My Band T-Shirt

This home made ‘fake’ Band t-shirt was certainly the one cherished item of clothing I wore the most for about five years, beginning in the summer of 2001. The finished product - shown here - is in fact a culmination of two t-shirts, was not really planned or intended, and was more out of necessity rather than in the spirit of customisation…

The ‘base’ bottle green t-shirt was a cheapo high street purchase costing about a fiver, on which is emblazoned an ‘Aladdin Sane’ Bowie motif that I had cut out from another t-shirt. The latter was my first ever online purchase and furthermore it came all the way from the USA, costing about £35 - a fair amount in 2001, considering I was on the last legs of my dwindling student loan. Ordering a t-shirt, from so far away, was immediately exhilarating and exotic.  I’d ordered the Bowie T-shirt after a university friend mentioned she’d seen Carrie from ‘Sex and The City’ wearing it in a recent episode and thought it looked pretty cool. Knowing I was a Bowie fan - and having discovered the delights of a website that sold clothes that various celebs were wearing - she agreed to hunt it down for me. 

Whilst we were both whimsically checking out the ‘new’ World Wide Web at the 24 hour Huddersfield University PC labs, she found it!  I think I squealed with delight when I saw it on the PC monitor and without doubting its pastel pink hue and ‘one size only’ description, proceeded to lose my online purchasing virginity. How scary it was, typing in my debit card details - these were the days pre security numbers and bank verifications - but how bracing, all at the same time.

The t-shirt arrived in the post about 10 days later. I rushed to my student bedroom to try it on. Alas the ‘one size only’ (applying surely only to size zero waifs in this case?) warning came to strike me down. Yes, I had no qualms about wearing a tight fitting pastel pink t-shirt - I’m a bona-fide homo after all - however this was another level, and I looked like a dodgy fey Fame extra in a crop top. I whipped it off and cast it aside. The friend who helped with the purchase (a lovely, slim and petite girl) wore it for our final Uni night out and she looked super cool; there are some great photos of her wearing MY t-shirt!

I think on many occasions over the next few weeks, I privately squeezed myself into it, and tried to convince myself that I could get away with the look, but no… 

A stroke of genius, a few weeks later.  If the t-shirt was refusing to fit me, why not get me, to fit it. Whilst up in South Shields for a weekend, at the parents’ home of an ex, his Mum agreed to attempt the impending customisation. She was somewhat amused that I insisted on a jagged edge and on only using a simple stitch. Within about 10 minutes, the ‘mash-up’ t-shirt was created and I tried it on. My ex, his parents and I, all admired the finished piece, it was a triumph. It’s first airing was later that night, out on the rainy Newcastle gay scene.

Whenever I wore this out, strangers would comment and fawn. I felt uber cool and on top of the world - who’d have thought that a simple t shirt could instil such pride and kudos. This was the era before being able to buy a band t-shirt in your local supermarket/ high street and subsequently buying your ‘alternative’ lifestyle whilst doing your weekly shop. It’s travelled the world, survived festivals and 100s of washes, and yet still exudes a certain appeal to me.  It continues to hang in my wardrobe, having survived a number of clothing culls and I think it always will.

I can probably just about still squeeze into it, but I don’t so much have the desire these days.  10 years on, it’s still my favourite t-shirt and I still get a little buzz whenever I glimpse it in my otherwise hopeless wardrobe.

Salil Mazumdar