Day 67

I first laid eyes on an Iron Fist product during my student years, positioned on a humble rail in a corner of the now-defunct clothing store Cult in Brighton’s town centre. At the time, the brand was emerging and its products sat in this store like they had crash-landed in alien terrain. They were unlike anything else on the two floors that surrounded them, boasting full-colour, XL-scale, highly intricate illustrations that weren’t hindered by zips, seams or any other typically unconquerable garment detail.

In contrast, my student bank balance wasn’t boasting anything, so I left the colourful wreckage be.
During the summer of 2012, I had another crack at Iron Fist, spotting a selection of their T-shirts hanging in a store along Camden Lock and this time, I walked away with this beauty - a giant depiction of a pirate ship framed in an oval assembly of rope, swallows, anchors and other nautical rhetoric. There are even two mirror-imaged ghostly skull formations set into the clouds overhead. In terms of colour, this design sits at the modest end of the Iron Fist scale, but the illustration detail is on par with the rest. Definitely a solid purchase.