Those clothes all tell stories

The history of a shirt is as much about the people who wear it as those who designed it. [READER]( My reading habits fell to pieces in the last third of 2021. By August I knew I could not reach my goal of completing 60 books before New Year's Day. I certainly started more than five dozen books last year, and my terrible pattern of juggling several books at once hasn't helped me focus on finishing any of them. When I felt particularly antsy while reading at the end of the day or on a weekend morning, I'd furtively place my phone on whatever page I had in front of me so as not to offend anyone, even though I'd be the only person upset about this transgression. I began to break some of these bad habits last week, while the Reader was closed for the holidays. To ease myself back into my old reading routine, I quickly devoured a new collection of bite-sized essays about T-shirts by Haruki Murakami. My professional obligations and personal interests have conspired to provide me with enough band Tees to overwhelm my wardrobe; I crammed so many into one drawer in my poorly constructed IKEA dresser that said drawer broke within a week. Needless to say, I figured I would be delighted by [Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love](. Murakami approached his collection as a curious observer, partly because he doesn't consider himself a collector. "Carried away by some emotion I can't even name, I wind up gathering things around me," he wrote. These T-shirts have entered his life by a variety of means: he picked some up at concerts, found others while rummaging at thrift stores, and received several after his publishers printed them as promotional items for his books. A lot of these shirts appear to evoke the same curiosity from him that compelled him to hold onto them in the first place. I found it rather charming that he was forthcoming about his limited knowledge of some of the clothes in his possession. In a chapter about animal Tees, he described buying a shirt for Ylvis's "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" at a thrift store in Honolulu only to learn of the viral hit behind it much later. I find the disconnect between what drew Murakami to a blue fox shirt and the intention behind it—to promote a song Murakami later describes as silly—rather freeing. I'm distinctly aware of the history of a lot of the shirts in my own collection, largely because they're symbols of bands whose music has meant a great deal to me, or musicians who simply captured my attention long enough for me to drop some cash on a piece of clothing. I have several shirts that were screen-printed by the musicians themselves; deep in the recesses of a closet in my apartment there is a T-shirt for the band Algernon Cadwallader that I bought after [I interviewed front man Peter Helmis]( for a grad school project about making and selling merch (several months after that I wrote [my first Reader feature]( about the DIY space where I interviewed Helmis: Strangelight, an all-ages basement venue beneath a storefront in the Congress Theater). In a lot of cases, I had a distinct understanding that the money I spent on a shirt could have real material impact on a band bashing out gnarly punk to a couple dozen people in a cold basement; it meant funds for gas to help get the group to the next town, or a little extra cash for food, or maybe a nest egg for recording and releasing a new album. My own contribution to that effort could seem small, but in a world that has little interest in DIY art (if its existence is considered to begin with), those few dollars always felt like they go a long way. My affection for T-shirts isn't confined to those made by punk bands. I have an entire drawer full of shirts I've bought from all four cofounders of [Fat Tiger Workshop]( Desmond "Des Money" Owusu, Vic Lloyd, Terrell "Rello" Jones, and Joe "Freshgoods" Robinson. When the independent streetwear collective set up in a tiny storefront in the Congress Theater in 2014, located just around the corner from the old Strangelight space, I made sure to stop in on long walks around the neighborhood; I once walked in on a rap video being filmed behind the shop. I watched as Fat Tiger moved on to a spot on Grand close to Fulton Market, then a much larger storefront on Milwaukee Avenue just around the corner from the Chicago stop. I've gotten to know all the owners, several employees, and regulars. It's easy to point out Fat Tiger's importance by listing off the celebrities who've worn the designers' clothes and shoes—Chance the Rapper wore one of Robinson's "Thank U Obama" hoodies while accepting his very first Grammy—and [partnerships they've garnered with huge companies](. But I'm constantly touched by the collective's commitment to fostering a sense of community, including opening up their store for monthly talks about art and creativity. And I could easily see it outside the shop; before the pandemic, it felt like I couldn't go to a hip-hop show without spotting at least a few different shirts from Fat Tiger. In November, Fat Tiger Workshop [announced it will close]( permanently on Sunday, January 9. It's bittersweet to know that in a week the business will be closed, but I'm heartened by the impact the place has had on this city's artistic communities. There's a book to be written about Fat Tiger Workshop and its influence on Chicago streetwear, music, and culture; those clothes all tell stories, and some of those stories come down to the people who've received their shirts and loved them so much they wore them out. Which is what I love about Murakami T. The history of a shirt is as much about the people who wear it as those who designed it. What draws a person to a shirt can be inexplicable, entirely removed from the commercial origins of a mass-produced item of clothing so it can be placed almost in an entirely different universe. Murakami wrote of a shirt he bought for $1 that set off a series of questions that snowballed into a short story later adapted for a movie. I love art that encourages me to think, and to think of myself as more than a passive consumer. Buying a shirt on its own doesn't make me an active participant in a creative community, but it can open me up to ideas and worlds that I had previously been incapable of seeing. Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with all these old T-shirts that don't fit me anymore . . . Sincerely, [Best of Chicago bonus round nominations close TODAY!]( Tell us who should win in additional categories we should have included in the first round of nominations but didn’t—as nominated by first-round participants. ["CSTVT: A Discography,"]( by Hugo Reyes (Medium) ["83 Favorite Albums of 2021,"]( by Hanif Abdurraqib (Medium) ["The POW Best Albums of 2021,"]( by POW staff (Passion of the Weiss) Various artists, [Lupay Presents: The Remedy]( Caleb<3Kina, [Who We Were Last Autumn]( Various artists, [meat scenes 2021: the power of friendship]( Jamie ULTRA, [shadow creature]( We've wrapped up season one of CQN! Listen back on all ten episodes [here]( or wherever you get your podcasts. [The lost girl]( Black Button Eyes turns an unsung J.M. Barrie play into a musical. by [Kerry Reid]( [Parker Lee Williams helped shape Chicago hip-hop—and he never stopped building]( He threw the city’s first recurring hip-hop party, worked with the likes of Grandmaster Caz and Jamal-Ski, and built commercial music libraries that continue to support local artists. by [Leor Galil]( [Good news, Dems]( There will be nothing civil about the war between Mary “Hitler was right” Miller and Rodney Davis. by [Ben Joravsky]( [Issue of Dec 22 - Jan 5, 2022 Vol. 51, No.]( [Download Issue]( (PDF) [View this e-mail as a web page]( [@chicago_reader]( [/chicagoreader]( [@chicago_reader]( [Chicago Reader on LinkedIn]( [/chicagoreader]( [chicagoreader.com]( [Forward this e-mail to a friend](. Want to change how you receive these e-mails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](. Copyright © 2022 Chicago Reader Store, All rights reserved. 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