These days, t-shirts are not confined anymore to uniforms for sports teams or workout clothes. T-shirts have become more and more fashionable in recent years, with people wearing them as the centerpiece—the most important part—of their outfits. One of the most popular types of t-shirts these days is the vintage style. T-shirts with a vintage style are usually thin and very soft, with faded but interesting colors, and great, unique designs. Many of them have old logos or slogans for products.

The problem with actual vintage t-shirts is that they are, in fact, used. They may be falling apart, may be stained. If they are in good shape, they are probably very expensive. People pay lots of money for clothes labeled “vintage.” They pay a lot more than they’d be willing to pay for a regular, new t-shirt.

So how can you get the funky, stylish, comfortable quality of a vintage t-shirt without sacrificing fabric quality and cost effectiveness?

The answer to this question is simple. Make your own “vintage” t-shirt! While it might be silly to take a perfectly good t-shirt and distress and abuse it to make it look like someone else has been wearing it for years, it would be silly at all to start paying attention to what exactly you like about vintage shirts, and start brainstorming from there. Vintage shirts tend to be more interesting than new shirts because they are more carefully designed. The slogans and images are more colorful, literally and figuratively. Very often the slogans are humorous and sometimes they rhyme. If the t-shirts are advertising a product, they often have an image of the product included. So maybe you could design your own product and a slogan for it. If you want to spend less time on it, you could look for ideas in old fabric swatches or wall paper patterns. These things won’t be worrisome in terms of copyrighting, but they will help you get a feel for the aesthetic of the time period that most vintage t-shirts might come from.

Once you decide what to put on your t-shirt, you can also decide on a background color. Most t-shirt printing companies offer a surprisingly large amount of colors to choose from. Vintage t-shirts often have colors that are more complex than primary colors, so try for those. They’ll give your t-shirt a much more unique look. Of course, you’ll want your t-shirt’s color to coordinate well with your design, so consider that as well. Also, some colors look newer than others. Bright primary colors, for example, will be very obviously new when your new t-shirt arrives. Darker colors or faded, heather-based colors will look older, especially with your vintage-style design on top of them.

Try these tips, and get creative, and you’ll be able to create some one of a kind, new vintage-style t-shirts. Once you have your t-shirt, you can match it with real vintage jeans or with a dressier outfit for going out at night. T-shirts these days a very versatile – especially if they look vintage. So get creative, and bring the past into the present!