by Gerry Mak in New Trends on Thursday 2 October 2008

I’m tired of t-shirts. They’re utilitarian and comfortable in the summer, but I’m beginning to feel that they’re really lazy. They’re just billboards for brands, bands, and ideologies, and there’s usually not much thought put into their design. They’re the textile equivalent of the obnoxious status messages on Facebook. If I have to read one more clever slogan or look at one more badly-silkscreened image on someone’s chest I think I’m going to crawl into a hole. T-shirts add to the feeling that everyone is just screaming at everyone else in this overgrown, over-stimulated, anti-intellectual, throw-away culture. I like the idea of getting older and maturing. I look forward to grey hair and wrinkles. I like the idea of showing respect and dignity through your clothes. I like suspenders. Look at the above image from Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise to see what I mean. I’m just not into the perpetual adolescence so many people seem to be stuck in, and t-shirts, especially expensive fashion-y t-shirts, are on par with collector sneakers in terms of being indicative of how youth-fixated we’ve become. I know a lot of Lost At E Minor readers and contributors don’t feel the same way, but I thought I’d just throw that out there.