www.madmaxmovies.com

In our continuing effort to aid and inform the Mad Max costuming community, Karol and I today conducted the first ever blue t-shirt showdown.

For those of you new to this, I'll get you up to speed. All of the MFP officers in the first Mad Max movie wear blue t-shirts. They are raglan cut shirts (meaning the sleeve seams go in diagonally toward the neck) made by the Bonds company of Australia. Bonds is still a major underwear company in Australia, but they no longer make these t-shirts in this color. Hopefully they will make them again some day, but until then, we fans have to try and find the best version we can.

As an aside, it's worth nothing that Bonds shirts run small for some reason. Their large is like another brand's medium, or even a small. It's also worth noting that the MFP officers in the movie wore their shirts pretty tight, so whatever shirt you get you may want to buy a size smaller than you normally would - or if you manage to find a real Bonds shirt, buy it in your size and it will fit too tight - like in the movie).

Here in the states you cannot find t-shirts that are raglan cut. I've only seen long sleeve shirts and what are called baseball shirts (with 3/4 sleeves) with those types of seams. But what about the color? Fans have been in search of a color that closely matches that of the original Australia Bonds shirt.

I purchased shirts from some major retailers to see what we could get. The key to this exercise is that Karol is lucky enough to own an original vintage Bonds blue t-shirt, so we had something to compare the others to. I had hoped we would find something very close. I'm sad to say that none of the shirts I found were correct. But read on to see the results.

The shirts featured here are from U.S. chain retailers, with one extra shirt from Australia made by a company called Biz (and donated by our friend Alan - Cruzn2themax).

Left to right, top row - Biz, Bonds, Michaels
Left to right, bottom row - Kohl's, Target, American Apparel, Urban Outfitters
(the photos are large so if you can't see the whole thing on your screen, try clicking on it or download it)
(note that the Target shirt is a brand called Merona, it was just purchased at Target, and the Kohl's shirt was branded Sonoma. The Urban Outfitters shirt is BDG). There's no guarantee you'll find any of these shirts if you go to these particular chains.

In the photo above you'll see that none of the shirts are correct. The Michael's shirt (from a craft store chain here in the U.S.) is way too dark blue and probably the least accurate of the bunch. The Urban Outfitters shirt is pretty far off as well. The rest all look pretty similar to one another, but they're all too light, none have the slightly deeper blue that the Bonds has. And remember that your monitor may not be displaying these colors accurately, but at least you can see how they compare to each other.

We eventually decided that the Target shirt was probably the closest of the bunch, but it was pretty arbitrary since other than the two shirts that were way off, all of these t-shirts were sort of equally wrong.
Here's a picture of the Bonds shirt and the Target (Merona) shirt side by side. If I'm out and about and see a blue shirt that I think might be just right, I may try this again, but at the moment I have to go and return some shirts (glad I saved the receipts).

Hey Karol, maybe someday we should take your Bonds shirt down to the garment district and see if we can find a color match.

You guys are nucking futs. I love it!

Can the Bonds style shirt be found in white? According to my wife the standard way they are made is in white fabric and then dyed in batches. The dying can be done locally to spec.

Yes, Karol has been considering one day importing a bunch of the white Bonds shirts from Australia and then trying to dye them properly.
I guess it's one of those long term projects. If someone else wants to jump on it, please do. I know there would be a lot of interested buyers both here in the States and abroad.
The Bonds t-shirts aren't that expensive, it's the shipping across the Pacific that gets you. Plus you'd need to get a variety of sizes.

I'm surprised that the raglan shirts haven't made the their way to the states. They're very comfortable undershirts and they're also rather cheap to boot. I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to import a batch.

i dont know if youve been keeping up with current events but bonds are closing down oz production and sourcing from the commie chinese slave factories.

this shits me as i wear explorer socks exclusively. i have been buying up socks before they go offshore.

so i dont know if the T-shirt youre after is either still being made, is being imported or is still going to be available.

Thanks for the info. Had no idea.
Is there anyone in Australia that can check on whether or not Bonds white t-shirts are still available? Perhaps before it's too late?
Maybe I should try to buy a few.

There's this place: http://www.dugg.com.au/products_new.asp?ProductID=81432&

I would buy some of the bonds shirts if I could,I really like alot the way the seams go to the collar instead of just arc to the shoulder,like every other t=shirt i've owned/seen.

MadMaxImages wrote:There's this place: http://www.dugg.com.au/products_new.asp?ProductID=81432&

They're out of stock in my size (Large). I didn't check if they ship to the U.S., but if they do I bet it's expensive. Maybe one of our Aussie cousins could arrange to pick some up for me and send them over? (I'll pay in advance of course). Maybe there's something from here in the States they'd like in return?