As I am growing older, I am interested in expressing my interests more as I move into the world, because it is an easy way to socialize (Like the proverbial gringo wearing the dragon ball z shirt in mexico hoping to stay safe of the cartel). This is something which is a challenge because that means I will have to figure out what my interests actually are.
So I took inventory of my many interests and hobbies and only some of them have clothing potential and they are:
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Gaming
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Anime and Manga
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MMA
All three of these interests unfortunately have been plagued with low quality clothing and merch. This is unfortunate because when I was much younger and dumber I could be enticed by just pasting the logo of thing I love on a t-shirt with low quality acrylic and I would buy it in a heartbeat. I am sure some of you can relate.
Obviously now with my frontal lobes developed and as an adult with adult money I can engage in buying haute couture or what passes for that in these spaces anyway.
One brand which I would recco is Rush by Kira, their GTA vice city shirt is a very nice homage to scarface(It's a double homage because vice city itself is inspired by scarface? Feels more like a full circle moment), which I am wearing at this moment as I write (how meta!!) I also like their Cyberpunk Collection. Their t-shirts are high quality and don't scream "THIS IS MERCH" it's more like a knowing nod between ball-knowers.
For anything to do with sportswear or MMA, I would love to be in the income range to afford underarmor, but I will settle for Akiba because their rash guards have good designs which don't chafe your nipples and honestly when you are rolling around with sweaty men it's better to have your nipples unchafed. I would love to drop a couple of Gandhis on Venum because some of their designs are cool, maybe something I can consider buying for my birthday.
Anime merch is innundated with clothing which are low quality, often made by people interested in cashing in on the current new thing. This space needs to be much better than pngs slapped on a shirt and sent on it's way, given that the artists making art are inspired, I would hope that the clothes would reflect that.
I have been fortunate to run into vendors at Bangalore Comic Con who sold high quality heavy T-shirts which silhouette well and had good designs made my talented artists. Although for some reason their websites are inaccessible. Their loss honestly.
I also randomly came across a brand called ahankar which sells clothes inspired by Indian Mythological works. I think their designs are cool and bought two shirts which did get a good reception at a few social gatherings.
Kshm is doing some interesting things with their pants, which I would love to try out after getting to my goal weight and maintaining it because their pants look good on people with a much thinner waistline.
This is something which I have an opinion on. I think people with much better fashion sense can confirm this, Sometimes it's not the outfit it's the model. This has happened to me in my thick boy era where I would see buy sweatshirts which looked good on the catalogue but would look ridiculous on me, so now I judge most brands based on how their outfit would look on people who are large and incharge. Unfortunately, most brands will fail this litmus test.
I think my exploration with my clothing has just been finding interesting designs which don't get me weird looks because it looks not flattering on me. Outfits which silhoutte well are a must, I need heavy shirts which don't flap around in the summer breeze and pants which fit.
Honestly as long as it's not something with a bunch of logos dropped on it I don't mind buying cool looking Tees which are catching eyeballs.