A Spot of T: Fans of casual fashion cotton to old T-shirts

Kirk Baird

Monday, Oct. 6, 2003 | 12:54 p.m.

Those who grew up in the '70s and the '80s can hardly forget the burnout in bell-bottom pants advising the world to "Keep on Truckin'."

Or the wannabe comic wearing an insulting "I'm with Stupid" shirt as he paraded around a mall with his friend.

From the shiny iron-on transfers with fuzzy lettering to the ringer-style T's or baseball jerseys, the shirts were fun, tacky occasionally offensive and often made a statement about the wearer.

By a person's shirt, you could tell if he or she was a fan of Farrah Fawcett, Mork from Ork or even the Camaro Z28.

Twenty years later the statements are back.

True to the fashion credo that everything is cyclical, vintage and vintage-looking T-shirts are again all the rage.

At the recent Men's Apparel Guild in California (MAGIC) trade show in Las Vegas, for example, booth after booth was devoted to old school-style T-shirts.

Even uber-trendy designer-wear-of-the-moment Von Dutch features a line of retro-looking T-shirts.

The old-style shirts range in price from $20 to $60.

"Everyone's super-casual now, especially kids," said Scott Morton, the buyer of men's novelty T-shirts for the youth-oriented clothing-store chain Hot Topic. "T-shirts are inexpensive and fun and it's the way people communicate nowadays nonverbally."

And one of the statements is: "Things were better back then."

From the kid-friendly movies, TV shows and icons of the '70s and '80s "The Goonies," "Dukes of Hazzard," "Fraggle Rock," Dr. Seuss, Strawberry Shortcake, "Sesame Street" the new wave of retro shirts is all about nostalgia.

"Even kids who are 17 years old are nostalgic for when they were 8 or 10," Morton said. "It reminds them of an easier time in their life, when there were no responsibilities."

There also hasn't been much in the way of pop-culture trends to replace the good ol' days, he said.

"People are a little afraid to stretch out and take a chance on a cartoon, movie or a TV show and really create something original," Morton said. "That's why we carry a lot of nostalgia."

Most of what Coastal Concepts, a Southern California-based T-shirt manufacturer, carries is based on warm memories of the past.

"Some sort of emotional attachment for people in their late teens to early 20s," said Erica Micheloni, vice president and general manager of Coastal Concepts. Among the icons depticted on T-shirts: "Three's Company," "Battlestar Galactica," "National Lampoon's Vacation," Big Boy, Chicken of the Sea, Monchichi, Herve Villechaize, Gary Coleman and Jiffy Lube.

The shirts, while not available directly from Coastal Concepts, are available in many retail outlets, Micheloni said.

"We sell to everybody from mom and pops (stores) to midlevel department stores to Macy's," she said. "We also do a lot of business with Hot Topic."

Micheloni said the company has a full-time researcher who spends time combing hip California stores, watching MTV and reading fashion and youth-oriented magazines to spot emerging trends.

Spotting the trend is just the first step in the process. There are no guarantees the company will secure each copyright.

"Some of (the license holders) will say they're not licensing to T-shirts right now or they're already licensed for T-shirts. Some are not set up for licensing and drag their feet (on making an agreement) until it no longer makes sense to chase it," Micheloni said. "We work on a great number of possible licensees."

The latest trend among the retro T-shirts is the "distressed" look, meaning the shirts have been washed and treated to look and feel older. For example, images and writing on distressed shirts are often filled with cracks and are faded in spots, while the material has a much softer, worn texture, as if the shirt is decades old. "Recreating shirts you find in the thrift store that's the look we're going for," Morton said.

For purists, a distressed T-shirt is no substitute for the real item. At vintage clothing stores such as the Attic, 1018 S. Main St., vintage T-shirts are flying off the racks.

"I can't keep them in stock," Sophye Politis, manager of The Attic, said.

The Attic carries both vintage and new retro T-shirts in ringer and jersey styles, along with a basket full of original iron-on transfers from such '70s and '80s stalwarts as Linda Ronstadt, Todd Rundgren, Peter Frampton and Bo Derek.

While the choice of vintage T-shirts is limited a gold "Taxi" iron-on notwithstanding there are plenty of retro-style shirts to choose from, including cult movies such as Russ Meyer's "Super Vixens" and the blaxploitation classic "Blacula." Pinups from the '40s and '50s are also popular, as are images of Marilyn Monroe.

There are also the "silly-sayings" shirts: "Support bingo, keep grandma off the street," or "When God created man, She was only joking."

But far and away the most popular vintage shirts are rock T-shirts.

"My rock band T's Kiss, the Scorpions," Politis said. "People call all day long." As Martin said: "You look like you had the shirt since its inception ... it looks like you've had the shirt since 1978."

As for the increasing popularity of vintage T-shirts, Politis said it's simply the next item on the retro checklist.

"Polyester's been done and bellbottoms have been done. Vintage T-shirts is the next fad people are going to in terms of vintage," Politis said. "Besides, I think vintage T's will always be popular. They're not just for one style of people. There's one out there for everybody."