My Vintage T-Shirt
1963 Stanley Mouse Shirt
My Vintage T-Shirt is a section written by our readers. Thanks to vintage tee seller Don over at corinalarks for sharing this shirt and great story. If you have a rare vintage t-shirt and a great story please contact us.
Stanley Mouse is an American artist who has had two distinct phases in a career that’s influenced pop culture for decades. As a teenager, he and guys like Ed “Big Daddy” Roth were part of the emerging hot rod art movement of the late 1950’s. Stanley would travel to custom car shows selling air-brushed t-shirts and sweatshirts featuring his crazed hot rod jockeys. Eventually, he opened Mouse Studios in Detroit and sold air-brushed hot rod shirts via mail order.
In the late 1960’s, Stanley moved to California and become a giant in the San Francisco pop art scene. He’s best known for creating the iconic Grateful Dead branding art and the now classic ‘60s concert poster look. He also created artwork for many famous rock album covers. Today some of his original pieces sell at auction for six figures.
At a recent flea market in rural Illinois, I came across a seller who had an original Stanley Mouse custom hot rod shirt hanging from the back of his van among his boxes of old books, car parts and tools. I was amazed when I saw it. I didn’t know quite what it was, but it was obviously a vintage sweatshirt and the hip use of colors made it really stand-out. It was unlike any shirt I had ever seen. I could tell it was air-brushed, not silk screened and my first thought was “Big Daddy Roth”.
The seller was in his early 60s and proud of the shirt. In fact, he wanted to show me another custom Stanley Mouse shirt he had in the box where they’d been stored all these years. He lit-up as he told me the story of how, as a kid, his family took a trip to Michigan in 1963 and stopped at Mouse’s studio to buy sweatshirts because they had seen his ads in Hot Rod magazine.
This vintage “Mouse” sweatshirt is a self-portrait caricature by Stanley Mouse. It was air brushed and signed by Stanley at the original Mouse Studios as the kid watched. The flea market seller was happy to sell it and I’m even happier that it’s now my vintage t-shirt.
- View the vintage Gary Numan t-shirt previously featured in My Vintage T-Shirt.
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![[ LINK IN BIO ] In honor of May the 4th we connected with a gentleman named Shawn whose father, Ira, worked for ILM. He designed the Biker Scout, need we say more? Shawn shared an epic tale of a bootleg Star Wars tee his dad heroically stashed away despite George Lucas' attempt to have it destroyed.
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RIP Ira Keeler. Long live the resistance.
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John K.
June 30, 2009 at 9:41 am
Awesome!!!
ted g
July 2, 2009 at 2:54 am
I love that shirt ! Did you get the other one? Would you consider selling one ? Very interested and could pay up – let me know
goodbye heart
July 5, 2009 at 9:44 pm
what a great MOUSE shirt! the colors are so vibrant… so COOL! wish i had been at that flea market!
streetrodjohnny
July 12, 2009 at 3:44 pm
mouse shirts are still made by stanley mouse! go to mouse studios and contact stanley mouse.
Mark Coudray
August 16, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley also founded San Francisco based Monster in the 1970’s. Monster was famous for waterbased screen printing of Kelley/Mouse art as well as Rick Griffin and others. They were way ahead of the curve printing waterbase four color process using camera generated color separations. I was fortunate enough to get a tour as I was looking to buy automaic screen printing equipment at the time and they had an American Cameo Mulit Printer, the first automatic produced by Advance Process Supply in Chicago. Awesome experience and I still have a 1976 Monster Calendar.
Art Davis
September 1, 2009 at 6:14 am
As a kid I can remember standing in front of Mouses booth at the Michigan State Fair and just being so into watching him do shirt after shirt. And for a little xtra $ he would take a snapshot of a car or just about any anything you wanted him to paint on. He would even paint your tennis shoes if you wanted. I’m 61 and just so thrilled to see your shirt, THANKS ALOT. “Well Stanley this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into”.
P. Bondy
December 17, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Great Sweat shirt. I hapen to have a sweat shirt done by Stanley Mouse in either 1958 or 1959 at the Detroit Auto Show. It’s called HOT TO TROT. It is air brushed with monster driving a HOT ROD. It’s in MINT condition. It has never been worn or washed. Still in the heavy plastic bag.
Ray Lenahan
February 22, 2011 at 10:37 pm
I want to sell my 1960s Stanley Mouse sweat shirt He painted The Mad Drummer”