Tcritic – The T-Shirt Blog Covering The Best in Nerd Fashion

Hello, Illustrious TCritic readers!

I’m happy to be starting two new posts weekly on Tcritic — I’ll be doing a short interview with a t-shirt company each Wednesday & posting my favourite finds every Friday.

Tcritic gets a lot of questions from aspiring tee designers via e-mail, so I thought it best to bring the answers straight from the companies themselves!

Voila! First interviewee is Fred Deakin, founder of Airside T-shirt Club & Member of Impotent Fury/Lemon Jelly (I’ve been a fan of Lemon Jelly for quite a few years, now!)

MB: Do you recall a t-shirt that really made an impression on you?
FD: I really liked those David David pattern t-shirts from a couple of years ago: I saw the lead singer of Bloc Party wearing one and had to find out who had designed it.

MB: What about the medium of t-shirt that inspires you?
FD: It’s instant art for your chest: disposable and very “of the moment”; a perfect meeting ground for design, art and fashion to cross fertilise.

MB: I get questions from a lot of aspiring t-shirt designers. Any advice for them about starting a business?
FD: It’s tough to make money out of t-shirts! If I was starting a t-shirt business today I would go high fashion and make t-shirts that were very expensive and extremely limited: a hard trick to pull off but if you get it right then you’re sorted.

MB:What’s your favourite t-shirt?
FD: I have a t-shirt I got at a Spanish music festival with the Michelin Man meditating on it: when that dies I will be very sad.

MB: What’s your most popular t-shirt on your site?
FD: Battle Royale by some distance!

MB: How do you market your t-shirts? Where do you advertise?
FD: We rely on our regular customers and web traffic, but our t-shirts are more an extension of the design business rather than its mainstay so we can afford to be quite relaxed about it.

MB: What sites do you visit regularly?
FD: Piccadilly Records and Hypem for my music needs, Dezeen and FormFiftyFive for design.

MB:Any news for Airside?
FD: 2009 Airside T-shirt Club is open for membership. Four limited edition, exclusive, top secret t-shirts from Fred Deakin, Michael Gillette, Ian Stevenson and Shoboshobo. Sign up now at www.airsideshop.com.

Sweet! Thanks for interviewing, Fred! Tune in next Wednesday for an interview with another great indie tee company.

Love & red sweaters,
Mary Bee

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