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Put your hood on your hoodie

By MICHAEL CANNING
Published January 28, 2005

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There's nothing like wearing your neighborhood pride.

Isn't that right, folks in Goatstown, Dublin?

And how about all you peeps in Oslo's Aker Brygge? Represent!

Now you can, if you're from those particular neighborhoods or hundreds of others from around the world and all over the U.S. Just place an order online with Neighborhoodies.com.

The Brooklyn-based clothing company Neighborhoodies got its start in 2002 making hooded sweat shirts, or hoodies, emblazened with the names of New York City neighborhoods. Now Neighborhoodies has gotten mentions on the Today Show, CNN and in the New York Times , and has opened stores in New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Cincinnati.

Its line has expanded to six styles of sweat shirts, 15 styles of T-shirts, three styles of women's undies, two styles of tote bags and a dog shirt. Plus there's a kids line that includes baby tank tops, bibs and miniature hoodies and T-shirts.

The coolest feature about the Neighborhoodies Web site is the selection of cities and neighborhoods it offers. Just click on the "City" drop down menu, and you get a list of 78 cities from around the world. When you select a city, the "Neighborhood" drop down menu then offers specific neighborhoods from that city.

Get as enclave-y as you like -- order a hoodie that trumpets Manhattan's Stuy. Town, or Vancouver's Chilliwack, or Prague's Husinecka.

Unfortunately, Neighborhoodies doesn't have bay area cities or neighborhoods in its database. So you'll have to do a custom order to get a Tampa Heights hoodie or Roser Park muscle tee.

In fact, all Neighborhoodies items can be highly customized with a wide selection of colors, font styles, icons and sizes. And of course, you can custom order your message.

Style note: Despite all the possible choices available, most anything you'll end up with from Neighborhoodies will have a "70s retro look.

The online prices for the sweat shirts are $49.99, $22.99 for T-shirts, $14.99 for women's underwear, $17.99 for all kids wear, $16.99 and $39.99 for totes, and $18.99 for the dog shirts.

A few of our favorite things:

For kids wear, the Baby Tank that says "Butter," the Bibster that says "Donut Thief," and the Ladybug mini T-shirt that says "Ex-Girl Scout."

For the adult Gun Show T-shirt (a Neighborhoodie term for sleeveless T-shirt), the "Babies are such aholes" slogan got our attention.

The "Cats Suck" dog shirt struck us a natural sampling of Noo Yawk attitude. It also leads us to suggest a "Dogs Suck" cat shirt. While we're at it, why not a "Snakes Suck" gerbil shirt, or a "Mirrors Rule" vest for parakeets.

Maybe not.

[Last modified January 27, 2005, 16:37:51]