I don’t have any written rules regarding what I like in a T-shirt, but when it comes to something new, I find that what I like tends to connect back to when I used to do a day or two a week trolling thrift stores back before Gen. Z started killing that practice.
I’m kidding, of course. I for one welcome the coming of our Zoomer overlords and hope they give me a nice spot on the rocketship full of old people when they blast us off into space to make room on this dying planet in a few years. But I also realize that people around my age did more than enough to ruin vintage by turning it from a fun, inexpensive way to recycle old styles into…selling Tommy Tutone 1983 tour shirts at the Brooklyn Flea for $200 bucks or, even worse, remaking old band shirts and selling them at Target and Urban Outfitters. There’s something so soulless and corporate but also just not fun about all of that to me. I never cared for Tommy Tutone, but if I found that ‘83 tour shirt on a rack at the Salvation Army in 1996, I would have been psyched. Nobody wanted that thing, but I’d figure out a way to make it look good.
Nowadays, you—yes, you—can put anything on a shirt. There is this whole cottage industry of people that sell gear with vintage book covers or old beer logos on shirts and people eat that stuff up because wearing the cover of Our Man in Havana on your chest signals to other people that you like Graham Greene just like you’d wear a Mets hat because you (probably) like the team. And that’s fine. It’s just not my thing.
One of the few exceptions to this rule I’ve made was a few years back when I was browsing the Anxious and Angry shop and noticed they had a shirt for the Ray Rocket solo album that was just the “Stephen King Rules” shirt from one of the most important films from my childhood, Monster Squad. I’ve been obsessed with that film since I was six and I’m one of those kids that can thank Mr. King for getting them into books since a paperback of Carrie or Salem’s Lot was never that far away. That, and the fact that something he wrote tends to get adapted for the screen every year or so means that King has been a frequent and important presence in my life since I was a kid, and I wanted to proclaim that I think he rules. So I got the shirt. It was fun seeing people react to it.
That was generally the extent of my vintage-style shirt buying and I don’t think, as far as I know, that I’ve bought any new, old-looking shirts since. That “Stephen King Rules” shirt was something I’ve always wanted, so I got it. After that, I figured to myself that was it, I would never want another new shirt with Stephen King’s name on it. I was good.
Then, yesterday, Online Ceramics unveiled their latest drop, and there he was, “The King of Nightmares” himself on a shirt…that I wanted. The difference between the Online Ceramics shirt and, say, just slapping the original cover of It on a longsleeve is that this is something original. It’s Online Ceramics weird tribute to King, and that’s great. This took some effort and it looks weird because I’m sure they came up with the idea after they did DMT and watched Creepshow or something like that.
‘Tis the season for good, spooky shirts, it seems. Another of my favorites, Enter the Night Gallery, dropped this Lost Boys shirt that also looks like it took a little more effort than dragging a movie poster onto the Zazzle screen. Obviously young, undead, bleached-blonde Kiefer looks dope, but the black and white, the fonts, the whole thing, it looks great and perfect for this time of year.
I’m not sure whether or not I’d define this stuff as Auteurcore, but I really like how Halloween is the true Real Heads season for weird shirts. By this time next month, everybody and their mother will likely be selling their take on the ugly Christmas sweater, but I’ll be just fine wearing my Halloween Ends longsleeve unless somebody does a dope Black Christmas or something utilizing the 1972 Tales From the Crypt movie…which is a Christmas film. Because spooky shirts, when done right, rule.