Anarchy Tee

An anarchy tee assembled the way a fanzine was assembled

A screaming face in dark glasses under LIBERTY set in cut-out capitals, barbed wire strung across the top of the panel, AGAINST THE SYSTEM stacked at the right, and photographic fragments pasted around the edges. The anarchy tee is a collage, and it is built exactly the way the originals were.

Punk graphic design came out of a photocopier and a pair of scissors. There was no budget, no typesetting, and no time — so images were torn from newspapers, letters were cut from headlines, and everything was glued down at whatever angle it landed. Jamie Reid's work for the Sex Pistols made the method famous, but the method came first, born of constraint rather than style. Anything too neat would have been the wrong answer to what the music was saying.

The print keeps that logic intact. The fragments sit at different angles and different tonal levels, as though clipped from separate sources. The barbed wire runs edge to edge and cuts the composition rather than framing it politely. The lettering is uneven, letter by letter, in the way that only hand-cut type is. It reads as assembled, not as designed.

It comes in white, black, apricot, slate and piggy pink. Black is the strongest, letting the pasted fragments float out of the base. White reads as a photocopy, which is the historically accurate version. Apricot ages it toward yellowed newsprint. Slate cools it, and piggy pink sets up the contradiction the Harajuku punk scene has always enjoyed.

Printed on heavyweight 240 gsm cotton. Collage lives on tonal separation — several greys sitting next to each other without merging — and a light fabric collapses those greys into one flat value. Weight preserves the layers. Oversized cut, dropped shoulder, crew neck. Take your usual size, or size down for a closer fit.

• Type: Oversized graphic tee
• Material: Heavyweight cotton, around 240 gsm
• Print: Back print — punk collage with barbed wire, 'LIBERTY / AGAINST THE SYSTEM'
• Fit: Oversized, drop shoulder, crew neck, short sleeves
• Sizing: True to size for an oversized look — size down for a closer fit
• Colours: White, black, apricot, slate, piggy pink
• Wear it with: Ripped denim, a studded belt