Iron-on Transfers

This may come as a huge surprise to many kids who read this, but back in the ‘70s you couldn’t buy t-shirts with words, logos, etc. printed on them. You could buy any color t-shirt you wanted, but there were a very few shirts with logos on them, for the most part - they were just not available.

The big thing back then was iron-on transfers. They were huge! The stores that sold these had tons of solid colored t-shirts, oh – and you could get baseball shirts, tank-tops and some other types of shirts – but tons of shirts. The walls of these stores were covered with iron-transfer patterns, and there were also bunches of books with pages and pages of transfers.

The most difficult part was, of course, picking out which pattern to put on your shirt. There were bands, ‘70s sayings, popular culture icons, places, cars – a ton of cool stuff. I remember that one of my favorite t-shirts that I got was a blue shirt with the band Chicago’s logo on it. And my brother had one with the slogan “Keep on Truckin’” with the cartoon guy with his foot stuck way out on it. They were really cool!

There are some great websites where you can pick up retro t-shirts. Just Google retro/’70s/classic t-shirts and you’ll have some great old memory flashes as you peruse the pages and pages of what were some great iron-on transfers. Nowadays, finding them on the web is easy; clicking through “pages and pages” of them on the computer is also easy; ordering them off the websites is easy; opening your mailbox to find them is easy, too. Back in my days you had to make a real effort to get a ride or ride your bike to the t-shirt store, you usually involved a close friend or two, and you got to sit there and watch them “make” it after you finally chose the perfect transfer. And when you put it on, it was still warm!

Next time you see your favorite ‘70s image, maybe you’ll pop onto the web, order a t-shrit and relive those memories!