XLarge, considered

The most recent episode of The Weekly Drop was a pretty good interview with the founder of XLarge. I had some knowledge of the brand as an early Southern California player in what’s now called streetwear, but I knew less about it than I do about some other brands. (As it happens, I own at least one XLarge t shirt that I like a lot, but this is one of many examples of how my own taste doesn’t necessarily dictate my reporting.) Listening to the interview inspired me to click over to the brand’s site. I assume the T’s now on sale are from the out-going season, and some new batch of stuff is on the way, but a couple of designs stuck me as interesting for various reasons.

This item, Hi-Jacked Tee, jumped out at me. (In this and all cases, click on the image to go the item’s listing in the XLarge site’s store section if you’re interested.) Note the Arabic-ish treatment of the XLarge name. Seems like wearing this would be asking for trouble. But perhaps that’s part of the idea. Will Urban Outfitters bite this? I don’t think so.

Since I’ve been on this logo remix kick, I have to highlight this. They have a couple of t shirts with a similar theme, but I always enjoy seeing mundane products — a beer cozy, in this case — get the brand-underground treatment.

As a Warhol freak, I’m slightly tempted by this one: “Pop Cultural Revolution,” amusing.

But this one was my favorite. Apart from the sort of PE (as in phys ed, not Public Enemy) look, remixed with a rat, I’m probably feeling vaguely nostalgic about NYC. Of course, I’ve had the experience of moving away from NYC before, so this time my nostalgia has a somewhat different flavor. (The only T-shirt I presently own that’s NYC-specific is one I bought just before leaving town the first time, in 1999: Purchased on St. Marks, it’s one of those shirts that says, “Welcome To New York: Duck Motherfucker,” with a huge gun graphic. I love that shirt.)

Mostly I think I like the fact that the “XL” gets their branding done in a relatively subtle way. The fact is, I like a lot of brand underground designs, but I’m not any more anxious to be a billboard for their supposedly super-cool logos than I am for mainstream logos. I mean, it’s not like I’m idiotic enough to believe that anybody who looks at me will think I’m down with latest whateverblahblah, because I’m wearing thus-and-so brand. (In fact, in my case, the more obvious it is that I’m wearing a supercool-brand T-shirt, the more obvious it is that I’m a dope in denial.) So I like how the “XL” here presumably accomplishes whatever the XLarge crew wants it to accomplish in terms of spreading the XLarge name — but at the same time I could almost certinaly wear it without anybody realizing it was a brand at all. In a de facto sense, it’s un-logo-ed.

At least that’s my rationale for buying it. Which I just did.