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• December 19, 2007
• Shopping Roundup

T Party

Art appreciation for the everyman basic. By Erin Wylie

It's no news flash that fashion's most rudimentary staple—the T-shirt—has been elevated to objet d'art proportions. While tees are still used as fashionable billboards on which to pledge brand (and band) allegiance, the newest crop of shirts remind us that fashion can also be art. Side projects for graphic designers, graffiti virtuosos, and other artists, these limited-edition T-shirts ring in alot cheapter than a Dash Snow…so start collecting.

+41
Designed by students for the new opening of Swiss school ECAL (University of Art & Design), we love Sylvie Fleury's happy innards and Norm's pen-test scribble. For more information, go to www.plus41.ch.

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
This collective is all about accessible art and has teamed up with a laundry list of young artists to bring this line to a bigger audience. Some of our favorites: Andrew Jeffrey Wrights trippy X-wave design, Paper Rad's colorful cartoon friends (School House Rock on acid), and Print Liberation's ombré snake print. For more information, go to www.artintheage.com.

Quentin & Claude
This L.A.-based design duo (Olaf and Moises, actually) are known for their striking graphics, which now show up on T-shirts and great unisex scarves. The Culture Club-meets-Art Nouveau designs from fall are the perfect example of how cotton translates to canvas. For more information, go to quentinandclaude.com.

Kiser NY
These are classic streetwear designs by Kiser Haydar Barnes—the graphic semaphore of the Mask 4 evokes Atari geometrics, while the Tiger Warrior T-shirt looks plucked straight from Yo! MTV Raps…in a good way. For more information, go to kiserny.com.

Brendan Donnelly
For his spring collection, Brendan Donnelly was inspired by Egypt. His sphinxes, mummies, and phoenixes are rendered in meticulous pencil sketches and given sunglasses, they're a nice perversion of the dollar bill. For more information, go to brendandonnelly13.com.

Hix Sept
Two French graffiti'ists team up for quirky riffs on traditional patterns: patchwork plaid and keffieh prints, an allover bandana print, and a patchwork of graph paper and college-ruled patterns. For more information, go to www.hixsept.com or hixsept.free.fr.

Art appreciation for the everyman basic.