The Life and Times of a T-Shirt Hustler

Photo: Pooneh Ghana

Meet Perry Shall. That’s him standing in front of his vintage clothing filled closet. Perry is a multi-talented dude best known for his art. He creates badass designs for albums, t-shirts, posters, you name it. Check out his impressive handiwork here (webstore coming soon!) But it’s his admitted “stupid stupid obsession” of collecting vintage tees that caught my eye. So I tracked him down to get answers to some real tough questions.

How many vintage tees do you own?

I haven’t counted recently but I should be somewhere around the 600 range right now. I just went on tour and in the first 2 days I ended up with 6 new shirts. It’s getting kind of crazy.

Any particular old tag you fancy?

It’s probably cliche but I’ve always had a thing for Screen Stars. I don’t know what it is. I think when I first started acknowledging my “problem” and started paying attention to things like tags, Screen Stars were the first brand I started realizing… oh yeah, I’ve got a few of those. I like the way they fit. When you find a good thing, you tend to want to stick with it. I know people love Sneakers and Sportswear and stuff like that but Screen Stars have always treated me right.

Does a rayon blend give you nipple erections?

I don’t really have a fabric preference. If the graphic is right and it doesn’t fit terribly, I’m usually pretty good.

Do you still have tees from when you were a kid?

I still have a few for the most part. When I was 12, the attic to our house was connected to my bedroom and every once and a while I would explore a little. One day I found a big trash bag full of my Dad’s old clothes. All I wanted at 12 years old was to have Band shirts but they were always so expensive. So I open this bag and it’s full of a bunch of them. They’re not “cool” bands for a 12 year old in 1997 but they were Band shirts nonetheless. So I started wearing Bruce Springsteen 1985 tour shirts and an autographed Harry Chapin or Billy Joel “We Didn’t Start The Fire” shirt. I listened to all that stuff with my parents so in my head, I thought I was the coolest dressed kid in my middle school. I still have all of those and a few others from that time period. An Austin Powers ringer tee from when the first movie came out. I bought it at Tower Records and it was probably 2 sizes too big. I have a Beck shirt from 1997 when my mom took me to see him. There are definitely some I know wouldn’t fit me anymore that I wish I still had but they’ve passed on I guess.

[Mini-Perry celebrates a new Beavis & Butthead tee while wearing bootleg version]

What particular genres of vintage tees you collect?

Ughhh here we go hahah. About 2 years ago we got bed bugs in my house (a t-shirt collector’s worst nightmare) and I had to wash and/or dry all of my t-shirts. It was more painful than you could ever imagine but it gave me a chance to re-do everything in my closet. When I did that, I organized everything by color so I had this rainbow-like gradient of t-shirts filling my whole closet. It was pretty cool looking. Recently I re-organized everything again into a bunch of ridiculous categories that mostly make sense to me. I have shirts with comedians on them, I have a section of tv show shirts, movies, vintage Philadelphia shirts, bands my friends are in, Metal bands, Hard Rock bands, assorted 80’s pop music, rap/hip hop shirts, Punk bands, Hardcore Punk bands, Artists, Coca Cola shirts, a whole section for Metallica shirts, a section for Elvis Costello shirts, a KISS section, a Beastie Boys section, 90’s bands, misc, and probably a few others. Those are the most prominent though.

Which artists have inspired you?

Ed Roth is probably the biggest influence for me. He’s the one who really took things to the next level as far as t-shirts with crazy art on them go. A lot of artists that I love were influenced by him as well so it mostly goes back to him. Also Gary Panter’s Pee Wee drawings have always been up there for me. I have some friends that have been designing t-shirts for a long time like Richard Minino aka HORSEBITES and I really love his work and probably wouldn’t be designing or working as hard as I am today without his help. He designs for VNM.

A swarm of moths is headed toward your closet! Which tee do you save?

My yellow Elvis Costello shirt. It’s probably from ’79 or ’80. It was a gift to me from my friend Seth Murray. He said he had a shirt for me that one of his ex-girlfriend’s gave him and he thought I’d like it more than he would. I thought it was going to be some random “funny” shirt or something but he handed me this yellow, beat up, tissue-like rag of a t-shirt. When I unfolded it and saw what it was, I freaked out. It’s perfect in every way.

Any particular tees you’ve had on your radar forever?

Yes! Talking Heads have always been one of my favorite bands and their shirts are usually pretty hard to get for a cheap price. I’ve only spent $60 max on a shirt, once. It was an Elvis Costello shirt and it was a long long time ago. All of the shirts I have were somewhere between $40 or less and I almost never find a Talking Heads shirt for a good price. I don’t even have a preference as to which Talking Heads shirts I’d own. I just want need more.

What t-shirt consistently gets comments from strangers?

I have this Kramer shirt that I bought on eBay. I just searched for Seinfeld shirts and it was ending soon at a cheap price so I got it. I’m a huge fan and didn’t think anything about it. I posted it on my t-shirt blog (I Got This Shirt On) and it blew up. I think it has almost 7,000 notes or something now? I love it and think it’s great and people always comment on it when they see it but I wouldn’t have paid more than $20 for it haha. People are weird.

Whose tee collection do you admire?

I have to give a shoutout to my main man Isac Walter from Minor Thread. He has a few hundred more than me and has been super cool about talking shop and showing the world his amazing collection. Also my man Sergio from Nic Fit Vintage. A few weeks ago he saw I was in NY from my instagram and invited me over to his place to check out his collection. He gave me an old Danzig shirt and told me to send him whatever I thought would be a fair trade. Super nice guy.

Your most valuable and sentimentally valuable tees shirt are?

My most valuable shirt might be the Elvis Costello shirt I mentioned earlier or maybe this Jimi Hendrix shirt I have from 1970 or so. Sentimentally would be any shirts I got from my dad when I was a kid that I’ve held onto.

Finally, what other vintage do you wear and collect?

I have a large toy collection, vhs/dvd, cassette tapes, records, and my favorite collection I have is my button collection.