Davy Republic

I can recall it vividly in my mind, I was standing in the courtyard of a local private school, attending a summer camp program. Armed with a large condiment bottle of die, a pocket full of rubber bands, and shielded with latex gloves, I laid siege upon a helpless white tee shirt. This is an experience I am faithful that many in my generation, Z, can sympathize with. Getting into your mother’s car a little past noon draped in an oversized freshly dyed t shirt, a product of your own craft. It was hands on, it was brilliant, invigorating the soul with feelings of joy and pride.

This past weekend I attended a sizable cross country meet. Like most meets, this one sold a selection of merchandise, tee shirts, hoodies, quarterzips, baseball caps etc. However, what set this athletic retailer apart was the fact that I could select which designs I wanted on the shirt and the fellow running the stand would press the t shirt right in front of me. I selected a royal blue tie-dyed shirt and had it pressed with the name of the meet and a US flag emblazoned with “USA CROSS COUNTRY”. During the roughly hour and a half car ride home, I mediated on my capitalistic experience. Here I was paying for a tie-die shirt which was no doubt dyed in a factory in China, and then paying another gentleman to press it with designs. The entire customization aspect, the personalization, of tie dye shirts has practically been erased. Gone are the days in which hippies would roll up their white undershirts and tie them firm with hair ties and bombard them with a storm of dyes, gone are the days in which high school juniors seeking last minute credit hours instruct middle schoolers to dye blanks from Gildan without ruining their own clothes, and here are the days in which a foreign enterprise dyes our blanks on an industrial scale, sell them to a middleman in bulk and have some other bloke nail them with a design created by free lancer on Fiverr.

My advice to you dear reader is to acquire some dyes from your local Marshalls or even better, a small business arts and craft store, thrift a blank white t shirt, and embark on a journey reminiscent of that the son of a wealthy Connecticut lawyer’s son would have made some 60 years ago.