If you’ve been around for any short period of time and have followed “streetwear”, you’ve seen the very visible progression of the industry/movement/culture (blah whatever word describes everything it encompasses). People traded in their all-over print hoodies and their graphic t-shirts for button-ups and more refined tailoring. That I see no problems with at all. Largely the reason anybody gets into a deeper form of fashion is association. As you grow up, you want to shed the associations of adolescence and being a young buck as well as losing the need or desire to have the spotlight of attention placed on yourself. However, something I shouldn’t loathe, but I do, is how people all of a sudden felt the need to close the door on graphic t-shirts. I guess you could say not being down with streetwear is not being down with T-shirts to a certain degree cause the two have always gone hand in hand.

Graphic t-shirts in themselves can be an all-day, every day type of garment. It’s always comfy and never needs any real processing. No need to iron, just open the drawer and pull it out. I don’t care if it’s wrinkly as fuck, by the very notion you’re wearing a t-shirt, you don’t need to look all prim and proper anyways. If you go deeper, I think just like many have traded in their big graphics for oxfords and chambrays, there’s no reason why we can’t continue to wear smart and cool graphics. The t-shirts you see sold at that shop those Jersey Shore smucks work at are dumb and straight-forward. Yes, I would generally avoid those, and anything that is conceptually bland without any sort of interpretation or at least a bit of thinking. Just like you’ve traded up for greater refinement, I don’t see why t-shirts can’t be judged by the same lens. I think Supreme has often been a champion of this. Their t-shirts are never super straight forward and add an element of uncertainty as to what they represent. Same with P.A.M., seen above. There’s something about seeing cool visuals that represents something you don’t know or are just not sure how you grasp it. Maybe it’s in many ways, a different angle at elitism. You’re trying to be associated with a certain brand and since nobody gets the shirts (sometimes yourself included), you can embody this elitist nature… of course don’t tell anybody that you don’t know the meaning behind it haha. There’s often a degree of respect associated with the unknown or something misunderstood… this is what fashion’s often been about, a perpetual game of oneupmanship.

It’s ignorant for me to tell you what to wear, but I see getting rid of graphic t-shirts no different than turning the back on your roots. If you grew up with graphic t-shirts that undoubtedly led you to where you are now in regards to fashion progression, why the need to cut it out. It’s still very much a part of you, just be more discerning about what you’re looking for. Just as much as we post up on Hypebeast everything from high-fashion, dudes going hiking… in the urban jungle and streetwear, I have a profound appreciation for all of it. Sure we post less streetwear now or graphic t-shirts, but that’s less about turning our back on it, more so that our eye for a conceptually richer communicative graphic simply is now much greater… eh that sounds pretentious, let’s leave it more open than that and include any pleasant types and logos. And for the record, this is my favorite Tee of all time…

-Eugene