Website of the week
Only a year ago, Neighborhoodies were farily generic-looking hoodie sweatshirts with one's neighborhood written across the chest in standard block letters. But, spurred on by public interest and the very cool-sounding staff's enthusiasm, Neighborhoodies has expanded into T-shirts, underwear, baby clothes, bags, and even pet gear, and, more importantly, they've come out with a new and improved website. Aside from the larger selection of merchandise, the best part is that there are numerous options and infinite combinations of style, color, font, font color, font background color, graphics, and on and on. And while there are hundreds (if not thousands) of neighborhoods worldwide to choose from (you can be generic and get plain ol' New York City, or you can get as specialized as Belgrano in Buenos Aires), the supercool feature is that you can write whatever you want on your hoodie or tee or whatnot. For example, you could put "Don't hump me!" on a doggie shirt, "Exit only" on the hot pants, or simply, "Go home, Jersey trash!" on this tee. Of course, it would be more punk rock to silk-screen your own T-shirts in the privacy of your Williamsburg loft, but, you know, it's okay to be bourgeois. Anyway, I like the more stylish options--there's the traditional, somewhat bulky classic sweatshirt, but I prefer the femme hoodie, double agent tee, and liberty belle camisole. Prices for all this? Fairly reasonable. Sweatshirts are $50-ish and tees are $20-ish, but if you want to go crazy with custom graphics and fonts, you can tack on an additional $2-$30. Of course, if this is all too much for you and you need some assistance, visit Neighborhoodies' store at the South Street Seaport, where a qualified professional can help you out. In the meantime, keep an eye out for me in my Cheryl Shops NYC T-shirt.