- 1 comment

Breaking Maroons' Monopoly

Have you heard about Diliman Republic? It's the new UP shirt "brand" now available at the UP Shopping Center and also online. When I knew about DR via their Facebook ads, I got excited about it because for a long time, we have been getting our UP shirts only from the Maroons shop, and occasionally, from Universidad (who does shirts, bacg, etc. for other universities and colleges too).

And let's face it, Maroons doesn't update their designs that often. In fact, the last time I visited their UP Shopping Center shop, they still have on display the same designs that delighted me during my first-ever UP shirt-hunt when I was a UP freshman (that was in 1999).

Shirt designs from Maroons.

Through the years we saw DLSU and ADMU shirts and jackets that made our jaws dropped in awe and partly in envy. We wondered why, despite all the brilliant minds the UP College of Fine Arts has and had, can't UP have shirts that have updated, new millennium designs. You know, designs like those from Team Manila, and the Helvetica-loving generation.

Diliman Republic comes close to that. And here are some shots I took of their products during a very recent visit to their Shopping Center shop (just beside the Marrons store, haha).





I have complaints though (reason why I just snapped pictures and never bought haha). The sizes are strange, especially for the polo shirt designs. The shirts are too wide, even for the ones sized Small and Medium. While the designs are nice, the quality of the shirts seem substandard (thin fabric, not so fine printing, etc.). The jackets are OK, but I don't see the need for them now. If they decide to use better shirts to print their designs on next time, I'll definitely get some from them. And of course, I hope they (and Maroons, too) come up with more new and fresh designs in the future.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

reposting:

I like their black sweater with the red UP logo, at least new apparel has come :)