A friend just got back from San Francisco with this slightly menacing yet amusing design on a T-shirt. There’s something about it that reminds me of those Tomi Ungerer books I encountered as a kid – like The Three Robbers. It comes in poster form as well, at the 826 Valencia website. 826 Valencia is San Francisco’s ‘only independent pirate supply shop’, and David Byrne of Talking Heads is quoted as saying it’s definitely one of the top five pirate shops he’s been to recently. Why such a demand for pirate products? Thousands of fancy-dress occasions? Hundreds of five-year-old boys’ birthday parties? Not exactly. 826 Valencia is in fact a children’s writing workshop and tutoring centre (run by Dave Eggers), but local laws required all businesses in that area of the city to be either retail or catering… and really, who wants to work with food? Thus the pirate store was born as the legitimate ‘front’ for the workshop centre.
For those who don’t have enough yo-ho-ho in their lives, there are lots of other cute piratey T-shirts here, and a short write-up about the new designs on Grain Edit.
:: Arwen ::
Oh What Larks 