604 Republic is not a Banana Republic. I’m not trying to implant that in your brain with the title. I was just trying to get banana in the title of this post because I’m reviewing a t-shirt retailer that calls itself 604 Republic, and every time I hear the word Republic I think of Banana, and novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with 604 Republic, the cool tee company from Vancouver, which designs really fabulous looking shirts for your fashion pleasure. These designs are richly colorful and interesting looking. You’re not going to find just words on a shirt or shout outs to the latest comedies. These look more like shirts designed by art students, who aren’t too snobbish for pop culture.
If you take a look at the 604Republic.com catalog, you will see that they dig the gamer culture, animated/cartoon tv shows, Star Wars, and all the standard stuff that geeks and nerds love in the pop culture arena. And, they really do a good job of the mashup. You have The Muppets and Battle Star Galactica, Star Wars and the Grim Reaper, The Smurfs and zombies, Bert and Ernie and zombies. Admiral Ackbar and the Barack Obama Hope poster. It seems to be the 604 Republic specialty, especially the Star Wars mixed with something else.
Here’s a few examples of the pop culture mashups this crew is putting on cotton:
The Muppets Frakking Puppets T Shirt
And, here are a few of the cool gamer shirts:
Super Mario Lava Burn Ward T Shirt
604 Republic is a relatively new site, founded in September 2010 by Sebastian Arciszewski. But, at the time of this writing he has over 30 shirts in the catalog with something for just about every nerdy and geeky man, woman, child, and sentient robot.
Go forth and check this site out. It’s cool. And, hey, it just hit me what 604 Republic really means. 604 is the area code for Vancouver, British Columbia. That isn’t just some random number. Wow. Can’t get anything by me.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I ordered a hoodie as a gift for a friend from this site in mid-November and it was lost by Canada Post. Canada Post could not open an investigation on the missing package because that can only be done by whoever ships the package. After repeated attempts to contact 604 Republic, the owner, Sebastian, finally got back to me in early December with an apology, a promise to re-ship the order as soon as possible, along with three free T-shirts for my trouble. It is now over one month since that promise was made and 2 months since I submitted (and paid for!) the original order, and I have received nothing, and my repeated e-mails to Sebastian and posts to 604 Republic’s Facebook have been completely ignored. I am out almost $70 and considering resorting to legal action. Based on my experience, I would highly recommend not purchasing anything from this company.
I wouldn’t buy anything from these guys. Paid a good amount in shipping, never sent a tracking number and my stuff never arrived.
Send 3 emails so far and not a single reply. Avoid.
Hi Michelle,
Very sorry to hear of your experience with 604. Have you been able to call them directly?
Booker