>> I would have cast a glare and a pointed stare if you were to strike up a conversation with me about slogan t-shirts a while ago. It took a pertinent reminder though at the Uniqlo S/S 11 press day to realise that my ire was mis-directed. Slogan tees' have been dragged down to the depths of depressing awfulness and banality through factories that churn out "I'm a Babe", "You want to tap this", "DIVA!" tees that are available to anyone between the age of 5 and 60 which makes the sentiments of those aforementioned statements wrong and disturbing on varying levels. Male equivalents also apply. Then there are the utterly stupid ones you get (odd English sloganing is rife in Hong Kong) which aren't even gramatically correct. In other words, it equals a lot of face palming… equivalent to amount of face palming I do whenever I see Chinese character tattoos on people that are completely nonsensical.
However, London based print/fashion duo Antoni and Alison who have long been selling slogan tees since the mid-90s have revived a good lot of their archive prints for some special edition Uniqlo UT tees for May 2011. Upon seeing them, I remember that slogan tees weren't always devoid of wit or trying too hard to be very VERY clever. There's a sort of naive simplicity in Antoni and Alison's choice of phrasing, accentuated by the colours and typeface. Upon further inspection of their website, where they make mockery of museum artefacts or give a deliberately po-faced guided tour of their house, it's clear the duo have a fondness of poking fun at all things upper-crust and bourgeois activities in general and slogans like "I heart fine art", "I can play the piano" affirm that. I feel like it's all without malice though even though they're probably making fun of my own exacting stereotype (went to a girl's school, thinks she's EXCEEDINGLY clever but so often turns out not to be, plays the piano, HEARTS fine art…). I also love how weirdly dated the one about the fleece top is. Zip-up fleece tops? Remember those?
