If you were alive in the early 90's and didn't own a Hypercolor t-shirt, you were basically a nobody. And I was a nobody. I never owned one. Huge loser. But I would see kids in my class with them and get so jealous. Those shirts were instant coolness. I mean, check this out...
People would crowd around you and want to touch you. Wearing a Hypercolor shirt basically instantly transformed you into a member of N'Sync, The Beatles, and New Kids on the Block all rolled into one. These shirts were so awesome, some schools actually banned them because there would eventually be some boob/butt touching controversy. Some kid would walk into the principal's office with a hand mark on their prives and that would be the end of everyone's fun.
Aside from that, these shirts were pure fire. Unless you had overactive sweat glands, because this thing would sell you out as Captain Stinkypits in 3 seconds. And, from what I read, if you washed them too many times, they would just stay one color that usually ended up being some gross combination of brown/purple/mustard.
After doing a little digging on what the heck happened to these things, I found that the company that made these sweet mamma-jamma's went backrupt after only one year! Apparently, they made way too many shirts and the demand never caught up what they thought it would be. The old backwards "supply and demand" got them. Even the chairman of the company admitted they totally screwed up.
Source - Generra's treatment of Hypercolor was a classic example of putting too many eggs in one basket. A recent story in Daily News Record, a menswear industry publication, said Generra hired employees and added facilities and equipment to meet demand. It still could supply buyers with only about half of what they wanted, and Miska's phone was "ringing off the hook."
By May 1991, the company had sold $50 million in Hypercolor garments - far more than projected sales of $20 million for the year. Still the calls came, and Generra tried to accommodate.
"We tried to make too much product available in too short a period of time," Miska was quoted as saying. If he could do it again, he said, he would have limited distribution, "which would have done a lot to prolong the life of the product."It's sad. Those shirts were awesome. It's like the famous Greek myth of Icarus - they got greedy and flew too close to the sun and their shirts all turned a mustard/poop color. Or something like that.
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