In the 1990s, long sleeve band shirts were EVERYWHERE. Now it seems that you must pay a hefty price for a rotten, 20 year old rag or devour eBay for a half-decent bootleg LS. What ever happened to the beautiful, sleeve printed shirts that reigned king through the '90s?

Here are some examples.

I guess it's just not "in" anymore. I bought longsleeves with Acid Witch and an Abominable Putridity not too long ago, so it's not that they're impossible to find.

Personal taste, but I never really cared for long sleeve shirts. I prefer short sleeve.

My thing nowadays is that most shirts seem to have very large graphics that take up almost the entire front of the shirt. Obviously a lot of people probably like that, but I've always preferred smaller logos/graphics on my shirts. They seem harder to come by nowadays.

I never really liked the long sleeved T's. They were the fashion rage of the early 1990s but fashions change I guess, even for the extreme metal scene. They made sense in colder, rainier/snowy climates, but for instance, wearing a long sleeve t-shirt in Florida (a 90's death metal hotbed), where even in the winter it's like 85 degrees and humid as shit- doesn't make sense, either fashion sense or in terms of comfort. Around here in the inland/mountain region of the western US, where it's cold in the winter but infernally and hellishly hot in the summer, those long sleeve T's would just end up being packed in the bottom of the closet for 8 months out of the year.

Deicide shirts then and now reinforce your latter point (as far as logos)...



Blue Grape Merchandising sure knew what they were doing back then.

Damn those shirts are nice, though, especially that Marduk one. I'd disregard the weather and wear it anyways, a shirt like that deserves to be worn xD

I definitely wish I could find more cool looking long sleeves. They rule for the cooler, fall days around here. Unfortunately I can almost never find them for bands I like, and most of the ones from the 90's were printed strictly on fucking XXL shirts.

They seem to have been replaced by hoodies. I've always liked long sleeve shirts myself, provided they have 'prints' on the sleeves. I've pretty much given up on finding long sleeve shirts these days and have been buying hoodies, they just suck when you're wearing a coat or jacket that also has a hood, then it's this mad hoodfest by the back of your neck pushing your hair in all uncalled for directions. It's unseemly.

I hate long sleeves with stuff printed on the sleeves. I prefer short sleeves anyway.

I personally don't buy longsleeves very often because it's usually too hot in Georgia to wear them. I do have several though, and I love them. It's obnoxious when labels put their logos all over the sleeves though; I want to represent the band, not who signed them.

I live in Canada where it's long sleeve weather 8 or 9 months out of every 12, so I'd appreciate some more long sleeve options but it's understandable why they aren't attractive to people in warmer climates. The other thing that sucks about long sleeve shirts though is that they are more unpredictable in terms of fitting/size, so if you are ordering them online you're not always sure what you're gonna get. One brand of t-shirt might say medium and have sleeves made for gorilla arms, and another brand of "the same size" might have sleeves that are skintight or not long enough for your arms. They just aren't as flexible in this sense as regular t-shirts are.

I think that you may be dealing with European sizes. I once bought an official Beherit Drawing Down the Moon long sleeve that was imported from somewhere in Europe - I ordered a size XL and it fit like a tight, baseball-style shirt.



Fortunately, some labels/distributors/bands have seen the light and are designing high quality LS shirts like it's 1993.
Like Relapse, with their new Death shirts...




I ordered these, and they fit perfectly.

Cradle of Filth put out some long sleeve tour shirts with the dates on the sleeves. Plus they had (and just a few years ago brought back) probably the most known "offensive" metal shirt.

Yeah, Cradle have always had a great selection of long sleeves, including that excellently blasphemous piece of cotton. Unfortunately, most of them are from their post-Midian/shitty era (in my opinion).

Almost got that one once.

I feel the same way. I had gotten a Dark Funeral long sleeve shirt sometime in 2005 and that was my first and last long sleeve t-shirt.
With regards to the overall trend in the metal apparel industry (as waiguoren also mentioned), I think hoodies are now really the preferred choice when it comes to warm clothing, better functionality et al. It probably has also gained greater precedence because, well...it looks cooler. Hence, lower demand for long sleeve tees.

Back when I was wearing this kind of metal merchandise I always thought the sleeves were so overdone that the shirt wasn't worth paying for. Many of the pictures above shows this clearly. Print all over the sleeves. Why not just leave the sleeves alone? Many of the shirts would look more appealing if they did.

Emperor have always been on top of their game with long sleeves. I have a LS with two lions and the Emperor "E" on the front and the final lineup on the back. I've also seen an "Inno A Satana" design floating around lately.

I think that hoodies have become more synonymous with all of the "core" bands as of late and of course the Blasphemy/Conqueror/Revenge worshippers that wear them like ritual cloaks. I think that crew neck sweatshirts are the best choice for colder weather not fit for a long sleeve, but of course you do not see those anywhere these days! Let's go back twenty years again, haha...




Sweatshirts, not long sleeves.

I want that Beherit shirt from earlier but in a proper size. I don't even listen to the band and I want it just because of how awesome that album art is.

http://www.officialabyssrecords.com/pro ... s_id=11042

This will fit if you have very short arms. I occasionally wear it with the sleeves rolled up because I love the album and cover art.

The track listing on the back was a big hit at school ("Werewolf Semen and Blood", "Nuclear Girl").

I've whined a lot about shirt sizes when ordering from the Internet, I have about a 40% rate of them actually fitting properly, here's an example - I ordered two Bathory XL long sleeve tees from Black Mark in Sweden (the postage was nuts btw), and I swear they fit more like a medium than anything else. Went to a show in Sweden and bought a Bathory Hammerheart t-shirt, XL, and it fits perfectly. Which is odd, because with sweaters and jackets here in Sweden it's a large that fits me perfectly, XL is too big.

Point being it's always best to be able to try the shirts on in person.

I have a long sleeve shirt from ACxDC (crust band) that I like, but I would assume that there isn't much demand for them. In general I rarely see people wearing long sleeve shirts in real life; it's all about hoodies nowadays. Hell, I'm not crazy about them myself, but they do work well as a warm undershirt in brisk weather.

I'm more of a t shirt guy but I still wish there were more longsleeves just for variety. I have way more than enough front-art black t shirts. I want some whites (or different colors), longsleeves, tanks, or anything else different that's at a reasonable prices and still has decent art. Seems like all the specialty clothing you find either has some shitty art on it (and since there's so few, there's no variety to select from) and they cost more (which is understandable in most cases but for a tank? Come on, you're cutting the sleeves off and using less material so you can charge me 25% more?)

back in the 90s I had quite a few but sold most of them as I, too, am more a shirt or hoodie type.
However I had to buy this one when it popped up on ebay a few years back... There's just too few
Bal Sagoth merch from their early and mid era albums. Haven't worn it very often though...

Osmose made the coolest long sleeves in the '90s. There are some Nightwing and Panzer Division Marduk long sleeves that look fairly old-school available from their mailorder, but you've got to pay a great sum of money for shipping.

You can still get them it's just now under half of the bands actually do it. I sometimes prefer them to t-shirts as you get more bang for your buck in terms of overall artwork. I've got a few but I've never really been interested in getting too many, because the usual environment I find I wear them in is has unstable weather that can change at the drop of the hat, if it's gets too hot and you've got to roll up your sleeves, the thread that holds the cuffs in place loosens basically ruining it's appearance and it's overall warmth. Same thing happens with hoodies.

Fuck, I'm jealous. That Bal-Sagoth shirt looks boss

I like long sleeves but I reeeally can't stand the stuff printed on them like the repeated logos and such. The napalm death one is slightly better but i still think most of the shirts posted in here would look incredibly better with plain clean sleeves.

Great collection ancientsgate

Last year, I JUST bought a longsleeve from the band Happy Days.
They sold out fucking hella fast at that so I was lucky to get the last they were selling.
Here's what the one I got looks like:

I still buy them, they have them on Relapse, Power It Up and other sites.

I'd love to say that it is my own collection, but these are older shirts that I have found from looking online.

That Bal-Sagoth long sleeve looks awesome, grauer_mausling!

I prefer t-shirts myself. I still see some long sleeves for sale at concerts, for example I picked up this Blind Guardian shirt in 2010:

The problem I have with these shirts though is the sleeves always seem to be too short for me, and they have an elastic wrist which feels very awkward since it's higher up on my arm. As such I always roll up the sleeves and I might as well wear a t-shirt.

I like sweatshirts as well, but I'm not very savvy with the laundry so they always shrink in the wash and then the zipper bulges when zipped up.

They look and feel like pajamas.

thanks and just for completition, here's the back of it:



There's one thing I remember which made me like longsleeves back in the 90s - while the featured could often be recognized
from the arm-prints (either band logo or some kind of emblem/sign like Emperor's "E") you could show off two bands at once
when wearing a short sleeved shirt over it At least here in my town this kind of "style" was pretty common and back then
it was all about showing off what cool and undergroundy bands one heard

edit:



hahaaa, so true. In fact I've worn that Bal Sagoth LS more than one time as such

edit 2:

while we're at it - I want my Summoning LS back. I had this one here but sold it many years back. What a shame...

The washing machine, duh.

I actually prefer longsleeve shirts, but it disgusts me that they have become nothing more than collectors items to be hung in a closet and never be worn. Just searching on ebay for old longsleeves makes you realize this. I've seen certain ones reach $200 and up in the past, especially for bands such as Cradle of Filth.

I would murder for a vintage-style longsleeve of overkill's horrorscope.

90s was the age of long sleeves

80s was the age of no sleeves

Frankly, I think things come in loops. We're going back to no sleeves......