Real good stoff from the flea market
I happen to live in the best city that Germany has to offer. Of course I’m talking about Berlin. All T-Shirt-Maniacs could easily shop themselves into their financial ruin - there is so much creativity to see (and purchase), all those little stores and boutiques that often sell self-made stuff that isn’t available anyhere else. Not surprisingly so many companies and artists settle there, especially in the flourishing inner regions of East Berlin such as Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain.
For all people ever planning to visit Berlin as a tourist (and you really should) I’d like to recommend one place I visited again yesterday and I could visit every sunday: the flea market at the Mauerpark.
The name “Mauerpark” comes from “Mauer” which means “wall” - and in this case it is THE (in)famous Berlin Wall. Eighteen years after its downfall the last remains and reminders of a brutal and injust regime are long gone, instead the former “Todesstreifen” (death zone) has been transformend into a very popular and much frequented park and since a few years there’s a huge flee market every sunday. It’s always crowded as hell, but even though I usually feel uncomfortable in huge crowds I like it a lot. Maybe that’s because of the overall ambiance which is very relaxed after all.
Now only half of the stands offer the usual flea market rubbish, the other half is run by smaller entrepreneurs who sell hand crafted goods, like deliciously smelling soap and stylish bags. Now, you T-Heads, I’ve been there yesterday and I counted no less than five great T-Shirt stands (not counting all the second hand offers). Single screenprinting design artists with bright ideas. I just wish I wasn’t so broke, all of those five I mentioned have at least one shirt that I would buy without any hesitation. For example I stood there drooling on a great Shirt of a Roland MC-303 in light blue for maybe half an hour - unfortunately my size was sold out, but I surely will come back to get one next week. And then post it.
Of those five, only two have decent web representations so far (two others are to follow). The first is the great Yack Fou, which might already be known a bit internationally. I’ll leave it by linking them up for you to see, probably I’ll write more about them in the near future.
Second is Stoff (the German word for “cloth”, also an expression used for drugs), which have a very well made flash-based kinda scribbly site that represents their style just perfectly. Many motives are related to Berlin, for example they seem to like the TV tower at Alexanderplatz a lot. Others are just good drawings. Just click through their galleries. They’re on myspace, too.
The site has no real online store, but you can contact them by eMail. It also lists shops all over Europe where you can get those fine tees. They’re printed mainly on American Apparel and cost about 17€. All photos are taken from their site.
This was very probably not my last post about these wonderful flea market traders, I’ll keep you updated when the other two sites are up. [find more Markus on shirtspotting]
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