I remember the absolute thrill of going to a punk show and you’d notice there was this one stray merch table and some crust punk by themselves with nothing but two photo albums on the table. You’d walk over and flip through the books and it was page after page of silkscreened patches, nothing else. All patches of bands connected to random strains of the underground, post-punk, emo, crusty, straight edge, you name it. You could pay three or four bucks and the punk would hand over a Discharge or Los Crudos patch and you’d have something you knew none of the kids in your school who only went to Hot Topic could have. It was a way of saying I like this band that maybe a handful of people know about, but it was also a statement of individuality. The type you’re always desperate for when you’re a teen.
Today, I assume it wouldn’t be that difficult to find silkscreened patches online. I could probably find the same Avail patch I had sewn onto my cargo pants when I was 16 in 1997 or the Nation of Ulysses back patch I had on a denim jacket when I was 19 in minutes. And that’s great, I suppose. I hope that if I were to find them online, they’re being sold by the same crust punk I met at some house show in ‘96, I hope he’s doing well.
But that also means the challenge isn’t there. When Instagram serves me up ads for a reproduction Madball Demonstrating My Style long sleeve because my cookies or algorithm or the multiple devices with speakers I have knowingly placed in my home tell Google or Zuckerberg Hey, Jason Diamond is looking for a Madball shirt, it just isn’t the same as that moment of wow when the long search ends and I have what it is I was looking for. Redbubble allowing me the option to make my own version of the shirt is the opposite of what I want to be doing. Just being able to have something just isn’t as fun to me.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the t-shirts and tote bags I see and what they say. About how much of a signifier the logo or band name on your shirt used to be to me, but now it’s so muddled and hard to tell if it’s something people are into or just something they saw online and thought looked cool. My favorite is the shirt that literally just says something or some word on it. I own one of these. It’s a sweatshirt that says “Seltzer” and Good Beer Hunting made it. I have a lot of shirts and sweats and I’m pretty sure it’s the one I get the most compliments on and that’s great. It’s a nice-looking garment and it’s comfy as hell. But I feel like I’ve got better, more interesting ones. On the other hand, when I go on vacation and I’m sitting on the beach, there’s something wonderful about popping on a hat from A Novel Idea that says “Lasagna” or “Dim Sum,” almost like it’s anti-beachwear. But beyond that, when I see a shirt that just says “Kale” or something like that, I find myself mystified as to the point. I suppose I should ask the person wearing it, but that would require talking to strangers. That, and I worry they’d just say “I don’t know. I just like it” — which is totally fair and valid, but also, I don’t know.
But I have noticed a swing. I wrote recently about what I dubbed Auteurcore, which could be vintage merch from a Spike Lee or Steven Spielberg movie, or it could be a Human Boy Worldwide shirt that you’d have to be a big fan of Robert Altman’s 1992 film The Player to get. And that’s the merch I’ve been interested in as of late. The stuff for the fans. One that I personally jumped at, was the Enter the Night Gallery Siskel & Ebert tote. Sure, they were on television and a generation grew up watching them give thumbs up or thumbs down, but you have to really want to own a tote bag with two dead movie critics on it. That isn’t likely something somebody sees and goes “That’s fire. I have no idea who those dudes are.”
The place where I can see the “That’s fire” crowd meeting up with the nerds is the stuff that references modern (ish) architecture. Like I don’t know how many people know Trellick Tower or care for brutalist architecture, but I could see somebody who knows how cop ALD and Noah drops seeing this one by Adam Nathaniel Furman and thinking it would look good with a pair of Jordans or something from Stüssy.
The one drawback to all of this is the gatekeeping crowd. The “Oh, you like Ernő Goldfinger? Name three more of his works…” types who might see you or me or somebody wearing this and think it’s an opportunity to be a dick because they spend a lot of time on brutalist architecture online forums and maybe you don’t. There was a time when I thought that was a bad thing, and yes, when it’s a dude doing to a woman…that’s especially still annoying. But…I do think there is something to be said about reining things in a bit. About how it’s gotten too easy to just be whatever about things. How there isn’t much thought about what this shirt with a word or a design says about me or you or us. We can pretty much get anything now. Any vintage design we want can be made new. So finding these more niche hats or shirts that are new designs of old cultural touchpoints feels like the end of something, as if we’ve run out of designs and ideas to pillage so now we’re trying to rethink things a bit. And I know sooner or later it will feel played out and the shirts will be boxed up and put in storage or donated to Goodwill and we will have moved on to something else, but in the meantime, all this stuff serves as a reminder that people still want to express what they like through what they wear.
This hit home. Feeling particularly nostalgic I recently went down a rabbit hole, I eventually bought a Tony Alva skateboard T-shirt signed in silver marker by Tony Alva himself. I don't wear T-shirts (it may be the only one I own without a collar) and I'm probably the only person in my social group now who would know who Tony Alva even is - but I still think it's pretty cool.