Open Season on T-shirts
Fashion takes some strange turns in Tokyo, none more so than slogans
on T-shirts. The impulse to wrap oneself, or more specifically one's
chest, in English words, is a constant source of summertime humor.
Like the Zen "koan," a riddle or phrase used to subvert rational
thought and provoke insight, T-shirts are loaded with expectation-confounding
messages that contain novel meaning.
Quickly excluding the numerous advertising T-shirts signboarding
brand names, colleges, sports teams, bowling alleys, unknown bars
and obscure events exported from the T-shirt laden land of the semiotically
brave and home of the cotton-shirted free, the best written T-shirts
produce a moment of consideration, a pause during the forward rush
of Tokyo's otherwise dull-colored motion. They catch your eye.
Like a kind of urban camouflage in a city that wraps its buildings,
walls and recently also its buses, in a myriad of fonts, styles,
sizes and colors of language, T-shirts seem a natural expression
of the high literacy of Tokyo's populace. Here is a round-up of
this season's best slogans, hastily scrawled into a notebook while
idling on streets, trains and shops around Tokyo.
Perhaps most intriguing are T-shirts with narrative form, implying
little stories. "Two years ago" and "Special thanks to" let the
passing glancer finish the sentence. Others sketch an instant or
first-line a novel with phrases that come out in a clear tone of
voice: "You're fired" has all the anger of idiotic bosses everywhere,
while "just you wait" is inflected with the finger-wagging bitterness
of mothers all over the world. "Just did it" over a Nike swoosh
mark is a nice bit of anti-advertising. "The effect was magical"
induces a nice smile, but "The moment of supreme bliss" gets a full
laugh. The longer, "If there's anything I can do to help, just let
me know" has a souvenir shop feel but works during the madness of
a hot commute.
Self-referential statements of identity hardly seem to need articulation
but capture common and romantic stereotypes. The simple "songwriter"
and "copycat" get right to the point, while "fashion victim" ought
to be handed out at Harajuku station free. "EMPLOYEE ONLY" and "substitute"
contain a self-excusing clarity. "I'm not just a pretty face" feels
a little long, though, and "Too good to be true" just too self-confident,
though not with other implications. A subset of this category, all
carefully capitalized, calls attention to the breasts of the female
wearers. "ROCKIES," "BOUNTY" and "PEARLY GATES" leave little to
the metaphorical imagination. But maybe that's the point, or a kind
of blunt "what are YOU staring at?" question to the voyeuristic
roving eye.
Even more suggestive on several rather attractive young women were
"everything in the garden's lovely," and "good news for your hot
party." And on a more demure looking woman "BOY SCOUT RALLY." Another
pink-lettered shirt over hip-huggers, "Pretty in Pink, Wicked in
Uniform" got right to the point. Men, too, offer seductive markers
on their fronts: "Independent Trick" and "high performance" both
make one wonder. These T-shirts seem less camouflage than mating
call, though "naked in blue" succeeds in comic bewilderment.
It's not all sex, though, ideological battles are waged on the walking
individual billboards as well. The 60s idealism in the exhortatory
"PROTEST AND SURVIVE" and the cosmic-minded "I am you, You are me,
We are they" squares off against the nihilism of "sick of it all"
and "shoot the suits." Of course, just wearing a T-shirt is a kind
of suit-shooting.
But, the ultimate test of efficiency and delicacy of expression
is the one word T-shirt. Reduced to the smallest unit of meaningful
exchange, these minimalist statements prove that less is more. "PLAY"
beside a large arrow showing where to press makes an eloquent comment
on the automatization of the human in this age of pre-recorded playback.
In contrast, "analog" reminds how non-digital human nature remains.
The simple "input" defamiliarizes the most common of metaphors,
showing that input from one point of view is output from another.
"CONFLICT" and "PROVOKE" both achieve their meanings. The simple
"closed," which was not backed by an "open" on the other side of
the T-shirt, revels in a suggestive, ambiguous simplicity.
Catching these phrases is an art in itself. The vast majority of
Tokyoites roll by without even a casual glance outside the blinders
of visual indifference. For those with little interest was perhaps
specially designed this T-shirt, "THIS AFFECTS YOU!"
--Michael Pronko
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