Hey kids and welcome to Sally Can't Dance.
Sally Can’t Dance is a London-based independent fashion label, specialising in original designs, hand-painted and hand-printed on T-shirts and bags.
Once upon a time in Hackney, North London, there was a plucky young chap named Christopher George. In early 2003 his disdain for the homogeneous world of mainstream fashion reached fever pitch and, bored to tears with samey, uninteresting T-shirts, he thought to himself: “Forget this. I’m a clever, creative sort; I’ll make my own.â€
He started to think up ways to make money out of this hobby of his but was deterred by his girlfriend, Sally Cruickshank, who steered him towards a steady job at WH Smith.
“Under the thumb†doesn’t quite cover it.
Sally and Christopher’s relationship came to a very bitter end and, as part of a plan to wash that girl right outta his hair, he returned to the T-shirts he’d been held back from and named the new label Sally Can’t Dance, in honour of his darling ex.
Miss Cruickshank is reportedly less than impressed.
Sally Can’t Dance has been trading in Camden Lock Market every weekend since summer 2007, becoming a member of the East Yard’s close-knit family of independent traders. More recently he’s also been a regular face at Brick Lane’s Sunday Upmarket, with a stall decked out in more blue LEDs than the undercarriage of a chav’s Vauxhall Nova.
The aim of all Sally Can’t Dance designs is to be humorous without resorting to crassness or being “wackyâ€; to be rooted in pop culture but not to rely on it (the proliferation of "Vote For Pedro" T-shirts were one of many catalysts for Sally Can’t Dance); to be original and witty without being pretentious and to underpin it all with an eye-catching, carefully-considered design aesthetic. Each Sally Can’t Dance design is painstakingly worked on and tinkered with until the image is scorched into my retinas and I wake up at night screaming the names of the fonts I’ve tried.
Every single Sally Can’t Dance garment has been individually hand-printed and/or hand-painted by me, either in Dalston’s Print Club or my basement; no two are ever exactly the same.
Sally Can’t Dance garments are extremely high-quality and ethically-produced. Having heard horror stories about sweatshops, I wanted Sally Can’t Dance to avoid being complicit in the exploitation of other human beings (besides myself) at all costs.
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We've also got a Sally Can't Dance shop on Etsy.com so check it out!
Peruse the plethora of designs on offer (view profile pics) and have your faith in modern life restored. If any of them take your fancy, gimme a shout and before you know it you too could be the proud owner of a genuine, hand-made, lovingly-crafted Sally Can't Dance t-shirt.
Life doesn't get better than that.
Seriously, it really doesn't.
All designs, artwork and slogans © Christopher A. George 2004-2008