Old School Design: Classic Bengals Apparel

I want to thank my friends at For All To Envy for today's old school design images. I wrote a few weeks ago about the website and their store that is full of classic licensed products. Kirk has the greatest collection of classic sports licensed products that you will find anywhere on the planet. Seeing all of these classic items at & Still brings back so many memories from my days in the sports retailing business back then.

Today's old school design features some classic Bengals gear that you would have been able to buy back when the Bengals were fresh off of their second Super Bowl appearance. The image above is a Chalk Line Graphic Jacket.  Chalk Line created this innovative line of jackets that utilized die sublimated graphics all over the garment to create a really loud and visually exciting look. You could get your Chalk Line Graphic Jackets with team related themes or player related themes. This is a great example of the player version, featuring Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason. There was nothing like the Graphic Jacket at the time and there has been nothing quite like it since. A true sports products business classic!

Another classic item that Kirk sent my way was this classic caricature t-shirt from Salem Sportswear. The caricature shirt was one of the most popular sports licensed products ever created. Thanks to the popularity of players like Michael Jordan, the caricature shirt dominated the market in the 1980's and early 1990's. The oversized caricature head and catchy phrases were staples in this classic t-shirt line.

Pair this classic Salem caricature Boomer Esiason shirt with your Boomer Graphic Jacket and you would have achieved the status of super fan. Both of these are great examples of one of the best eras in sports design and bring back many good memories about an outstanding time to be in the sports products business. Thanks again to For All To Envy for these great images.

Comments

[Jason Massopust]

I loved those Salem shirts. Over the last few years I've been building up a collection of images from those shirts that have been posted for sale on ebay and from other sites. If anyone has some pictures they want to share, let me know. Or if anyone has an old catalog or knows a person that used to work there that would have some images of their product, please let me know.