Dragon Ball T-Shirt

I am not too sure what has happened over at Uniqlo’s website. Fast Retailing, owner of Uniqlo, are expanding so rapidly that they are probably trying to make a tighter ship. They have pulled the UT site into the main Uniqlo store in Japan (I’m talking web here) and I just can’t find the US UT store. Anyway, they have just released some more manga collaboration t-shirts and this Dragon Ball one caught my eye.

Even if you can read the Japanese I don’t think they ship overseas. If anyone can find it in the US store please drop a link.

Graniph 2010 Winter Sale

The Graniph sale has been on for quite a bit as you can see and that is the decidedly strange way they depict up “up to 30%” off in Japan. I know English speaking nations would put the tilde (squiggly hyphen) before the 30%. I’ve been corrected. It actually means from 30% up so there are even better bargains to be had. Anyway the sale is still on and while there are a decent number of bargains there are not a whole lot of t-shirts. Below are two interesting tops that are in the sale.

A tee with a difference from Uniqlo

Living in Japan I do see a lot of fashion that makes me look twice or sometimes even stare. In fact, just the other day I saw this lady wearing what looked like a big sofa cushion as a sweater. To be honest though I am still not convinced it wasn’t a sofa cushion. I really wanted to take a photo but of course that isn’t always easy when it comes to strangers.

Anyway this little number comes from Uniqlo and is only 500 yen (about $5) in the sale.  A cool and simple design is placed on this interesting article and of course there are suspenders attached. I have a feeling they won’t keep your pants up though.

[I don't know if it available outside of Japan.]

Graniph teaches you how to dress

Recently Japanese t-shirt store, Design T-Shirts Graniph, have been branching out into other areas such as pants and jackets and now that they have all these new items they are providing lessons on how to coordinate your wardrobe. It’s very kind of them. Check out Graniph Coordinate Guide no. 4.

The 4th graniph Coordinate Guide presents a few quick and easy PRACTICAL styling tips. Looking towards autumn/winter, check out our versatile and cool Shawl Collar Blouson in a MAD RANGE OF stylin’ color HITs!

Graniph don’t sell socks yet apparently.

Sweet Zebra Tee at UT

This is a very pretty t-shirt for girls and if you like zebras all the better. This is available in the US but you have to order it by email if you can believe that. You’d think that Japan’s richest man would get that e-commerce store set up.

Shiro to Kuro means black and white…well actually means white and black.

Cost: just $15.50 plus shipping.

20 Days Left for Submissions to Edo Label

There are now over 100 designs in the running for the Edo Label t-shirt design contest. The designs are quite varied with most of the submissions coming from Japan. There have been quite a few non-Japanese entries too though and there is plenty of time for you to submit yours too. There are 20 days left so if you are planning on submitting you had better get around to creating your design soon.

There are two prizes of 50,000 yen which works out at around US$500 and submissions close midnight September 30th, Tokyo time.

Edo Label looking for t-shirt designers

I haven’t been posting as much as I’d like recently but hopefully I will get back in the groove soon. Of course I did have a virus on my pc and my web sites were hacked but the fact is that I have just been pretty busy recently. One of the things that I have been busy with is Edo Label. Edo Label is a soon to be opened online t-shirt store based in Japan. The website will be bilingual so even though it is based in Japan so you don’t need to break out the Japanese text books and kanji dictionaries to participate in the website. Yes, I said “participate”. Edo Label will be a community driven website with many ways for the users to interact with each other.

In the run up to the launch of the store Edo Label is holding a t-shirt design contest. Submissions are being accepted for t-shirt designs for the first tees that will be sold in the store. In fact the contest has just been opened with 2 prizes of $500. There is no special theme but you do have to include the Edo Label logo in the design. You are even free to butcher the logo. It can be altered in almost anyway as long as it remains recognizable.

The contest closes on September 30th and the winners will be announced on October 14th. See Edo Label for Terms and Conditions.

Cannes Lions T-Shirt Grand Prix 2009 Winners

Last November I told you about the Cannes Lions T-Shirt Grand Prix and now I present the winners to you. Sounds formal. LOL. Anyways, back then I couldn’t find any information about a cash prize and still can’t but one of my readers said there was a cash prize of about one million yen and for the Cannes Lions T-Shirt Grand Prix 2010 there is a US$10,000 cash prize which is about one million yen so he could be right.

There were 1,448 designs sent from 51 different countries. This was shortlisted to just 10 designs and finally the winner, a university student in Tokyo known as Sho, won with his design entitled KING. I’m not too sure but I think that the t-shirt above bears the winning design and is available in Uniqlo’s Japan web site for 1,500 yen.

I think it says the 10 finalists are (or will be) available in the store but as I write this there are only 5 in the showcase. Check them out.

Retro Japanese Batman T-Shirt

I just love this t-shirt that I came across this morning. Sweet n’ Sour Tees is one of the ugliest online t-shirt stores I have seen but they have an awesome collection of retro pop culture tees. For the curious the Japanese text in this t-shirt simply says ‘Batman’.

Two New Tees from TAB

Tokyo Art Beat have released two t-shirts just in time for the summer. I have to say that I am a little disappointed that they didn’t have a model shoot like they did the first time I mentioned them in this blog. I guess it could be another sign of the economic downturn that has gripped Japan. The shirts on the other hand are not a disappointment. I much prefer these to the last pair of releases and I especially like the green version of
Modularly Yours by Ian Lynam.

This actually my favorite of all the t-shirts I have seen at Tokyo Art Beat because it captures so many aspects if Japan and does it in style.  It is available in white with TAB’s pink and blue print as well.

The next t-shirt has a pretty solid design too, by Japanese artist, Teppei Kaneuji. It is a fun design and one you need to look at closely to appreciate. It is also available on a dark tee with gold and white print.

While these tees have vastly different styles, the thing they have in common is that people will spend a lot of time staring at them trying to figure out what is going on so if you are uncomfortable when people stare at your chest this may not be the tee for you.

Tees are both 3,500 yen + shipping.

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