Fury at TeeFury

My husband is very fond of a good t-shirt game. I also have a couple of t-shirts I consider to be ‘good ones,’ even though I rarely wear t-shirts (or jeans, honestly). I do still have a favorite t-shirt and it’s this one.

I don’t know why I’m such a sucker for that meme, but the ukiyo-e interpretation of it made me laugh like crazy, and I wanted it on a t-shirt. When Tee Fury offered it, I grabbed one because … I just had to. You’ll notice, however, that it’s a bit worn. It’s not as eye-catching as the original artwork is. Parts of it are falling away. The design itself is four years old, so I can’t have had the shirt that long!

It’s also not because I’ve worn this shirt a lot, either. As I mentioned above, t-shirts and jeans aren’t my jam — I’m more likely to be in skirts and shirts I’ve sewed and embroidered myself than I am to don a t-shirt. I wouldn’t even bother with writing this whole experience up if it wasn’t for what happened to one of my husband’s shirts from Tee Fury. He ordered one for the Shady Pines Retirement Home (Golden Girls represent) a little less than three years ago. Let’s check in on that design, ok?

You’ll notice flecks of white that might hint at where the design might be.

I started thinking about these shirts while watching one of my favorite YouTube news channels, Some More News, as they covered a topic I love “They Literally Don’t Make Things the Way They Used To.”

In it host Cody Johnston / News Dude covers how planned obsolescence impacts the consumer goods market, and brushes a bit into fast-fashion (the episode is a touch more focused on tech giant Apple). It got me thinking — perhaps that’s Tee Fury’s long game. Not only are they ‘fast fashion’ in the sense that they seem to be focused on made-to-order, fast out the door wear — but perhaps they have these sorts of expiring designs to encourage people to re-buy their favorites.

Either way, I’m hoping to get more wear out of my favorite t-shirt by wearing it less, but it’s made me think fondly back to some of the shirts I’ve gotten from “$6 Shirts” that were obviously silk screened with high quality ink, and the only reasons I turned them to rags is they were literally falling apart after over a decade of wear. I think the ink outlasted the fabric on some of them.

Also, I still wear this Devil’s Rejects shirt that I bought when that movie came out, and its design has held up.

Do you think Tee Fury’s model is the subscription model for T-shirts? Or has their desire to create designs on demand impacted shirt life span? Or are my expectations of t-shirt life simply too damn high?