In the world of band T-shirts, everything old is cool again

Celebrities are lining up to pay big dollars even for faded T-shirts.

Justin Bieber in a pre-lover Pink Floyd T-shirt.

“This one box alone could buy a G-Wagon,” Brian Procell says as he takes down a plastic bin brimming with T-shirts from a wall of 30 or so containers.

We’re standing in a warehouse in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a 30-minute subway ride from Procell’s eponymous vintage clothing shop in Lower Manhattan, and he is explaining how one box of T-shirts can be worth as much as a Mercedes-Benz SUV.

Much the same way vinyl has become collectable, the musical acts of our youth, whether the Clash or Coolio, are experiencing a curious encore run as salvaged tees. “When you combine nostalgia and aspiration, that’s some powerful stuff,” says Procell.

The shirts are a wearable way to cling to one’s salad days, boosted in value by the fact they’re hard to track down — after all these years, what’s out there for sale is what has been spared a trip to the skip bin.

In becoming a luxury item (laced with music’s evergreen edginess), the T-shirts have received a boost from paparazzi-tracked celebs who revel in rare wares.

Procell unfurls T-shirts with logos from the likes of the Beastie Boys, the Cure, Tupac, Morrissey, Snoop Dogg and Stevie Wonder. Most are priced between $US100 ($130) and $US400. Some go for more than $US1000, possibly to one of the celebrity collectors such as Kanye West or actor Justin Theroux, who rely on Procell’s ability to unearth sought-after gems purchased long ago at record shops or ear-splitting shows.

So frenzied is this niche of the T-shirt market that practically anything goes. Procell prides himself on rarities such as a Miles Davis tee, worn to near translucency, or a misprinted Mary J. Blige shirt (those are the shirts that sell for as much as a weekend at Coachella on the broader market), but even forgettable B-band garb — from Ratt, Styx, Ted Nugent and any band that was best left behind when we evolved from eight-tracks to CDs — often carry triple-digit price tags.

“If it’s got a cool graphic, it will sell, even if it’s a cheesy rock band,” says Patrick Klima, the purveyor of Wyco Vintage, a Kansas City T-shirt site. “Shirts from the 80s band WASP have killer artwork and sell but nobody goes around saying, ‘I’m a huge WASP fan.’ ”

Even Klima admits to wearing a Genesis shirt for that reason, but he isn’t exactly cranking up Phil Collins’s greatest hits after work.

Being a poser was once the kiss of death for self-respecting music fans, but now it doesn’t matter. West can sport a T-shirt featuring the black metal band Cradle of Filth, or rapper DMX can toss on a Def Leppard top, but no sane person would expect them to be jumping into the mosh pit anytime soon. The same goes for most vintage T-shirt fans.

“I’m not going to quiz you about your five favourite songs to see if you qualify to buy a band’s concert T-shirt,” says Tom Hunt, a vintage dealer based outside of London who operates the website Rock Renewal; if he did so, his business might not be booming right now. “Customers will say, ‘Oh I always wanted this shirt!’ and I’ll think ‘It’s not because you’ve just seen Justin Bieber in it?’ ”

Long-time collectors similarly look askance at this recent vintage T-shirt bubble. “I love nostalgia, but it’s not what’s driving this trend,” says Chris Black, a New York brand consultant and T-shirt hoarder. “I could walk down the street and see some bozo in a Rolling Stones shirt who couldn’t tell me anything about the Stones. They’re just wearing it to be cool.”

He recalls a recent incident when he wore a worn-in T-shirt for the band Spacemen 3 and had three people come up to him asking where he got it. “It’s Spacemen 3, it says that right on the front!” he told them. Fact was, they just were interested in an eye-grabbing graphic, not some obscure British neo-psychedelic band from the 80s. Who knows, maybe Black inspired them to listen to Spacemen 3 on Spotify that night. The likelier scenario? They went searching on eBay.

The Wall Street Journal