Pull&Bear “Bleached” and “NEXT” shirts
These new shirts by Pull&Bear use Goth Ball Crap. One has plain black letters, the other shows outlined caps. There is no outlined version of this font, therefore it seems to have been made by the designer of the shirts.
The fact a blackletter font is used on clothes that don’t refer to metal music is really uncommon and astonishing. But the interesting thing is the brutalist style of the shirts, especially the one with the outlined text. Gothic fonts are associated with brutalism. It seems that gothic fonts could be considered as signifiers of the brutalist style (there are many examples of brutalist designs that use Harbour, see the Font Review Journal for further reading). Furthermore, the fact that the brutalist style can be seen on a ready-to-wear shirt signifies that brutalism is now mainstream. As evidence that these clothes can be perceived as brutalist, see the Primavera Sound & Pull&Bear page.
1 Comment on “Pull&Bear “Bleached” and “NEXT” shirts”
Salut Pierre, see also Andreas’ earlier contribution about the Vetements fashion label. That post includes links to further reading about blackletter faces used in hip hop, streetwear, and eventually also high-end fashion: “From Yeezus to Purpose: Streetwear’s Abuse of Heavy Metal Fonts” (Hypebeast) and “Vetements, Brioni and Kanye Agree: It’s Gothic Time” (The New York Times), both from 2016.