FROM FRINGE CLOTHING LABEL AND CULTURE JAM SYNDICATE TO POP CULTURE ICON AND SOCIAL AGITATOR

What is “culture jamming” and why is it important?

Culture jamming (sometimes guerrilla communication) is a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including (but not limited to) corporate advertising. Src: Wikipedia

(One of) the problems with modern society is we’re being fed a lot of BS – we’re manipulated and controlled by large organisations to think and act (and dress) in a certain way. Massive campaigns are launched by multi-national concerns to push our invisible buttons and manoeuvre us in the interests of profit. We’ve become digits along somebody’s bottom line. For all the obvious reasons, this is just not on.

At Tshirt Terrorist, when we started out, we sought to challenge the notion that we’re manipulable, that our needs, wants and desires are meat processed and generic. It was important to us, urgent even, that we present our customers with an image of themselves that wasn’t mass made and media-marketed. We began by jamming popular brands and corporate identities, as others have done before us. It became a springboard to our political and social statement tees, hard hitting and uninhibited satirical designs that riled various people and organisations, before settling into our current role as pop culture specialists and social commentators, going on the well supported assumption that if it’s out there, it’s ours to do with as we please. Companies that populate our lives with their messages have to realise that these messages eventually become our own. That by placing them in the broader domain, they are shared and therefore publicly owned. Thanks to our partners, you can find online to suit every preference and budget, from budget to top-of-the-range super stylish models.

What we’ve achieved along the way is creating a design style that is tailor made for the individual. Ballsy, intelligent, niche t-shirt designs for ballsy, outspoken, self-styled people. Every print we present is original concept artwork you won’t find elsewhere. Tshirt Terrorist T-shirts are not generic tees. Each item has been hard crafted and caringly created, to give you a shirt that is exclusive in every way, to match your very personal approach to the world, with none of the mass ‘membrain’ goulash attached.

And this is our promise to you. We’re going to keep creating awesome shirts, whether they jam brands, satirise society, or spoof popular culture. We’ll keep them fun and legit, with loads of edge, and all we ask is that you do the same.

So, go out there Terrorist, and blow some minds. The future of awesome depends on it.

Laugh it Off Clothing 

Laugh it Off is rolling deep in the Mother City Cape Town, with ripple effects right across the R of SA. Started in the 90s at Rhodes University by Justin Nurse, Laugh it Off rose to fame with its constitutional court victory over SABMiller in 2005 regarding its infamous ‘Black Labour/White Guilt’ T-shirt. Nowadays Laugh it Off’s hustle is about putting our touristy take on the country with wide-ranging reach in game reserves, airports, markets and islands.

No Reason Clothing 

No Reason Clothing is an independent clothing brand that started up in 2013 in the East Rand. Like many things in life No Reason clothing started as a hobby but has have grown through desire and determination to become a well recognised and proudly South African brand.