Chicago

Formula Werks

The A-Team worked so well as a unit because they were able to meld so many diverse personalities into a unified fighting force -- the truculent badass, the suave conman, the incomprehensibly hilarious lunatic, and The George Peppard. Bringing that dynamic to gear, Formula Werks.

From the Chicago Underground, Formula's comprised of eight full-timers and a handful of mercenaries, specializing in everything from sly mirth to comic aggression, but all united as "artists and most of us are bitter but often appear happy" (so they've got that going for them). New ltd-edition tees range from the street hustling "Big Money" (an oversized "$" composed from the repeated script "Can't Stop Da Hustle"), to the Mushmouth-cool "Livin Mad Fat Like An Oversized Brown Bee" (a peace-sign-popping DJ peeping a bee-riding brunette), to a knife-wielding Joker/Toucan Sam hybrid dubbed "Will Kill" -- finally, a breakfast mascot with a fresher murder-the-consumer gameplan than diabetes. The crew also collabs on one-of-a-kind pieces like a trucker cap overrun by monsters straight out of The Wall, a work shirt hand-painted with eerie, sunglassed ghost-heads floating down the shoulder, and an all-weather jacket slapped with a patch depicting an unplugged TV set broadcasting an undead, Tim-Burtonized Ed Sullivan ("Countermeasure").

Perhaps the sweetest offerings are the hand-detailed messenger bags sporting everything from plush kiddie monsters, to a horde of sunglassed/suited zombies ("Covert Ops"), to "Higher Education", which sports a child sighting a bazooka -- if you have a problem, and no one else can help, and you can find him, maybe you can hire...this kid with a bazooka.

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