Merch turning fashion
Some of the most iconic moments in fashion history have been derived from branded merchandise. Merch can make waves, history says so.
Let us take you through our merch museum to show you some highlights.
Hard Rock Cafe
You can’t deny seeing this merch before. Hard Rock Cafe, the world-famous restaurant that has become an international tourist destination thanks to its plethora of music memorabilia and live concerts. Their iconic t-shirt happened by accident after the restaurant sponsored a local soccer team who featured the HRC logo on the back of jerseys. Regular customers enjoyed the design so much they kept asking for more in the cafe and before you know it, they were forced to have their own supply of merch t-shirts.
Now, with so many cafe locations around the world, these t-shirts have become collectables for tourists, a momento all the cafes they visited and all the places they’ve been lucky to travel to. This one t-shirt sparked a whole range of merchandise and now makes up 40% of the business.
Now that’s rock n roll baby.
I Heart NY
An undeniable classic. If you went to New York and didn’t get this t-shirt / cap / tote / magnet did you even go?
In the 70's, the designer of the iconic logo Milton Glaser, scribbled "I <3 NY" on the back of an envelope in crayon, on his way to the meeting for the campaign launch to bring tourism back to New York. Who said leaving it to the last minute was a bad idea?
Ahead of his time more than he even knew, Glaser used emojis before they were even cool and sparked a trend that was replicated worldwide. This t-shirt and wider merch has been rocked by many celebrities, been featured in music and TV and can be found in the back of most tourists' wardrobes as proof they were in the big apple.
NY Yankees Cap
For the love of New York, we surely can’t get enough of the merch they produce. The NY Yankees baseball cap is a staple accessory for the fashionista who wants to look sporty too. When it comes to sport, we all know merch is big. Fans love to wear their teams colours and brand themselves with gear from head-to-toe with pride. But when it comes to the Yankees, no other sports teams can say their logo specifically, became so universally recognised and adored. From Jay-Z, David Beckham to the Clintons, this cap soon became a sporty fashion statement.
In more recent history, even Gucci couldn’t get enough of this brand, featuring a luxurious take on the logo in their 2018 Fall/ Winter collection. When merch meets the runway, we are all for it!
Concert Tees
Merch, The Musical. Concert Tees blew up in the 1960s when rock producer Bill Graham, co-founded Winterland Productions in San Francisco; a company that screen printed band t-shirts exclusively and is now credited as the “Founder of the Concert T-shirt”.
Generally featuring a graphic design of the band on the front with a list of tour dates on the back, these tees became a way for fans to show their support for their favourite musicians.
Originally made for small local bands to help market themselves and pick up some change along the way, this branding idea blew up with more famous performers who using this merchandise style as an alternate revenue stream. Nowadays, it’d be odd not to see t-shirts sold at your local gig or an iconic concert tee treasured by your dad from a show in the seventies.