The aesthetics of the “Pan tu nie stał” designer clothing brand was formed, on the one hand, by the gray tedium and shortages of the Communist era in Poland, and, on the other, by the high-quality designs which stood out against this mundane background – the illustrations, books, posters and packaging that were created during this period. The deficient means available to designers meant that they were compelled to seek unusual solutions which, when combined with artistic talent, resulted in extremely memorable designs. Ten years after Poland regained its freedom, anyone with access to a computer could become a graphic designer. Polish reality became a chaotic motley due to an excess of means of expression.
Nostalgia for the visual aesthetics of Communist times induced us to create our own interpretation of the former approach to design. It was very difficult at the beginning – half of our t-shirts ended up ruined, and we gave them away to our friends to use as pajamas. Our evolution from two weirdos who collected “curiosities” for our blog to a company with several employees, which cooperates with a dozen or so designers (including top designers in their thirties), which produces items worn by twenty-year-olds in big cities and sells five tons of clothes per year, was slow. A peculiarity of the brand is the impossibility of translating its specific character into a foreign language. This stems from a fascination with old-fashioned Polish language, which, used in new ways, gains fresh meaning that is stripped of its original context.
