Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Big Thanks

Since we launched our website back in 2006 this time of year has always been our busiest, but over the last six weeks we have been locked away pressing shirts at the S.D.F.C. like our lives depended on it. Not that we are complaining, far from it, especially in the current financial climate.
We have only now managed to surface for some much needed air and sustenance after our busiest pre-christmas period yet and we would like to thank all of our customers, new and returning, for purchasing our t-shirts. We are ecstatic that so many of you get pleasure from wearing our tees, which is really the only reason we ever started up The State Dept Of Fashion Corrections two years ago. We hope 2009 will be yet another exciting year for us and for you, we have a brand new website which we intend to tinker with in the coming 12 months and a few ideas up our sleeves which we hope will give you a few pleasant surprises. Until then friendo have yourself a disgracefully good Christmas.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Buy 2 Get a 3rd Free

With the world's economy in freefall and the doomsday merchants on the news 24/7 literally praying that we enter the greatest recession in 60 years, we thought we should offer you a little pre-xmas cheer in an otherwise thoroughly depressing time. If you go to the site between now and the 24th of Dec and order yourself, (or someone else), two t-shirts you'll get a third absolutely free. If you click on Christmas Steve above you can read all the details on how to go about getting three t-shirts for the price of two. Happy shopping.

Monday, November 10, 2008

America Is Restoring - Please Wait

Following the election of Barack Obama, making him the first black president in America's history and signifying the end of the Bush administration and eight miserable years of Republican rule, the post-election mood flooding the country and the rest of the world has been one of hope. Our America Is Restoring t-shirt pretty much sums up the post-election mood. Who knows, maybe like every other politician before him Obama may end up an ultimate disappointment, but until that happens here's to hopeful and happier times.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Win Yourself A T-Shirt For Only £1

We've just launched our special Secret Santa Giveaway offer on our main website. The rules couldn't be simpler, just purchase an entry ticket costing only £1 and you could be one of three lucky winners to pick a t-shirt of your choice come December 15th. Read about the offer and the details HERE

Friday, October 24, 2008

Worst Photo Shoot Ever!

We have no idea who Heidi Montag or Spencer Pratt are and nor do we have any burning ambition to find out. We are guessing they are a pair of vapid reality TV stars who have modelled their entire lives around the Barbie and Ken dolls. 
So why, we here you ask, write a blog post about them? Well as you'll see from the pictures in the link below they have appeared in what could only be described as the most ridiculous and unintentionally hilarious photo shoot ever. 
Apparently these two "stars" are rabid supporters of the McCain and Palin campaign and as you will see from their t-shirts, (especially Ken's...sorry Spencer's),they have embraced the right-wing republican way of thinking, with all the might their little cleanly shaven and well moisturised bodies could muster.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Facebook Steve Says: Buy 2 Get 3rd Free


So after being kicked off of Facebook, (for reasons read below), the S.D.F.C. has re-established itself on the popular social network site and to celebrate we are now running a special offer, just for our facebook friends.

To qualify all you have to do is add yourself on as a friend HERE and then click on our Buy Two Get Three link on our Events box. There you will find out the special code which you can use to buy two t-shirts and get a third free from our glorious new website.


NB. You have to be a facebook friend to qualify for this deal. So we will be watching!

New Website Is Live

After a very lengthy lay off from blogging we have returned. The reason we took a hiatus was mainly due to the construction of our brand new website, which is now up and running, (at the same domain: http://www.bonaroo.co.uk/). There are a few changes which you will notice, as we are now selling hoodies and polar bear friendly tote bags, (for all you ecologically aware), and we have a gallery feature and a mini blog on our homepage. All in all the site is looking great and is now a lot easier for our customers to use and more importantly, now the hard work is more or less over, we can get back to blogging.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

The Boys Are Back!

We recently found ourselves kicking chairs and throwing papers around the office of the S.D.F.C. in anger over the discovery that we had been kicked off of Facebook. Our exclusion from the popular social networking site came as a huge surprise and then as a monumental disappointment as we realised all of our work and contacts we had gathered over the last year and a half were gone forever.
Turns out the reason we got booted was due to the fact that we hadn't created a proper fan page for the business. Apparently we had used the website's name rather than our own names when we first created our Faceebook pages and that's why they pressed the ejector button. The good news is we are back up and running and if you were a friend or a fan before, then please re-add yourselves HERE.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Lessons Learnt This Weekend # 1

1. Never buy fancy food at music festivals, no matter how strong the temptation. (one portion of chinese noodles = £7.50)

2. Drunk people are hilarious.

3. Drunk people are annoying.

4. Kasabian are probably the best live band in Britain right now.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Plagiarist Express


There is nothing more annoying in life than having your hard work stolen and some other cretin take the glory for the time and energy you invested.
As t-shirt designers we know how common a problem plagiarism can be, but when a movie director claims the limelight for a product he quite clearly ripped off, action must be taken.
Here's a guy who we imagine would be, like every other film director, overly protective of his own creative work but David Gordon Green, director of the new Seth Rogen comedy Pineapple Express, doesn't quite see it that way when it comes to other people's intellectual property.
In the movie James Franco's character wears a t-shirt with the print of a great white shark devouring a kitten, a design which was first released in 2005 by WOWCH. But in a recent interview Franco states that David Green designed the t-shirt and after WOWCH chatted with the movie's lawyers it appears they don't have any hope of recieving even an apology. This is mainly because the design has been reversed and darkened slightly!!!

There is no other word for this kind of behaviour, it's theft. The guys over at WOWCH worked hard to come up with an original design and now the t-shirt which they created is about to be part of what looks like a popular cult movie, only the director is claiming it as his own. That's low in anyone's books. What's even worse is WOWCH only now want some free passes to see Pineapple Express and some popcorn when they get there and that looks doubtful too.


You can read about the whole affair HERE.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Intermission

Apologies for the recent radio silence folks, but we've been busy at work not just on new t-shirt designs but on a brand new website. We should be up and running in the next month with a whole batch of new features and products which we hope you'll enjoy. Plus we will also be running some special promotions and discount sales soon, something we've been promising to do for a long, long time. We'll keep you updated as the construction continues. That is all.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

We Are Gathered Here Today.




To play one of the most addictive and fun filled games consoles ever produced. No, we aren't on comission for Nintendo but their Wii provides us here at the S.D.F.C. with bags of gaming satisfaction. So much so we've designed a t-shirt just for those of you who know the joys of the Wii...drunk or sober.
N.B. We will be adding this tee to our collection in the next few days.


Monday, June 09, 2008

Love Pumps



Women and money, women and shopping, women and shoes. It's like a mathematical equation which always presents the same answer - total satisfaction. A few of our male friends here at the S.D.F.C. have witnessed first hand the changes which take place when a woman is shopping for shoes. The giddiness, the shortness of breath, the trembling voice and the flushed cheeks all for some leather in a heel. Men on the other hand have sport, but in comparison that's nowhere near as satisfying...and we know it.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Off You Go You Small Boys


Most of us here at the S.D.F.C. grew up watching and quoting lines from Bill Forsyth's hilarious teen rom-com, Gregory's Girl. Although this t-shirt might not mean too much to our American cousins, (fanny is the word used in the UK to describe a lady's front bottom), we think the gist of it is there for everyone to understand. Growing up in Scotland and the UK this phrase, taken from the movie, was heard countless times in conversations about the opposite sex. But it's the conclusion of "The lot!", which for some reason never fails to crack us up.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Slashfilm.com Are Our New Friends.

A while back we received a very pleasant e-mail from a guy called Peter Sciretta who confessed his undying love for our Escape From New York tribute tee. Peter, who runs and writes for the San Francisco based movie blog slashfilm.com, apparently fell in love with our t-shirt when he noticed Quint, (a fellow movie buff and blogger, who writes for Aint It Cool News), wearing one at the SXSW festival earlier this year.
So, being the nice guys that we are we sent him out a freebie along with a couple of other shirts which we thought he would appreciate. And appreciate them he did, by giving us our biggest review yet. You can read the article HERE and be sure to check out the rest of his site for all the latest movie news and reviews.

*We also had Peter include a special discount for our shirts for his American readers only, what with the dollar in poor shape against the pound...you see, we really are nice guys.

Friday, April 25, 2008

filmschoolrejects.com

Recently a few of our film tribute t-shirts were featured on the excellent movie blog www.filmschoolrejects.com

We get a massive kick from online articles like this, as we know the people responsible have a love and affinity for the same kind of things we do. Check out the article HERE and also explore their site, it's jam packed with cool movie related stuff you won't find on the bigger more commercial sites. Enjoy.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Same Old Crap!

Here's two new designs we created this month which we hope you'll get a kick out of. The recycle t-shirt basically says it all, we are living in age where originality died a long, long time ago and we're having to put up wit the same old crap, day in, day out. And the Old King Cole tee is the first of a new batch of similar themed t-shirts which we will be uploading onto the website soon.
You'll also start to notice some changes around the S.D.F.C. in the next few weeks, as we're shaking things up a bit on our main website. Among them will be a brand new section exclusively for hoodies and a customer gallery, which we've been promising for some time. There will be other stuff too, including some special deals and discounts, so keep checking back for updates.

Friday, April 04, 2008

What Were They Thinking?

We read about this story in the newspapers last week and thought we should share it with you as it went largely ignored by the mainstream media.
Turns out Hollywood director/actor Woody Allen is suing a clothing company called American Apparel for using an image of him on their advertising billboards, (for those of you who don't know AA are huge in America and are one of the biggest t-shirt suppliers the country has to offer).
Apparently Mr Allen has a strong objection over the use of his image or his body of work to promote anything comercially and as American Apparel failed to seek his approval over the use of his face in their adverts he's suing them for $10m.
This is truly an amazing feat of stupidity, firstly who the f**k goes and uses a famous person's face in a large advertising project without ever consulting with said celebrity for approval and secondly, if you look at the advert what the hell does it have to do with the products they are selling?
Incidentally their last billboard was defaced as it showed a woman bending over in a pair of tights next to the phrase "Gee, I wonder why women get raped?"

Friday, March 28, 2008

Too Much?

We created this t-shirt after a heated office debate about the war in Iraq, in particular the recent figure which showed that more than 4,000 American servicemen had died since the country was invaded. It was suggested by a certain individual in our group, incensed at the actions, lies and betrayl of Bush and Blair that the torch, held by the Statue Of Liberty, should be replaced with "that little f**ker's head on a spike". And the very next day we got to work.
It's probably the strongest t-shirt we've put out so far and we haven't really done a lot of political designs, but we hope you like it nonetheless.

As a point of interest George Bush once said during a conversation with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson about the Iraq war: "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." Gun, shoot, foot.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction!

A while back a few of us here at the S.D.F.C. went to see the Cohen brothers latest movie No Country For Old Men, half of us loved it, half of us hated it. So imagine our suprise when we came across this little nugget of information, which we found posted on a celebrity website blog. This is one strange coincidence:"In the novel 'No Country For Old Men' (but not in the movie), Sheriff Bell says of the dope-dealers, "Here a while back in San Antonio they shot and killed a federal judge."
The author set the story in 1980. In 1979, in San Antonio, Federal Judge John Howland Wood was shot and killed by rifle fire by a Texas freelance contract killer named Charles Harrelson. Actor Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells in the movie) is his son.
Charles Harrelson was sentenced to two life sentences for the murder of Federal Judge John Howland Wood on the orders of drug dealer Jimmy Chagra, who reportedly paid him $250,000. Harrelson has claimed to be one of the "hobos" taken away from "the grassy knoll" right after the shooting of John F. Kennedy.
Harrelson died on March 15th, 2007 in a federal super-maximum prison in Colorado."


You can find out more about Woody's old man HERE over at Wikipedia.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Dinki-Di Dog Food And Other Updates.


Long before he claimed to own the whole of Malibu, in a time before he referred to police women as "Sugar Tits" and blamed every major war on the Jews, Mel Gibson was actually famous for being Mad Max. In our humble opinion the best installment of the Road Warrior trilogy was the second film and it's from that movie that we drew inspiration from, for our latest film tribute tee.
Dinki-Di dog food is the fictional brand of canine sustenance used in the film which both Max and his faithful four legged companion share whilst trying to survive on the barren wasteland highways of the future. The word Dinki-Di is also Australian slang for "genuine" and legend has it they called the dog food that because Gibson insisted on eating the real stuff, taking method acting to a whole new level. So there you have it an inside, subtle movie reference t-shirt for anyone who ever wanted to dress in leather, drive a supercharged car and eat dog food.

Aside from designing new t-shirts we've also been hard at work on updating the site and in the next few weeks you'll notice a few changes around the S.D.F.C, most notabley a new logo, a gallery section, clickable links to our social network pages and a new section for hoodies. We're also pulling out all the stops for this summer and fingers crossed you may actually see us and our stall at a few of the summer music festivals around the UK.


Monday, February 11, 2008

Lovelace & King

Long time no hear, but truth be told we've been busy tidying the website up, getting organised for hitting the summer music festival scene, generating new ideas and designs and working on a special side project which we hope to reveal later in the year...plus some of us ended up addicted to playing Call Of Duty 4 on Xbox Live.

Anyhoo, here's two new tees for your wearing pleasure this month, the first features a replica of the customer service sticker which was stuck onto the body armour of Hannibal King, (played by Ryan Reynolds) in the movie Blade: Trinity.

We understand that the Blade vampire franchise is pretty much dead in the water but why, oh why, didn't they just forge ahead with a Nightstalkers spin off with Reynolds and Biel?


The other tee is a design we came up with ourselves pulling inspiration from a 70s sex comedy farce called Linda Lovelace For President. Those of you not familiar with Lovelace can catch up with her rather tragic life story here, but in short she was one of the world's first commercially recognised porn stars, largely due to her controversial hardcore movie Deep Throat.
That's all for just now folks but we have a ton of new and exciting stuff for you in the pipeline, which we hope will take your fancy.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Ups & Downs Of December 2007. Part 2: The Ups


Reeling from our missed opportunity with the BBC, (thanks to some clown at Heathrow Airport), we pressed on and distracted ourselves with work. Sifting through the mail one day we came across an unusual letter from a guy called Lyle Christiansen from Minnesota and we immediately recognised him as a previous customer. On opening his letter we found with it a photograph and a photocopy of an article from New York Magazine about the mystery of D.B. Cooper .

This is where things start to get a bit bizarre, as in his letter Lyle explained that he came across our D.B. Cooper's School Of Skydiving t-shirt on our website and felt compelled to buy it because, in his words, he thought it was the best one of it's kind. He also purchased it in memory of his late brother Kenneth who he stated was the real D.B. Cooper.
Now, we've received a lot of weird and wonderful things in the post before, many of which we could never write about, for legal reasons, but this really took us by surprise, especially as it referenced one of our all time favourite unsolved mysteries.
With a fair amount of scepticism we read on and started to digest the accompanying New York Magazine article which Lyle had included with his letter. You can read the whole article for yourself HERE .
To cut a very long story short, it turns out that Lyle's brother Kenneth is now indeed an official suspect in the D.B. Cooper case and aside from the fact that his height and weight may not fit the profile his experience as a sky diver and his past history certainly do. So there you have it on a random rainy Tuesday morning we receive a wonderful letter and photograph from what could be the brother of D.B. Cooper, the only man in American history to carry out a skyjacking and evade capture from the FBI, unless of course you buy into the theory that he died...something we certainly don't!


N.B. As a point of interest Lyle informed us that in the photogrpah, (pictured above), he's wearing one of his brother's wool lined overcoats, which he may have worn for the jump and he has one of his attache cases which he found when his brother passed away.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The Ups & Downs Of Decemer 2007. Part 1: The Downs

Firstly let us officially wish you a Happy New Year and all the very best for the next 12 months and thanks again to all of our customers who kept us busy throughout the run up to Christmas. Last month was definately full of mixed emotions for us here at the State Dept Of Fashion Corrections. This first part will detail the down side of December for us and the next part will deal with the upside.

Picture the scene we're busy printing up shirts for customers three weeks before Christmas when we get a call from a lovely young lady from the BBC, (for our American readers that stands for British Broadcastng Corporation), who tells us that she loves our John Smeaton and Proudly Banjoing Terrorists t-shirts. We thank her and she goes on to tell us that she's currently involved with filming a documentary about John Smeaton, (the Glasgow airport baggage handler who helped to fight off two terrorists intent on blowing the place up), for the BBC entitled An Accidental Hero and that it would be really cool if we could supply her with some free t-shirts. So we agree, after all it's not everyday we get a phonecall from the BBC. She explains that the film crew will be followng Smeaton to New York where he'll be presented with a special CNN Everyday Superhero Award and will meet with stars such as Mary J Blige, Glen Close, Kevin Bacon and Billy Connelly and that she and the rest of the crew would love to hand out our t-shirts to the stars. As you can imagine we get a tad excited about the prospect of our t-shirts being handed out to Hollywood celebs so we agree to supply her with a batch of Smeaton and Banjoing Terrorists t-shirts and we post them out to her two days before the crew are due to fly out to New York. She is overjoyed and promises to phone us when the she returns from the Big Apple.

Four days later and true to her word we get the call, but we realise straight away that something is wrong. She tell's us that they all made it to New York only to discover that Heathrow Airport staff had placed the wrong labels on all of their luggage and that they spent the entire three days with no change of clothes, laptops, camera equipment or, more importantly for us, t-shirts. So there you have it folks, what could have been a massive opportunity for the S.D.F.C turned into a non-event, we had visions of watching LL Cool J flexing his man cannons whilst wearing Proudly Banjoing Terrorists t-shirt. Apparently nobody seems to know where the the t-shirts ended up, so if you settle down to watch the news one night and are surprised to see some kids running around Somalia or Kazakhstan with John Smeaton's face plastered over their chests, you know the story behind their t-shirts.