About discharge prints

A primary consideration with new designs is which kind of inks to use. Nobody wants to wear a shirt that's heavy with multiple layers of rubbery ink, so our large prints are often created using water-based inks. This results in a soft print that still allows the fabric to breathe.

We've learned to avoid plastisol inks for large prints. I must congratulate the production manager at the factory, who brings so much knowledge and experience to the production process and gets so little credit! I don't even know his name, but he is greatly responsible for our outstanding product quality.

We've used a new printing technique (new to us at GMtee, that is!) on a couple of shirts. The technical name is discharge printing, but that seems such an unattractive term that we prefer to call it bleach printing.

The screen print is achieved not by adding ink to the fabric, but by discharging dye from the fabric to leave the colour of the natural cotton.

This is GMtee's new "Samurai and Serpent" T-shirt in long sleeves with a crew neck:




It's a spectacular image of samurai Saginoike Heikuro battling with a giant serpent, and I think it's one of our nicest shirts. I love wearing it. But perhaps the coolest thing about this shirt is that it has no ink on it.

RONIN manga samurai Japanese white crew neck T-shirt

I know, it's a cheap trick to stuff the title with keywords.

This is "Ronin" in short sleeves with crew neck:

Ronin is a new version of a shirt called "Shuriken Attack" which has been very popular. It comes in a choice of short or long sleeve, crew neck or henley collar.

Here's the detail at the back of the neck:

The kanji characters mean "Ronin" which was the term used for a samurai without a master, a "wave man" or rudderless wanderer. The main graphic depicts Itto Ogami, the lone wolf assassin. Nice shirt.

Check it out at eBay: RONIN manga samurai Japanese white crew neck T-shirt

Oops! There I go with the keywords again! I have no shame.

(Not a) SALE 30% OFF!

We've quietly marked down some prices at GMtee.

It's not a sale, because we're too classy to have a sale. Haha. It's just that we're going to be editing out some old designs as we introduce our newest collection and update the site.

It's difficult to choose which designs to remove from the site. Some are old favourites that have nearly sold out, others were overstocked (ouch!). In future these T-shirts will live here in our eBay store.

They've been discounted by 30%. But it's not a sale :)

Nine Dragons of Kowloon

The most popular design we ever made was Dragons Inside. So naturally dickie did two new versions in our new collection.

This beautiful shirt is named Nine Dragons, for the nine hills of Kowloon. It's the long sleeve version with henley collar. Like all our new shirts, it's available with a choice of short or long sleeves and a choice of crew neck or henley collar.

There's another version too, with a purple print on a khaki shirt.

You can buy these new shirts now in our eBay store.

You wouldn't ask Armani

Customers ask us sometimes if we can print them a custom shirt.

This is what I don't say: "Who do you think we are? Do you think that GMtee buys blank shirts and prints them to order in our back room? You wouldn't ask Armani to knock you up a special shirt, would you?"

Of course I reply politely. The rules of customer service forbid me from speaking my mind. I explain that GMtee designs and retails but we do not manufacture.

It's our fault. Apparently GMtee looks like a shop that prints up shirts and flogs them on the internet.

And that's why we're investing time and money in a new look for our website.

Never mind the website, check out eBay

I'm frustrated that we have a sensational new collection of shirts in our warehouse, but we're far behind schedule in our website update.

It could be a couple of months yet before we complete the work. I'm resisting the temptation to offer excuses.

At times like this, I remember why we have an eBay store.

Right now our eBay store is a great fallback. Even though it will be some time before the GMtee website is updated, I am already listing the new collection at eBay. So you can buy new shirts now at the GMtee eBay store .

I'm not even halfway finished yet, so you'll continue to see new additions over the next week or two. It's pre-launch, until the website is done.

Before we begin

There are many reasons for setting out to write for you. But don't think that I will list them all in this post; that could be material for at least a dozen future posts. I'm not going to blurt it all out at once. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

I hereby swear to write a new post at least once a week. The least you can do is click on "Add to Favorites".

Sometime in the next few weeks we will customise the look of this page to fit with a new look at GMtee. I plan to integrate "Genuine GMtee" into the website, as if it were part of the site. In the meantime, we're in beta phase!

"Genuine GMtee" has a nice ring to it, don't you think, for the name of this blog? Or do you have a better idea for a name? I feel a marketing promotion coming on. I'd better go lie down until the feeling passes.

Let's keep in touch

Let's start with an introduction: I'm Don and I'm one of the two partners at GMtee. We're in Hong Kong and we design and retail fashion T-shirts at www.gmtee.com

My partner is dickie (with a small d), who's the creative genius. I do all the dirty work. We've been friends for many years and we started GMtee back in 2003. We've come a long way, but we have much further still to go.

We're creating this new blog to be a feature of our website. Yes, it's a commercial blog. I'll be writing mostly about the trials and tribulations of building our brand. I hope that our customers (that's you) will enjoy checking in to find out what we're doing, and that we will use this blog to keep in touch with each other.

I'm looking forward to reading your comments, positive or negative, and having a real dialogue with the thousands of happy people who already have a GMtee in their wardrobe. Thanks for wearing our shirts!