To carry on the vintage t-shirt theme (see last post about 1976 t-shirt from ISO50) I came across a controversial site the other day called “Stuff White People Like” (SWPL). It has been getting an extraordinary amount of media coverage in the US and it seems the reaction it has generated has been pretty heated considering race is still a massive social hot-potato in a country that had school segregation only 54 years ago. Anyway, it seems this guy has got a book deal out of his blog (see NY Times: Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal).
Trying to steer off from the political aspect of the site (if that is possible), number 86 on the list is t-shirts, and in particular vintage tees. I quote:
The most prized t-shirt category is vintage. As shown earlier, white people need authenticity like they need oxygen and to have an original vintage t-shirt from the 1970s or 1980s is a very powerful social status symbol. The ideal shirt will have a funny logo, a year attached to it, and will be as thin as rice paper. In the event that two white people have shirts that meet this criteria, the superior ranking is given to the person who paid the least for the shirt.
It is certainly worth checking this site out just to see whether all the media hype is fuss over nothing and whether this guy is actually amusing or just a writer getting amazing PR by being purposefully controversial?
Interesting stuff. What I find particularly interesting about the whole vintage t-shirt craze is that the word vintage implies old and antique, whereas most t-shirt shops selling “vintage” tees are actually selling fakes 🙂 Or am I missing something?
@Alex: yes exactly, the craze is for new stuff made to look vintage. The trend clearly isn’t just related to t-shirts or fashion, everybody seems to be at it. Look at the new Fiat 500 for example.