Dream Baby Press’s Starr is equally curatorial. “I make very little merch. I really don’t want to make things just to make them, or do any cash grabs, which is what most merch is,” he says. “I really only want to make pieces in limited batches that you can get at our events.”
Quality is as crucial as scarcity; Burley wants her book merch to be treasured, not thrown away. The cut-and-sewn T-shirts are crafted from organic cotton and produced in Portugal, while the crop of upcoming baby tees is inspired by an old Japanese band T-shirt Burley personally thrifted. “It’s an added luxury detail that’s really thoughtful and considered,” she says.
The origin story
Book merch wasn’t always so intentional. The story of contemporary book merch begins with Daunt Books, an Edwardian bookshop with three stores in London. In 2006, Daunt began to introduce a cheap canvas tote, printed with an illustration of the shop. It accidentally became an iconic staple of the literati, selling thousands across the world in the process. “As much as I love to hate on them, I have to give props to the humble bookshop tote — without it, none of this would have happened,” says Tsjeng.
Daunt’s low-price bestseller tote was a lightbulb moment for rare book boutique Idea. Co-founder David Owen initially had the idea to slap “Birkin” on a tote bag, but opted for “Winona” instead, inspired by Winona Ryder. He produced an initial run of 25 shirts for the opening of Dover Street Market in New York, but has sold 15,000 units to date. “If you went to Paris for fashion week [in 2016] and you were in Eurostar departures, between bags and shirts and hats saying ‘Winona’, you could probably count on seeing about eight,” says Owen.
The merch has since grown into a range of spellout pieces that typifies Idea’s idiosyncratic use of language. Its signature offering is a playful statement — like “Fatty Tuna”, or “Expensive Taste”, or “I Don’t Work Here” — worn by those with chutzpah. “People who wear them have to be a certain type of person, and only a certain percentage want to be spoken to. You try wearing a ‘New Dad’ hat and not being involved in a conversation every five minutes,” jokes Owen. Idea’s logo can only be found at the back, playing on an IYKYK vibe and solely recognizable through a signature serif font. “It’s the same underlying enthusiasm for seeing something or thinking of something and wanting to share it.”
