Campaigns for Dragons

We have been pretty busy over the last month! We made some changes to our website such as the addition of an ‘On Sale’ section on the home page where we are hoping to change the t-shirt available on sale here fairly regularly. So be sure to check it out and keep an eye on it. We also moved some menus around and we filled in some pages that for some reason were left empty.

Even better than all that we are offering free shipping on all orders over €50!! This is valid until March and you dont need a coupon code or anything, all you need to do is add €50 worth of products to your basket and the free shipping will be applied! Time to get shopping!!

If anyone was watching Dragons Den Ireland this week you may have seen a guy talking about his new idea for apparel printing website that would take the hassle out of ordering group orders. The idea is that you can upload your design to their website and then share the link with others who would be interested in buying. The orders are then placed directly with the printing company meaning that the organiser does not need to worry about collecting money or remembering sizes etc. Sounds good right? Well the Dragons funded him.
I sat in amazement as this is not a new idea! We can offer this service! We call it a campaign and even better then what this guy was offering we also share the profits with the organiser. Its perfect for fundraising or just making extra money. There is another large american company thats in operation years that solely offers a similar service and many people use it to make extra cash. I guess it shows that you dont always have to have a new idea on those shows but also I think it shows the importance of doing market research! Anyway if you want to have a look at what we can offer by way of a campaign have a look here.

We are continuing to update the website and we know we need more new designs up so we will try to get a good few up this month so watch this space!

Thanks for reading.

AN

New Year and New Years Resolutions!

Happy new year everyone! I suppose it happens to us all. Starting the year with the best of intentions. We have done it with this blog on a couple of occasions. This year to try to again to post more and keep you up to date with what we are up to and also to share our favourite T-shirts of the month.

These might not necessarily be new designs at the beginning as we have 100s of designs already and I would guess not everyone has seen them all. We might even throw in some coupons on those highlighted T-shirts too!

Well here we go the first t-shirt of the month of the year!

 

So I thought that since it’s the first one that we should choose the BEST one we have…. Ok so maybe not the best but we can all agree that sarcasm is the BEST thing ever. Its soooo handy. Its true however that not everyone gets it but sometimes that makes it better. Are you sarcastic? You know what they say “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence” or at least its what Oscar Wilde said. Flaunt it and get your own here.

Another design for this months favourites is this one. With the season that was in it this may have been true for you or maybe you saw people on the dancefloor or in the street for that matter and thought, “That person should not have listened to the vodka!”

Well now if you think you need one of these for your night out or maybe you think one of your friends needs one of these you can get one here.

So now you have managed to read to the bottom of this post and as a thank you here is a coupon code so that you can purchase one of the January Favourites! The code is “JANFAV” simply enter this code when you are at the checkout to receive 20% OFF (valid until the 1st of Feb).

Thanks for reading!

A

 

St. Patrick’s Day Tees

St.Patrick’s Day is a day when we Irish accept our stereotypes and in fact live up to them. Wearing green and drinking lots! We often do this while wearing fun t-shirts printed with “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” and other well-known slogans. But these shirts have become so cliché that they don’t even mean anything anymore. We want to change that and make a few you might not have seen before but first a little fun. There are many bad and funny St. Patrick’s Day T-shirts out there and we wanted to share a few with you.

First off when did it become Patty’s Day? It’s St. Patrick’s Day people, that cant be shortened to Patty!! I also think those are clover and not shamrocks.

 

This t-shirt is for the very prepared “Patty’s Day” enthusiast, however is it a good idea for someone who is planning on getting very drunk and pass out to wear their name and also a friends phone number written across their chest. We wouldn’t advise this!

 

 

Well here is another cliche, I think anyone coming to Ireland for St. Patricks day hoping that everyone will be red haired and freckles will be disappointed.  The other stereotypes will of course be lived up to. Drunk in Green!

 

 

Am I the only one who cringes when people put on these Irish accents? Ireland is a hugely diverse country when it comes to accents, just think about it. You may even have an accent from an area that you don’t like! Well be gosh and be gorra we don’t all sound like this t-shirt suggests.

 Have you actually seen a shamrock? They are tiny! How anti-climatic would it be to actually shake some shamrocks! I do understand the joke here but really since shamrocks are so small its not really very flattering!

Everyone is Irish on 17th of March right?

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m a fan of honesty! Instead of claiming your right to be a part of St.Patrick’s Day why not be honest and get on with enjoying it!

Does this t-shirt make anyone else uncomfortable?

And finally the t-shirt Ill be wearing! Only joking!

As you can see there is a range of t-shirts available, there are loads more offensive ones out there too.

We have put together some designs for you guys to have a look at. Click the t-shirt below to see our designs. We are still adding to this collection so keep an eye on it.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

A

Featured Artists and Free Shops

Well since our last post we were in NUIGalway for Akumakon. The roads down were pretty icy but I’m glad to say that we  made it safely and what a great con it was. We really enjoyed meeting all our customers and having the opportunity to print some of your custom t-shirts. 

In Closet Geek news we have recently signed up a number of great “Featured Artists”. These artists great artwork will be available on the Closet Geek site for the next year. Each design includes the artists signature and is their own work whether its fan art or original concepts. They are truly awesome and you should go have a look. Click on the pictures to see the artists work!

We also attended a massive trade fair in the UK this month so keep an eye out for new products on Closet Geek.

Ever wanted your very own t-shirt business?

Ever thought that you are one funny mofo and everyone would love to wear your wise cracks across their chests? Or ever drawn something and though damn that is a fine piece of work and would look amazing on a t-shirt?

Well did you know that you CAN! That dream of seeing your friends, family and even people you don’t know wearing YOUR designs can be a reality.

With a Fou Tees affiliate site you can set up your own FREE website to see your very own t-shirts! We aren’t responsible for the designs on your site (that’s your job silly) but we are responsible for almost everything else!

We will print your designs

We will post your orders

We will even pay you for every t-shirt you sell!

We love to support artists and designers and even anyone who has a great idea. This is why we have developed an affiliate network of web-shops where you can sell your t-shirt designs.

Its so easy to set up we aren’t going to bore you by going on and on but if you are interested in making your t-shirt business a reality have a look here!

Finally we are disappointed to say we will not be attending Kaizokucon this year as they have decided not to have us at their event but chin up, check out our On Tour page on our site to see which events we will be attending!

Thank you for taking the time to read and we hope you enjoyed it.

A

 

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all our customers we hope Santa brought you all you wanted and your are not suffering too much this morning!

We have decided that this year we are going to keep you better informed about what we are up to and where we are going.

This year passed was a great one for Fou Tees. Our CEO Aoife Nielsen was nominated for the DLDC Wild Geese Irish Whiskey Enterprise Awards and although she didn’t win it was a great boost to Fou Tees and a  confirmation that we were heading in the right direction.

In August of this year in the midst of the many great conventions we attended, she was chosen as one of four in her category for the Donegal heat of Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur. This involved a few weeks of intensive work preparing for a presentation to the judges. The experience was instrumental in the division of Fou Tees into three great websites Closet Geek, Club Hoodies Ireland and of course Fou Tees.

These make it easier for the customer to find exactly what they are looking for.

 

Fou Tees – The main site still has the funny t-shirt and allows fully customised t-shirts to be ordered.

 

Closet Geek – Is full of Geek t-shirts and hoodies. Perfect for the Geek in you!

 

Club Hoodies Ireland – The one stop shop for your hoodie and uniform needs. Whether its for clubs or groups we can sort it out.

 

Over the past year Fou Tees attended many great conventions. We absolutely love the experience.  We can honestly say attending the conventions is something we look forward to every year.

The hours are long, the work is hard but we feel we are in it together with the organisers, staff and volunteers! Having never attended any conventions before trading at them we have been blown away by the feeling on inclusion and community that we feel at every event.  What an amazing thing to create – a place to be completely comfortable to be yourself! To geek over whatever you are a geek about and find others who are equally as excited. The organisers should all be so proud!

We have added many pictures to our Facebook Page of our convention adventures so feel free to pop over and have a look.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading and we hope you enjoyed it.

Light Up Your Life

In the next few weeks we want to talk a bit about technology and t-shirts. We don’t mean the geeky technology t-shirt designs we mean technology that is part of the t-shirt.

Lets start with the light up t-shirts. Many of us have seen the equaliser t-shirts that light up when they are in an environment with music or loud sounds.

You would think that these t-shirts would have bulky attachments or would be uncomfortable to wear but there not. So how do they work I hear you ask! Well I’ll tell you.

They use something called electroluminescent technology. It is super thin at less than 4 millimeterers thick. It is light weight and flexible! The only thing the wearer will notice is a small battery pack needed to power the shirts lights but this is normally hidden away in a small pocket near the bottom of the t-shirt.

This causes it to light up in a pre-programmed pattern. Some battery packs have a built in microphone so that it can hear the music and detect the beat or sound causing it to flash just like your stereo! This area is then cut to size and shape needed for the design. Pretty cool huh?

There are other t-shirts that light up using LED lights. These come in many different forms. You can get ones that show the time or ones that show your own personal message. You remove the LED panel and you scroll through the alphabet and an assortment of numbers and symbols and use “select” button to choose that character, it’s that simple! The LED Matrix includes 147 LED Nodes. The LED Matrix panel fits snuggley in the custom pocket in the front of the shirt. The Panel can be easily removed at any time, but stays in place with in its custom pocket until you want to remove it. It is also removed for washing. We have also discovered a Tony Stark t-shirt that has the  light-up Arc Reactor. I have to say I love the fact that it says “Does not prevent shrapnel from reaching your heart” in the description.

There are also the t-shirts that allow you to draw on them and have your writing light up. There seem to be two styles of this kind of t-shirt.

There is the type that has a panel built into the t-shirt. It comes with pens and you write your message on the panel. This panel then lights up your writing! You can then simply wipe it off and start again! The controller lets you cycle through the light patterns. You can choose from a range of lighting sequences including soft pulsing, glowing, bright flashing, phasing, strobing as well as steady on features. Like the other t-shirts above it is battery operated and the battery pack is hidden in the hem of the t-shirt.

The last type we will talk about today is what people are calling the Glow Graffiti t-shirts or Lazer Shirts. These are interactive white t-shirts that let you design your own creation with the power of UV light. Simply touch the ultraviolet Lazer to the shirt, press the button, and draw or write whatever you want. Turn off the lights and your shirt will glow, displaying your Design. When the design finally fades, you can use your UV light to draw something totally new. The great thing about these t-shirts is you can still toss it in the washing machine like every other t-shirt.

 

Well that’s all for today. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we did writing it. Check out http://www.foutees.com till next time bu-bye!

Mouse to Monkees to Hawaii and Back

We took a break from writing blog posts for a while, but we have decided to start again. We hope to bring you interesting blog posts about T-shirts, gifts another interesting facts we find.
We have been doing a bit of printing recently and it got us thinking about when all started. When did people start personalising T-shirts. So we did a bit of research. As explained in an earlier blog post T-shirts were originally worn as under shirts. Now they may be worn as the only piece of clothing on the top half of the body. They are used to express fashion tastes, show support, express opinions and generally to look cool.
In the early 1950s some companies in Florida in America started to decorate T-shirts. They used them to advertise different resorts and some featured Walt Disney characters such as Mickey mouse. Seeing the success of this, other companies began expanding into the T shirt printing business. The 1960s saw the emergence of tie dye and screen printing. After that the T-shirt became a medium for showing art, advertising and protest messages.
T-shirts became hugely popular as a way to show what kind of band and music you are interested in. You could show your love for your favourite band or artist and by wearing a T shirt with their faces or logo. An Elvis T-shirts from 1956 is the earliest example available. The Monkees were the first band to have their own successful merchandising company. They sold T-shirts on their first U.S. tour in 1967 however the Beatles are said to have had T-shirts for sale three years earlier during their first tour of the United States in 1964. They sold one million T-shirts in the first three days of business. Many of these band T-shirts are now collectors’ items. Nowadays bands both big and small produce T-shirts for their fans to purchase. Many high street stores are now beginning to reproduce vintage band T-shirts, which just shows that they are still a hugely popular.

Beach T-shirts are also hugely popular in the 1940s and 1950s in the USA. They were marketed mainly at the surfing population. Most were advertising surfing companies or places to visit to surf. The featured Hawaii beaches and surfers enjoying waves. Many surfboard labels were born in the years following the 1950s.
Surfing was not the only sport to have many clothing labels. BMX and skateboarding also boasted many tee shirt designers. Skate shirts became popular in the 1970s and 1980s. The T-shirts showed a real skate punk crossover with electric colour and hardcore skulls. BMX racing began in the early 1970s and it was after that the BMX T-shirts became popular.
So you see from as early as the 1950s T-shirts was used to express interests and hobbies, loves and to advertise. Want to be in on the action? Why not visit http://www.foutees.com and personalize your own T-shirts. Show people what you’re interested in what you love. Express yourself! Thanks for reading and until next time have a great week.

Fabric of Space and Time

So this month Iv been reading a bit about different fabrics available. There are a few up and coming in the t-shirt world. Bamboo for instance is becoming increasingly popular. Ok so don’t worry I don’t mean that you have large pieces of bamboo lashed together to make a t-shirt! It’s actually a fabric made from the bamboo fibers. Modern bamboo clothing is clothing made from either 100% bamboo yarn or a blend of bamboo and cotton/organic cotton yarn. The bamboo yarn can also be blended with other textile fibres such as hemp or even spandex. Bamboo is actually a member of the grass family and can reach heights of 35 metres! They are also the fastest growing woodie plant in the world, one Japanese variety has been known to grow 1 meter per day!! Amazing! So this is why bamboo is becoming more popular. It’s increadbly sustainable, because it’s a grass it does not need to be re-planted. I guess its similar to cutting your lawn it continually re-grows.  So bamboo can be produced cheaply, quickly and organically. So why are we  all not wearing bamboo t-shirts and clothes every day? Well unfortunately the suppliers who sell the bamboo products have them more expensive than cotton t-shirt because they are organic and therefore classed as a luxury.

Hemp has been around for a good while in the fabric world, but has been used mostly to make string and sacks. I for one wouldn’t like to wear a sack so I’m glad that it never really took off for making clothes. This may also have had to do with the fact that it comes from the cannabis plant and people are funny about that.

So then on to the weirder stuff I came across. I found this video about a woman who is making clothing from a kind of fungus. Yes I did just say fungus and before you have images of a woman sitting sewing little mushrooms together it’s actually very different.

So I don’t know if you ever tried  kombucha but I did as a kid. We had a jar in the kitchen were it grew and bubbled and then we drank the tea stuff from it. It was horrible. Well mum we got it wrong we should have made it in the bath in large quantitys and made clothes or shoes!! On second thought maybe not such a good idea in Ireland. We just soak up the rain and have to watch our clothes slither off back to the bath.

 

Ok so I talked about this one before. A bit more space agey. It’s a spray on t-shirt. Honestly can’t see this catching on. Imagine getting up in the morning and having to spray on your clothes, how would you do your back, he says ask your neighbour. Personally I wouldn’t feel right going to my neighbour! As a woman I just can help but wonder about your bra? Do you just spray over it?  Id love to see the video after where the guy tried to take the t-shirt off his really hairy chest! Just too many difficulties and I can imagine doing the laundry would be interesting!

Any way a bit of food for thought! We have regular cotton t-shirts at www.foutees.com no need to spray them on or ask your neighbour for help to put them on(unless you want to!).

Till next time!

Cotton on about T-shirts

So following on from my last post on the history of the t-shirt I thought it might be interesting to look into cotton. T-shirts started out made of  100% cotton now we have more mixed fabric t-shirts but most still have a proportion of cotton.

Cotton is a fibre that grows on a shrub known as the cotton plant. The English word “cotton” comes from the Arabic word qutun or kutun. The cotton boll forms first as a flower bud called a “square”. The square becomes a cotton flower. After pollination, the ovary of the cotton flower develops into a cotton boll. The cotton fibre takes 50 days to develop inside the “green bolls”, which then crack open to show the white, harvestable lint. These are called “open bolls”. It takes approximately 150 days from the cotton plant to grow from a seed to mature. The cotton fibre is slightly over one inch long. It is a single cell, and is the largest cell in the plant kingdom. No other plant anywhere in the world has a cell even close to an inch long. It is an elongated of a cell in the skin of the cottonseed. How come we looked at onion cells in science in school instead of these bad boys!

It is the most widely used fibre for clothing in the world. It accounts for about 40 per cent of the total world fibre production.  It’s used in items such as towels, robes, bed sheets, denim and loads of other types of clothing including t-shirts. Cotton has been grown for thousands of years.

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition,

“Cotton has been spun, woven, and dyed since prehistoric times. It clothed the people of ancient Pakistan, India, Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, and their use spread to the Mediterranean countries.”

 So basically cotton fabric has been around for a long time. So what’s this got to do with t-shirts? Well there are some interesting facts to do with cotton and t-shirts.

Six miles of yarn are used to make one t-shirt! These six miles of cotton yarn requires 256.6 gallons of water. An acre of farmland yields enough cotton to produce 1200 t-shirts. Approximately two billion T-shirts are sold worldwide each year.

So now imagine to make those two billion t-shirts takes 1,666,666.66 acres of cotton plants. Clear enough? Maybe think of it like this. Its 1,515,151 and a half football fields!

To grow those plants requires 513,200,000,000 gallons of water! In case you can’t picture that its 5,835,142,351 and a half standard bath tubs!

So hopefully now you will think a little differently about your t-shirts. They are not just a simple piece of clothing. There is a huge amount of work and resources that go into each and every t-shirt. So why not honour your t-shirt by personalising it and making your t-shirts your favourite piece of clothing at www.foutees.com.

T-shirt History

OK so I thought I start my blog of with a factual entry. While I was looking into setting up this business I learned lots and I had never really thought about were the t-shirt had come from or begun as it were. So while I was investigating the viability of the business I also learned about the origins of the T-shirt.

The T-shirt evolved from the cutting of the previously worn one piece undergarment called the union suit (Basically a onesy) into a separate top and bottom. I wonder is this also the birth of pyjamas? These undergarments were then adapted by miners and dock workers as they were convenient for hot environment. Workers unloading tea boxes from boats in the harbour of Annapolis, Maryland, used to wear a short-sleeved shirt whose shape looked like the letter T. I suspect  seeing dock workers unloading tea boxes wearing t-shirts helped with the naming. Although its said everywhere that the name be derived from the shape of the t-shirt.

In the 1800s the US Navy soldiers used to wear lightweight cotton shirts that dried easily. They probably noticed the dock workers staying cool in their t-shirts. These shirts could also worn as underwear to shield their clothing from sweat. They became very popular in work parties (Village Peoples- In the Navy obviously played at these parties!), submarines and tropical climates as they allowed the soldiers to stay cool and keep their uniforms clean.

In 1913 the US Navy approved the T-shirt as part of its uniform. The Industrial Revolution then lined the way for the technology that allowed the mass production of t-shirts.  Soon, T-shirts became part of the uniforms of soldiers, workers and sailors. By 1920, the word T-shirt appeared in official US dictionaries.

They soon became popular as a bottom layer of clothing for workers in various industries, including agriculture. The T-shirt was easily fitted, easily cleaned, and inexpensive, and for this reason it became the shirt of choice for young boys. By the time of the Great Depression, the T-shirt was often the default garment to be worn when doing farm or ranch chores, as well as other times when modesty called for a torso covering but conditions called for lightweight fabrics.

Following World War II, it became common to see veterans wearing their uniform trousers with their T-shirts as casual clothing.

They became even more popular after Marlon Brando caused shock by wearing his underwear in plain view in the movie A Streetcar Named Desire. The t-shirt finally achieving status as fashionable, stand-alone, outer-wear garments.

After that t-shirt became popular as everyday wear and I think we would be lost without them! Just think of all the t-shirt you own and all the different designs!

So maybe now your thinking you don’t have enough of these important pieces of clothing…..well dont worry just visit www.foutees.com and stock up!