REQUIRED READING

What do a magazine and a reversible t-shirt have in common? Everything, it turns out.

For a while, when you subscribed to NYLON, you got a free t-shirt.  But now there’s a new game from T-Post in Sweden – subscribe to their magazine and you only get a t-shirt.  Sound like a ripoff?  Maybe, but actually, T-Post insists their t-shirts are also magazines.

Based on offbeat stories, the writers at T-post choose a topic (Recent “issues” cover the increase in cassette tape sales, a protest against the Recording Industry Association of America, and their own theory on what “the most evil and most honest face” would look like). T-post then sends their article to one of their favorite visual artists from around the world [new shirt, new artist] to interpret the story into a t-shirt graphic. That is what, in the world on T-posts, what they call an issue.

The shirts are available through online subscription only, and subscribers, or should we say wearers, get a new “issue” by mail every six weeks.  By using fashion and art, T-post hopes to spread the word about issues that are important to them, and if nothing else, it’s bound to instigate an insightful conversation with your neighbor. The cost of each original tee shirt is $38, and includes shipping from Sweden.

JULIE BERNSTEIN

Get your subscription at t-post.se.