Michael Itkoff's Top Ten

Michael Itkoff is a photographer and a Founding Editor of Daylight Magazine.


Michael Itkoff's Top Ten T-Shirts


10. Columbus Day Sucks! I love subversive use of everyday objects and this take on the $50 is pretty sweet. This shirt was made by my friend Phil Preston on the Akwasasne Mohawk Reservation. Phil teaches at the Akwasasne Freedom School and presses shirts under the moniker Rising Nation. I actually traded Phil a few hours of Photoshop lessons for this shirt.



9. I picked up this mashup of Boston graffiti a few weeks ago in a Cambridge thrift shop.



8. This shirt is made by L’atlas a Parisian graffiti writer. I am not sure if you can get this shirt anymore but it is one of my favorites. The front has Latlas written in his signature font and the back features one of his twisted maze/barcode designs. I actually tried to have Latlas design a faux barcode for Daylight but it never happened….



7. The Labold Brothers are old friends of mine whonow design and sell shirts in Philadelphia. I was in a punk/ska band called Mindset and Jimmy used to be in a rival band called the Beefcakes. His brother Greg danced around in a cow outfit. Good times…



6. We are the world. We are the people. I barely remember that day but I do remember holding hands with strangers in the middle of a road somewhere for a long time. And I still have the shirt.



5. In Thailand in 2003 I rented a Jeep with my friend Danny and drove through Northern Thailand to the Burmese border. During the drive through the hills we were stopped at a Thai army checkpoint and hung out with the guys for a bit. I traded a torn Sarah Lawrence College shirt for this one. Unfortunately it has shoulder pads so I don’t wear it very often…



4. I got this one from a copy of Grand Royal magazine years ago. It was an iron on patch with the GR logo and a big Moog keyboard but its pretty worn out.



3. An ex-girlfriend got this for me in a thrift shop. It is really broken in and comfortable so I still wear it all the time.



2. This is a taxi service in Philadelphia. I do not know how I got this shirt but it is the softest piece of clothing I own. I love it.



1.The lettering for this shirt was hand stitched by my mother in the 70s as a gift for my father before they moved down to Philly and got married.