In this episode of Thread Notes TV I review a couple of t-shirts from 2600 Strange Ave. If you think Ed Hardy t-shirts are lame, you’re going to love 2600 Strange Ave.

Their tees are the perfect antithesis to all the overpriced status-symbol brands that are bastardizing the core idea of what a t-shirt is and should be. It’s also worth noting that while every t-shirt business has a story of how they started, I don’t think I’ve heard one as amusing as the one 2600 Strange Ave has.

In This Episode

$90 T-Shirt – 2600Strange.com (t-shirt details) – Price: $20

This shirt cheekily points out that there’s much more to life than a $90 t-shirt. If you’re spending that much on a shirt…well, you’re beyond help and probably not reading TRB. For a shirt to be worth that much it’s got to be pretty damn special, and well, I guess magic cotton would qualify. If you think the most important part of what you wear is how much you paid for it, this isn’t the shirt for you.

Description – 2600Strange.com (t-shirt details) – Price: $20

This shirt lists everything you’d find on an Ed Hardy t-shirt. So why is this shirt so much cheaper? This shirt only has the words, while an Ed Hardy shirt may have the actual things. If they actually printed on this shirt all the things they list, they’d have to charge an arm and a leg for it.

You see, Ed Hardy shirts are like Mexican food. Very, very expensive Mexican food. Stay with me here. While to the casual observer all Mexican dishes are different, they all have the same basic ingredients – albeit in a unique order. Mexican food is tortilla, beans, meat, cheese, and tomatoes/peppers. Each Mexican dish takes these 5 ingredients and rearranges them into some kind of unique dish.

Ed Hardy shirts are no different. Skulls, wings, gold foil, unicorns and crossbones – those are the basic ingredients. Tweak the colors, put them in a different order…tada! New Ed Hardy shirt. If only we could all be so original.

Both of these shirts from 2600 Strange Ave get down to the core of what a t-shirt is and isn’t, and I like that. No matter how cool you feel, spending $90 on a t-shirt accomplishes only two things – making you look like a jackass and telling people around you that you have no sense of your priorities. These guys get it right.

Leave a comment down below and let me know what you think! If you’d like your t-shirt featured in a future episode of Thread Notes TV, check out my submit a t-shirt page.

Thanks again to the guys at 2600 Strange Ave for sending over these shirts. Check ‘em out!

I’ve got to admit I’ve got no idea what it means. I think it’s a pretty striking shirt though. By altering the size of the text and overlapping it in the background, you get a pretty dynamic tee considering it’s a text-only design.

It’s available in both male and female versions, and I like that they’re different. Too many times the female version of a shirt is just the same print on a baby-doll cut. Hats off to Wunjo for this one. They’ve got a number of pretty cool designs, I recommend checking them out.

As Within So Without (male, female) is $20 at Wunjo.

Forgive me for not cropping the above image properly, but I’m away from my usual machine and therefore away from my tools. If you’re at all familiar or interested in No Reservations on the Travel Channel, you’ll immediately see the appeal in this shirt. I’m a fan of the show, but I’m drawn to this shirt for other reasons as well. It’s a simple, two tone design. The statement, while directed at food, could really voice your dissatisfaction with any situation. The smirk doesn’t hurt either.

It’s available for $19.99 at Neighborhoodies.