
Brooke Di Giacomo shows-off the Simms-DeYoung Water Bottle
Simms Fishing Products has partnered with some of fly angling’s leading visual artists to produce a cool new product line of shirts and accessories. The Simms 2009 T-shirt collection features the work of Derek DeYoung, Jeff Currier, and Mike Stidham (whose work graces the back of their Saltwater Series). Two of DeYoung’s pieces are also screenprinted on the outsides of Simms 22 oz. BPA-free aluminum water bottles, as well.
I’ve long been a fan of DeYoung’s work, in particular, and think that the images selected for the T-shirt line are extremely nice. It’s good to see his stuff is getting the attention that it deserves from a major manufacturer in the industry.
My only complaint is the cost – the MSRP for T-shirts in the Artist Series are $24.95 a piece, and the MSRP for the water bottle is also $24.95. Simms, of course, has never been cheap, even when their stuff is made off-shore.
We’ll see what 2010 brings, but it would be great to see Simms expand their Artist Series to include the work of a few others, as well. I’d particularly like to see Simms use the photography of Mark Lance (with whom I fished this last summer – great guy), and the fly paintings of Jeff Kennedy.
Patagonia was the first to offers fish artist t-shirts with their World Trout series of t-shirts. The beauty of World Trout is that $5.00 of every shirt purchased goes to grassroots organizations working to protect fish and their habitat. World Trout has raised over 400K since it was founded in 2005 and all that money has gone to groups preserving the fish all these artists like to paint. All of Patagonia’s t-shirts are also organic cotton.
That is cool! It’s funny — I didn’t remember that. I’ll have to look them up. Patagonia has done some amazing stuff in the area of supporting the resource. I’ll find some links and add them to TNT. Thanks! (BTW, I love Moldy Chum!)