So far this site has only featured t-shirts which were either pro-Napoleon, or at worst neutral towards the great man, and there was an unspoken assumption that this would always be the case. Could anyone seriously contemplate designing or making an anti-Napoleon t-shirt? Well, yes. Over at Irishlaundry.com, they've done just that. (Thanks to Travis at Founditem for the tip-off).
Irish Laundry specialises in classic t-shirts aimed squarely at non-metrosexuals ("An Irish Laundry man drinks beer and whiskey instead of cosmos and wine coolers"), and resolutely not at "pretty boys walking around in their lame $80 t-shirts with foil prints, popped collars, and hair with frosted tips." Well said.
The site currently offers around 20 different designs on a variety of themes. You can see the full range here, but my main interest lies in the anti-Napoleonic offering, in which our man is described as "Five feet of Eurotrash" [Note: Readers unfamiliar with the term "Eurotrash" can find several apposite definitons at the Urban Dictionary.
Back to the t-shirt, and there are two important points to be made:
1) Boney was a bit Eurotrash, but he wasn't actually that small. According to Wikipedia: "During the Napoleonic Wars he was taken seriously by some in the British press as a dangerous tyrant, poised to invade. A nursery rhyme warned children that Bonaparte ravenously ate naughty people; the 'bogeyman'. The British Tory press sometimes depicted Napoleon as much smaller than average height and this image persists. Confusion about his height also results from the difference between the French pouce and British inch—2.71 and 2.54 cm respectively; he was 1.7 metres (5 ft 7 in) tall, average height for the period, sometimes quoted as 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 in)."
2) Hostility to the Emperor never normally makes any sense, but in the case of Irish Laundry it's entirely consistent with their well-documented anti-French policy. The site makes no apology for its hardline stance regarding the French, and doesn't even ship to the country. On the FAQs page, the company's shipping policy is not ambiguous: "FRANCE - If you are thinking about placing an order to be shipped to France, please don't bother. Irish Laundry has a strict policy against shipping to Frenchys. No, we're not joking. It's not that we can't ship to France. It's just that we don't want guys named Pierre wearing our shirts."
So as long as you're not French, this actually seems like an interesting t-shirt. Selling for $18, this tee is available only in white, and features a very recognisable silhouette of Napoleon against a zig-zag Tricolor background, with the Eurotrash legend beneath it. In terms of the shirt itself, the site says all designs use "super soft premium tees that typically have a slightly slimmer fit than a traditional Hanes type of t-shirt. Nearly all of our shirts are printed on American Apparel or similar fitting brands." Shipping is a flat $4 for all shirts within the US, $10 to Canada, and $15 to the rest of the world (except France).
The site currently offers around 20 different designs on a variety of themes. You can see the full range here, but my main interest lies in the anti-Napoleonic offering, in which our man is described as "Five feet of Eurotrash" [Note: Readers unfamiliar with the term "Eurotrash" can find several apposite definitons at the Urban Dictionary.
Back to the t-shirt, and there are two important points to be made:
1) Boney was a bit Eurotrash, but he wasn't actually that small. According to Wikipedia: "During the Napoleonic Wars he was taken seriously by some in the British press as a dangerous tyrant, poised to invade. A nursery rhyme warned children that Bonaparte ravenously ate naughty people; the 'bogeyman'. The British Tory press sometimes depicted Napoleon as much smaller than average height and this image persists. Confusion about his height also results from the difference between the French pouce and British inch—2.71 and 2.54 cm respectively; he was 1.7 metres (5 ft 7 in) tall, average height for the period, sometimes quoted as 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 in)."
2) Hostility to the Emperor never normally makes any sense, but in the case of Irish Laundry it's entirely consistent with their well-documented anti-French policy. The site makes no apology for its hardline stance regarding the French, and doesn't even ship to the country. On the FAQs page, the company's shipping policy is not ambiguous: "FRANCE - If you are thinking about placing an order to be shipped to France, please don't bother. Irish Laundry has a strict policy against shipping to Frenchys. No, we're not joking. It's not that we can't ship to France. It's just that we don't want guys named Pierre wearing our shirts."
So as long as you're not French, this actually seems like an interesting t-shirt. Selling for $18, this tee is available only in white, and features a very recognisable silhouette of Napoleon against a zig-zag Tricolor background, with the Eurotrash legend beneath it. In terms of the shirt itself, the site says all designs use "super soft premium tees that typically have a slightly slimmer fit than a traditional Hanes type of t-shirt. Nearly all of our shirts are printed on American Apparel or similar fitting brands." Shipping is a flat $4 for all shirts within the US, $10 to Canada, and $15 to the rest of the world (except France).
