T-shirts and High Fashion Firsts

As a T-shirt company, we think we are the very pinnacle of fashion (or maybe anti-fashion). We love t-shirt culture and feel it is superior (at least in comfort) to the excessive primping and preparations of high fashion that in the end only detract from who we really are.

We have been known to eschew the paragons of high fashion, but this week’s New York Fashion Week has opened our eyes. Some of the designs on the catwalk this week have been breath-taking – some for their great beauty, others for their you’ve-got-to-be-kidding factor.

But the greatest eye-opener of the event has been its inclusiveness (not a word often associated with haute couture). New York Fashion Week has blown the doors off our preconceptions of beauty and style with a number of firsts: a model with Vitiligo (a skin condition characterized by the loss of pigment in patterns), a model with Down syndrome, a male amputee model, a paralyzed teenage model, and a 5-year-old designer (no kidding).

Fashion has a way of reflecting reality and by exposure making it more acceptable. We hope that like other fashion statements that made their way into the mainstream these first from New York are just the beginning.

Fashion Week is an international show hosted by Mercedes-Benz and presented in places like Miami, Berlin, Tokyo, Mumbai, and Istanbul. We look forward to other statements and firsts.

The Haute Hoodie: Comfort Colors or Saint Laurent?

Our primary dye houses are in Vermont and Massachusetts. These states have much in common: Vermont has the Green Mountains, Massachusetts has the Berkshires. Both states have mud season, both have fall foliage. Fashions in these two New England states are also similar, especially on Saturdays and at college: jeans and hoodies rule.

But when it comes to dressing up, our two states differ somewhat. Take ‘business casual’ for example. In Vermont, this means almost anything but jeans. In Massachusetts, men wear blazers, women might even don stockings. In both cases, business casual has never included a hoodie…until now.

The hoodie has finally broken through the glass zipper into haute couture. T-shirts have always had a place in high fashion – remember Don Johnson in Miami Vice? Snug-fitting T, linen suit… Now it’s time for the hoodie (or even the crew-neck sweatshirt).

Saint Laurent, Givenchy and Dior are making a move on the comfortable sweatshirt. Add a leather mini skirt and some gold bling, et bien, Voila! You’re keeping up with the Joneses. Gym-inspired fashion apparel.

The price tag on some of these hoodies and sweats might very well make you start to sweat: $675.

The ladies full-zip Comfort Colors hoodie (pre-shrunk 80% cotton, 20% polyester 10-ounce) could certainly do justice to this little mini and imagine how much money you’ll have left to spend on your alligator briefcase!

imaged credits:  http://www.sitcomsonline.com and http://www.wellandgoodnyc.com