FASHION SCENE T-shirts, the next generation BY SAM PFEIFLE

Last we heard from Jay Allen, he was an executive with Goodwill Industries. Looks like he wanted to get even closer to the clothing industry. Allen has begun producing Jay Allen brand T-shirts, "conceived and executed on the working waterfront of Portland, Maine" in a fashion that’s fairly unique.

"I’m screen printing with discharge inks," says Allen. "It needs to be done on shirts that have reactive dyes," so that when you apply a chemical it changes to the color you want. That way you don’t have that ink-as-texture feel. "It’s fairly difficult to work with, semi-dangerous to work with," says Allen with a laugh. "It’s just not that good to breathe this stuff all that much."

Maybe he’s been huffing too much of it, as his sales pitch runs like this: "If you are a bit twisted, somewhat irrational, and are constantly raging against the world . . . welcome to Jays’ world."

"My whole idea is kind of like anti-fashion," he says, while unveiling handmade, one-at-a-time T-shirts with slogans like "Peace (when Hell freezes over)" or "Justdefy Stupidity." "That’s me, I hate trends — the whole dichotomy of this is that I’m trying to sell them to a lot of people, and if it works, that becomes a trend." He laughs. "I just think it’s sad that kids, especially, kill themselves to get that article of clothing that’s in fashion."

The T-shirts bear every appearance of being extremely time-intensive, with scripted lettering, multiple colors, and patterns like a delicate spider web that morphs, like that facing-candle optical illusion, into a clover. They are, one guesses, the sorts of T-shirts Bloomingdale’s would want to sell for $150 to people with more money than they know what to do with. But Allen would be happy consigning them at Bull Moose (which he hopes to actually do, soon).

"I’m a redneck, non-cool guy working in a fish-processing plant down on the waterfront in Portland," Allen notes. "I don’t make believe I’m cool, but I know I’m good at making these T-shirts . . . My main thing would be, I don’t want to make shirts that say ‘Save a tree eat a beaver.’ I’d like to think my shirts are a little more thoughtful than that."

Allen also hopes to display his T-shirts soon as art, possibly at a local coffeeshop or other accessible venue, encased in old picture frames — "just to say, hey, this is wearable art."

Looking to make your body a gallery? Call 207.233.7599.