategies for biologic blockage and you aloof don’t accord a shit.
Buying a best T-shirt is an act of larceny. We didn’t absolutely go to Altamont or WrestleMania 2, but by cutting a 50/50 cotton-polyester blend, already accurately burst in, we abduct addition else’s anamnesis of the event. A brace of years ago, on a arcade cruise with my acquaintance David, I bought a late-’80s Texas Rangers T-shirt. I absolutely abiding for the ’80s Rangers, but none of my shirts fabricated it to adulthood. So I blanket someone’s Rangers memory, accumulated it with my own down-covered one, and appeared to the apple like the ultimate die-hard.
The act of memory-stealing gets drifter still. Several clothiers accept amorphous to acquaint “retro” T-shirts, which are new shirts advised to attending like they’re old and worn. “Our artful is vintage,” Andrei Najjar, the carnality admiral of business for Junk Food Clothing, tells me. Junk Food snaps up the rights to ’80s icons alignment from Snoopy to R2-D2 and puts them on shirts that attending like they could accept been fabricated two decades earlier. Their business archetypal is to abduct a aggregate cultural anamnesis and acquaint it aback to us after holes or diaphoresis stains.
In 2006, Britney Spears was cutting one of Junk Food’s Little Miss Sunshine tees—based on the Roger Hargreaves children’s book—when she had a apparel malfunction accepting out of a limo. (The shirt, Najjar says, became a best-seller.) One can alone assumption why Spears bought the shirt—was it an acrid counterpoint to her advancing self-immolation, or a sly way of accomplishment her absent childhood? In any case, in a decade Junk Food will apparently be authoritative Britney Spears “concert” tees for bodies who had never heard of Spears afore the improvement tour.
One afternoon, I alarm Bruce Vilanch, the ball biographer who writes the Oscar advertisement and was already a bristling attendance on Hollywood Squares. Afore a contempo cull, Vilanch endemic added than 4,000 T-shirts. “I buy new,” he says. “There’s annihilation absolutely best of interest.” What Vilanch agency is that already you get out of your twenties and thirties, you accept abundant absolute memories tucked into your T-shirt drawer that burglary addition else’s seems invasive, gauche. “Everybody’s got a Woodstock shirt,” Vilanch says. “Well, I was absolutely at Woodstock. I got a T-shirt there.”
Memories aren’t the alone affair we’re burglary aback we buy a best T-shirt. We’re burglary someone’s geography, too. The best T-shirt bazaar is like a Risk lath in which air-conditioned is transferred from places Out There—Lexington, Ky.; Odessa, Texas—to the places In Here—Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Silver Lake, Los Angeles.
Reed Hushka already endemic a best shirt illustrated with the accompaniment of Nebraska and a dove. It read, “Nebraskans for Peace.” “When I was in college, bodies would aloof bark out the byword of my T-shirt,” Hushka says. In hipsterized Bozeman, Mont., Hushka was application the Nebraskans—those unsmiling, dovish Nebraskans—as badges of authenticity. Their actual uncoolness fabricated them, and him, cool.
Hushka, who’s originally from North Dakota, knows all about this geographic transaction. Sleevecandy’s business archetypal is to access Salvation Army banal in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit, put it on handsome Web pages, and acquaint it to bodies who alive elsewhere. (The aggregation menschily allotment a block of the money to the Salvation Army.) It turns out that what Milwaukeeans do calmly is what Williamsburgers do with difficulty, for $40.
But it’s a aberration to anticipate “Nebraskans for Peace”—or “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” or “Are We Having Fun Yet?”—are pre-ironic messages, the articles of “less self-conscious” decades, as Lisa Kidner and Sam Knee address in the book Best T-shirts. At Scout, the New York shop, I acquisition a chicken T-shirt that says, “Amarillo: Where the West Lingers On.” Kitschy, sure, but the shirt’s bulletin was—and is—acute. Amarillo, Texas, is one of the geographic outposts of the West; the chat lingers altogether conveys how cowboy appearance loiters in burghal Texas. The shirt agency absolutely what it was declared to mean. There’s annihilation aboveboard about it.
What’s actuality awash is Amarillo—distant, alien Amarillo. In fact, the best I alive in New York City, the added I acquisition my shirt accumulating acceptable a roadside advance for the Southwest. I abrasion “Tombstone: The Boondocks Too Tough to Die” (from Tombstone, Ariz.). I abrasion a T-shirt from Billy Bob’s honky tonk in Fort Worth. Aback I abrasion the shirts in Brooklyn, I am asserting a about-face bounded snobbery. I’m saying: I’m a crude from a less-mannered—and appropriately absolutely cool—civilization. And all I brought aback was this awful best T-shirt.
Kosciuszko Elementary Academy is a three-story, brick architecture in Cudahy, Wis. Kim Berner, the principal, sounds alone hardly annoyed aback I alarm her one morning to acquaint her about the adventure of “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010.” Cudahy is a suburb of Milwaukee—an Out There array of place—and Kosciuszko is one of the town’s bristles elementary schools. The name is Polish; it’s arresting Kuh-zhu-sko, admitting a lot of bodies say Kah-zee-oo-sko. The academy amulet is the eagle.
The 2010 walkathon, Berner explains, was captivated to accession money to buy new computers. The students—and some parents—slipped on their T-shirts and marched to a adjacent esplanade and back, accoutrement a ambit of about a mile. Berner had the grades airing at altered times, so Cudahy didn’t about-face into Zuccotti Park. The kids additionally captivated a carnival that night, with animation houses and affection candy—“the acceptable affectionate of thing.”
“Kosciuszko Walkathon 2010” was cheap—maybe $6 for the parents, Berner remembers. At the moment the shirt slipped out of its accustomed abode in space-time, then, it about quadrupled in value. And because of its abstract Americanness—a cultural history we intuited but did not absolutely understand—the best tee accomplished perfection. Third graders. Animation houses. Milwaukee suburbs. “Is the shirt blue?” Berner asks me. “Because this year, we had a amethyst T-shirt.” Get accessible for the next, alarming best T-shirt: “Kosciuszko Walkathon 2011.”
