L.A. Fashion Week Fall '07: Private School Assault Wear

On March 18, at downtown Los Angeles specialty boutique Push Emporium, Private School Assault Wear showed cotton T-shirts, hoodies and polo shirts emblazoned with guns, knives and brass knuckles that were a perfect fit for aspiring suburban homeboys.

Creative director Douglas Snell’s uniform of “preppy Ivy League with street” included Kelly green and pink polo shirts with embroidered revolvers in place of the famed alligator or polo horse and a hidden message under the back of the collar that read, “rich and dangerous.”

The shock of imagery AK-47s, Uzi guns, grenades and revolver handguns was softened when shrunken to a repeat pattern on a gray T-shirt with unfinished edges or camouflaged in a vertical line onto the sleeve of a track jacket.

Snell said he uses gun prints because “America is very gun happy” and added that guns are as American as apple pie and the American flag.

The guns motif looked best when it was mixed with a dose of humor. On one T-shirt with a life-size graphic of a gun holster holding a revolver, Snell adds an ironic twist by adding a found 1970s-era iron-on of an arching rainbow across the front. —Rhea Cortado