![]() ![]() I’ve long been conflicted on the retro shirts Disney releases. (I also don’t get why 28&M doesn’t have cuts for women–it seems like a massive oversight to target “the distinguished gentleman” given actual fan demographics that skew towards women.) My biggest fear is that these half-baked efforts at making 28&M an aspirational brand will flop hard, and with it take down the vintage Disney designs (the core product) about which guests actually care. Even if they were, this isn’t LV or Ed Hardy (thankfully). Something tells me the target audience for these clothes is not brand-obsessed. Then there are the Twenty Eight & Main “logo” designs, which seek to showcase 28&M as its own aspirational brand. ![]() ![]() I’m willing to pay for high-quality, but some of this stuff is a bit ridiculous. The biggest downside to Twenty Eight & Main is the pricing. Personally, I prefer this approach because it is a nice marriage of old and new. The good has been the designs that are inspired by retro graphics, but usually are fresh styles rather than replicas. Twenty Eight & Main has really exemplified all that is right- and wrong–about this craze. I get that people may not like the distressed look, but that shouldn’t be confused for them being cheap or low quality. These are usually slub, ring-spun, and/or tri-blend materials that are considerably higher quality and more expensive to make than your average (ugh) Hanes Beefy T. While the former is true, the latter is not. I know this is a controversial claim, as these shirts have been derided as thin and cheap. It then spread to designs featuring the old logo (which is pretty much the only logo now) in advance of Magic Kingdom’s 40th Anniversary, and has since spread to Marketplace Co-Op, a testing space for new concepts, at Disney Springs and the Twenty Eight & Main line, among other things. If I recall correctly, the Disney craze started with a handful of EPCOT Center shirts around that park’s 25th Anniversary. Retro shirts have exploded in popularity in society at large, with stores like Urban Outfitters and Huckberry (my personal favorite with their awesome National Parks line– here’s an invite for a $10 credit). (No deep thoughts on the Walt Disney World Preview Center Raglan…it just looks cool!) This shirt borders on being in-joke for those who get it. I think it was a clever move to create an X-S Tech shirt here rather than going for the low-hanging fruit of the Alien Encounter logo. When I first experienced Alien Encounter, I was just about the right age to grasp the satire of X-S Tech, while still being a bit spooked by the encounter with the alien. As a huge Alien Encounter fan, I love the X-S Tech shirt, too. Then there is the X-S Tech Alien Encounter Shirt. For reasons both obvious and less obvious (I’ll touch upon those below), I’ll be buying this one. This is actually a near replica of a shirt released in the 1980s, which itself was based on an awesome postcard/placemat (how I’d love to see the full color version released someday as a shirt). (For those keeping score at home: 1) WDW 2) Disneyland 3) Shanghai Disneyland 4) Hong Kong Disneyland 5) Disneyland Paris 6) Tokyo Disney Resort.) Let’s take a look at how we got to this point, and some of the problems that remain with this retro merchandise…Īctually, first let’s discuss the specific shirts that are the first round to be made available under the YesterEars line, which are available today through August 25:įirst, we have the Figment and Dreamfinder – Dreamcatcher T-Shirt, where they appear riding the Dreamcatcher. Some (many) have flopped, but at least they are pushing the envelope.Īll of this has led to Walt Disney World being the best worldwide resort for merchandise, in my opinion. (Although the abhorrent ‘year’ designs are still the most prominent merchandise–baby steps.) The classic “D” Walt Disney World logo has returned, and a lot of creative, ‘test’ pieces have been released. In what I’d describe as a Walt Disney World merchandising renaissance that began a little over 5 years ago, we’ve started to see more attraction-specific designs (both current and extinct), greater variety, and an overall better sense of design. With this post, I thought I’d give you a heads up on these new shirts, and also share my thoughts about these vintage/retro shirts that have exploded in popularity in the last several years. However, with the new YesterEars label, and specifically the new Figment and Dreamfinder design that’s being released (and Alien Encounter!), it seems like a topic worth discussing. We don’t regularly “report” on merchandise here…because we don’t really buy any of the new releases. ![]()
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