Archive for July, 2008
The Beijing Olympics are upon us and various nations and their athletes have taken the T-shirt route to expressing their views of the Chinese Government. Germany, since the 1940s, has had some of the most outspoken Olympic participants and this year they have strong feelings about human rights in China.
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One group of German athletes has designed and promoted wristbands that say Sports for Human Rights, with proceeds going to Amnesty International
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Yvonne Bönisch, gold medal judo winner in 2004, is boycotting the opening ceremony to protest human rights violations in Tibet
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During a send-off for the German Olympic team at the weekend, the German Olympic Sports Confederation was presented with T-shirts with slogans ranging from ‘Fair Games’ to ‘Sport for Human Rights’, ‘Free Tibet’ and even ‘Free China’! They were donated by former German athletes, including Dieter Baumann, 5,000 metres gold medal winner at Barcelona Games in 1992, and the sprinter Ines Geipel.
Australia’s Olympic team also seems to have a large percentage of athletes concerned about Tibet.
- More than 33% of the team declared in a poll that they wanted China to withdraw from
Tibet
- Tour de France cyclist Cadel Evans, who will compete at the Beijing Games, sported a ‘Free Tibet’ T-shirt during a race in Belgium earlier this year and he wore the same provocative T-shirt under the yellow jersey worn only by leaders in the Tour de France, when he won stage 15 of this year’s race. He finished second for the second time, but didn’t wear his T-shirt onto the winner’s rostrum.
Cadel Evans courtesy of midge
July 29th, 2008
But not just any old T-shirt. It was the elite troops of the Colombian Army who deceived the terrorist group ‘Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’ (FARC) into handing over hostages who’d been kept in the jungle for nearly six years. And one of their tools was a Che Guevera T-shirt.
The left wing terror group had become expert in kidnapping during its war with the Colombian state but Colombian Army members infiltrated the very highest levels of FARC and were able to bring a helicopter to a jungle rendezvous, claiming they were taking the hostages to an international meeting to show FARC’s power. The most senior member of the infiltration team spent nearly half an hour on the ground with the terrorists, laughing and joking, and clad in a Che Guevara T-shirt, which seems to have helped the FARC soldiers accept that he was ‘one of them’.
Once back in the air, the amazed hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, a former candidate for President of Colombia who had been kept in isolation for over five years, were told their ‘captors’ were actually their rescuers.
Che courtesy of slavin fpo
July 18th, 2008
If Littlewoods have their way, it will be from them. They’ve launched a £4 million TV campaign as part of the £16 million advertising spent by Littlewoods’ parent company Shop Direct Group. The TV ads feature Trinny and Susannah, whom Littlewoods also sponsor in their new Undress the Nation show. Littlewoods said the aim of the campaign was to drive towards target to have 70% of its sales coming from its online operation by 2011.
Catalogue and High street retailers are feeling the pinch from online T-shirt retailing, which has moved away from traditional brands into markets where people know the brand value of the T-shirt rather than the retailer, and base their shopping decision on the best price, customer service and support.
July 15th, 2008
It’s been forty years since the swinging sixties, when the T-shirt has become a must-have for all summer wardrobes. But today it’s not the old tie-dyed version that has to be considered as both a fashion and a political statement. The modern T-shirt has to be made of organic cotton and generally bears a slogan for a charity or cause. Everybody from H&M to M&S has found room for T-shirts made of environmentally-friendly materials, most of them with slogans like ‘preserve Mother Earth’ or ‘no sweat in my T-shirt’ with a picture of a sweatshop worker underneath.
According to a recent MSNBC report, around 2 billion T-shirts were sold worldwide in 2007 and this year sales will rise again. Choices for organic versions of the classic T-shirt include hemp, bamboo, tencel, soy fabric, modal and organic cotton and while wearing a T-shirt is an obvious way to promote a favourite cause or announce a belief system, it also helps to save the planet. Literacy T-shirt courtesy of Wrote
July 11th, 2008
World Youth Day, a Catholic event, is being hosted by Randwick, Sydney this year, and an estimated 250,000 young pilgrims are expected to attend. The New South Wales government has given funding to the Day, which didn’t please all its citizens, and the early arrival of many ‘pilgrims’ who are acting rather evangelically on Sydney’s streets, has displeased even more. There will be a parade and public masses, which will lead to street closures, and that’s incensed even more inhabitants. What’s it got to do with T-shirts? Well there is, of course, an official range of merchandise, following the Pope’s very successful merchandising of his recent tour of the USA. But more interestingly, the population of
Sydney has been making its own views known on
T-shirts printed, sold and worn locally.
Slogans include:
- Anti-World Youth Day
- We close 300 roads so 300,000 can close their minds
- “and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who wear t-shirts that cause annoyance or inconvenience…”
- Oh no, I stepped in Dogma
- Too many Christians, not enough lions – Randwick 2008
- I’ve been touched by the Catholic Church, so where’s my $2 billion?
- World Youth Day: You can cross yourself, but not the city
USA Pope merchandise courtesy of Mike Licht
July 8th, 2008
In Scarborough, a seven year old girl took action on an offensive T-shirt! Bernadette Davey contacted the council and police to ask for the T-shirt to be removed from outside the shop, but the shop owner didn’t comply, instead he covered the area in question with a sign saying ‘lift me’. Bernadette walks past the shop regularly and she felt the T-shirt was rude and it offended her, so entered the shop to ask if the lady behind the counter would take it down but was told it was a legal display. Then she went to the Town Hall who contacted the police, who went to the nameless shop and found the compromise sign already on display.
Bernadette’s grandfather said, ‘This is supposed to be a family resort and having images on show like that is not appropriate. It goes against public decency.’ We still don’t know what the T-shirt said …
T-shirt shop courtesy of wili-hybrid
July 4th, 2008
A couple of days ago the Desperate Housewives star was snapped in West Hollywood in a T-shirt that shows her current desperate state is more about privacy than popularity! The T-shirt that proclaimed: I want more privacy!
It’s assumed that thirty-three year old Eva was getting back at the press for following her and her husband around on a recent trip to New York, during which photographers trailed them everywhere. Rumours suggested then that Longoria might be pregnant. Both Longoria and her basketball player husband Tony Parker are from large families and friends say they are keen to start their own brood but the press was picking up on some recent prolonged separations between the two which have led to suggestions that their marriage may be rocky. Whatever the truth of either rumour, Eva isn’t keeping her desires quiet, even if the desire is for a quiet life!
Eva Longoria courtesy of Mr Azed
