Generally the internet employs two primary tactics to encourage conspicuous consumption, either “its really cheap” or “its really limited edition.”  New street/surf wear merchant Jack Threads has boldly launched a dual-pronged attack on weary online consumers. Throw in some irreverant “we’re cool like you” text around the site and it can’t lose, right?  The concept is simple, one item of streetwear every day, severely discounted for 24 hours for online members.  With the success of sites like Shirt-a-day, shirt.Woot, Teefury, and so on, the concept is hardly groundbreaking, however it  does take the platform to a new product range.  The success of the site, which appears to have launched yesterday, most likely depends on their ability to offer genuinely desirable products, instead of just becoming a clearing house for streetwear manufacturers extras.  As they have so far only displayed two offerings, it is still too early to tell if they will be able to meet that bar, although lets hope that this wasn’t their idea of stacking the deck with the good-stuff first.  You can sign up at their home page www.Jackthreads.com

Now these shirts may be shamelessly pandering to the recently arrived post-college Brooklyn dwelling hipster lifestyle, but thats probably why I like them. Obviously the bike shirts win the most favor here, especially the few printed on organic cotton. Additionally, 10% of the “more bike lanes” shirt goes to support a bicycle non-profit here in NYC (sound familiar?). Anyway, clean simple designs make these shirts not too obnoxious, despite the models’ ridiculous haircuts. My only substantial complaint (and there always has to be one) is that I would really like to see one complete t-shirt line somewhere that doesn’t utilize a single bit of gold-foil typeface. Oh yeah, that and the “made in brooklyn” shirt is most certainly not sewn in Brooklyn. Go. Now.

The nation’s largest apparel trade show has introduced an ‘eco’ component to this August’s show with Ecollection.  The Ecollection will be one of many themed sections of Magic, which as the name implies will feature environmentally responsible labels in special recycled booths, with ‘green’ signage.  In addition to showcasing the green-labels , the show will house Lounge 22 for attendees, which will feature bammboo furniture and Cradle to Cradle certified textiles. To top off the new show, in typical Magic fashion (non pun intended) Ecollection will host its own seminar series with some very prominent speakers addressing topics of sustainability in the apparel industry such as representatives from Patagonia, and less obviously Nike’s corporate responsibility office. As usual, Magic will take place Aug 25-27 in Las Vegas.

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You can see the rest at our myspace page. Add us as a friend while you are there.

By this point in the game, there are a lot of Obama shirts out there, which in my mind is a net-positive despite relatively few noteworthy designs.  However, the fact that the Democratic nominee is inspiring people to want to make t-shirts at all should be taken as a pretty good indicator of the left’s interest in this election.  Frankly, this time in 2004 I don’t really recall any street-wear label’s rolling out their line of John Kerry T’s (and thank god for that).  Anyway, Thriving Ink, the East Bay “artist collaborative” is the latest to join Obama T-shirt mania with their “Hope Is Dope” collection, which donates an unnamed percentage to fight hunger in the Philippines. While these things are obviously subjective, I can’t say I am blown away by any of the designs, but they are definitely not bad just not tremendously original. For example, what the fuck is with the giant printing of EVERYTHING?  Now as previously stated on this site, I am a big Obama fan, but why the fuck would I want a giant Obama face t-shirt?  Now I recognize that this is popular right now, so I am not faulting Thriving Ink, but I still just don’t get it.  On that note, what’s with the resurgence of cassette tapes on t-shirts and tattoos? I may only be 28, but I remember with clarity that cassettes were not exactly the ideal media for listening to music, yet hipsters iconify the damned things as if they were the coolest shit since 8-tracks.  Forgive the off-topic rant, but to me this exemplifies the hollowness of hipster culture in general. Its as if some hipster czar randomly assign status to the most arbitrary items and they become cool despite their lack of any real intrinsic worth, just because some douche bag in Williamsburg thought “wouldn’t it be irreverant of me to put a cassette tape on a t-shirt?” Fuck cassette tape shirts.   You can check out the Obama shirts here.

Since everything has already been outsourced to Asia, why not an Indian Threadless for young Indian hipsters to flaunt their design prowess. From the downright awful to the just plain weird, Inkfruit.com demonstrates that the production of pop culture is just not one of those things likely to be shipped overseas anytime soon.  My personal favorite is the above warning (i think) that if drinking doesn’t kill you, it might give you some serious beer-shits. On a less foreboding note however is Sheetal’s fabulous “Let’s do party tonight.”

In the often heated debate to determine whether American Apparel founder Dov Charney is indeed a total douche bag or possibly just a misunderstood sexual deviant, this latest piece of news clearly lands in the DB column.  May 30th saw the filing of yet another sexual harassment charge against Charney in which he allegedly screamed at a female employee to “pretend to masturbate.”  Now I know what you are thinking, I must be reading old newspapers or something, but in fact this latest case is in fact entirely new (the fifth one).  Now aside from being a raging misogynistic douche-bag, who demands for someone to “pretend to masturbate?”  That’s just plain weird, Charney.

Go to TMZ to see the court papers, although they are rather blurry and completely boring. Except for the part about the screaming and the pretending.

Not wanting to be left behind in the new election year t-shirt mania, KFC will unveil its new t-shirt series celebrating the goodness that is fried chicken (or electoral politics, I’m not sure). The three shirts will feature “left wing” (blue), “right wing (red, of course), and “tastes the same to me.” Sorry for the lousy pictures, but that is all they have available. Shirts are $15 and proceeds help provide scholarships for chickens students looking to attend college. Buy them here, or if you are appalled that this site might propose supporting someone like KFC, go buy a I am not a nugget shirt at www.peta2.org.