The Message

All too often I find myself ranting, spitting and fussing at various expressions of modern media and society- balking at Television's gaping maw, whingeing at the Saturday supplement in the newspaper. My wife's fatigue at my cynicism, and my own realisation that I am a grumpy old man, have eventually galvanised my resolve to do something about it, turning my views into creative expression.

The T Shirt has become occupies a strange position in contemporary culture, in that it has forged a place for itself among the wardrobes of the masses, with the accepted faculty of some message or graphic being intrinsic to its being. People who would never normally choose to express themselves, or a view or opinion, seem happy to convey a particular message or aesthetic choice through the adornment of a t shirt. Here I speak generally about the type which has some kind of printing on it, be it a logo, image or text. Very few t shirts (in the wider scheme of t shirt production) are actually sold without any such embellisment, those that are are vehicles of expression through overall colour choice.

Graphics, text and slogan have become an accepted aesthetic choice through the t shirt. DC comic characters are celebrated, then re-pastiched for mass market bands, then re-adopted by cutting edge fashionista's to ironically subvert the message. The given trend in graphic visual communication does not spend long in the pages of Eye or Wallpaper before being squeezed through the meatgrinder of mulitnational consumer powerhouses such as ASDA or Topshop. Buyers now are sifting through design blogs and hanging out at Threadless, reducing the gap between Purple Cow and Mainstream Fodder to almost nothing. In the words of Dash Parr, "Another way of saying evryone is special- Nobody is special". Trendy is a redundant term in modern society.

However, the position of the T Shirt as vociferous statement or political intent has not entirely disappeared. It is porbably just the case that you'll buy it from Matalan instead of some dingy stall at Kensington Market or Posh Unit in the Kings Road. By choosing this medium to air my ill tempered outbursts, I am not trying to be ironic or subversive (obviously, as the designs achieve neither) but instead capitalise on a mainstream medium to dilute any pompous or high brow intention. They're just T shirts- all post-philospohising can be bolted on later when they appear in Dazed :)