RAGS TO RICHES TALE OF MUSIC MERCHANDISE

The paraphernalia of the music industry, especially the humble T-shirt, has become almost as big as the bands, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.

Walk down any main street in Ireland and you'll see the kind of advertising that company executives would give their pension for. It's on the front and the back of T-shirts, and - aside from the initial price of the article of clothing (we'd guess anything between €20-€35) - the advertising is for nothing.

For the most part, the words emblazoned on the T-shirts make up the titles of rock bands, which are in and of themselves brand names.

It's a truism in the fickle, ephemeral nature of the music industry that T-shirts often outlast the bands they advertise, but over the past five years in particular there seems to be more of an effort to get more money out of the music fan before the band splits up. Never before, for instance, have pop and rock stars aligned themselves and their names to fashion retailing. The list of pop stars who have realised there is money to be made beyond the merchandising stall at the back of the venue is growing fast.

Lily Allen has recently launched her curve-friendly "Lily Loves" line for shopping mall franchise New Look; Pete Doherty, frontman with The Babyshambles and former beau of model Kate Moss, is designing clothes for the Manchester-based fashion label Gio-Gio; Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders is designing T-shirts, jackets and hoodies; Kylie Minogue (who rumbled pop music's connection with fashion retailing sooner than most) has loaned her name (and by direct association her lithe figure) to a range of beachwear for fashion retail giant H&M; The Gossip's Beth Ditto is also planning to launch a range of clothing for the fuller-figured female through New Look.

American alt country/roots singer Ryan Adams, meanwhile, has inked an exclusive deal with record retailer HMV (via its website www.hmv.co.uk) to sell his Halloween Head T-shirt, which was personally designed by Adams. It's quite simple, then - as the economic model for recorded music shifts, so the appeal of broadening the range and breadth of merchandising catches on.

The staple diet of rock/pop merchandising, however, remains the humble T-shirt. While peripheral merchandise (which includes the likes of sew-on stickers, towels, posters, mugs, jewellery, gloves, belts, figurines, sunglasses cases, hats and caps, sweat bands, pens, mouse-mats and shorts) sells simply as "gift" items, it is the T-shirt that tops the lists. Aside from the matter of fans buying apparel in order to form some kind of bond with fellow music fans or their peers (as well as, of course, to annoy their parents) the T-shirt has become a terrific brand-building tool.

It is the live music market - which has boomed over the past five years - that is the primary cause for the upswing in merchandising. Despite the poor weather this summer, open air festivals such as Oxegen and Electric Picnic in Ireland, and Reading and Glastonbury in the UK (not to mention numerous events all across Europe) witnessed hundreds of thousands of music fans exchange cash for clothes.

"T-shirt sales were at an all-time low in 2003," says Nic Wastell, managing director of merchandising distribution company CID, which sells into retail stores and festivals. He mentions how the actual retail placing of T-shirts - viewed at many stages in their existence as something to wear under clothes - negatively affected sales.

The trick, says Wastell, was to make the T-shirts look less like vinyl album covers, to take them off the shelves - where they were stacked one on top of the other - and place them on clothes hooks. The effect on sales was startling - the first week they were in the stores, sales went up 600 per cent. This year alone, CID has placed more than 1.25 million T-shirts into retail. It's a figure which, according to the company, will grow and grow.

But it isn't just the design and marketing savvy music acts (take a bow My Chemical Romance, Green Day, HIM and Metallica) that have been keeping an eye on the profit margins. Major record companies have started to realise they can make money through merchandising. Through multi-platform (or "360-degree") contracts, an agreed percentage profit from artist merchandise goes back into the label coffers (or, in the case of Madonna, her new bosses, concert promoters Live Nation, who will no doubt have prime merchandise locations in venues). What with name acts such as Prince, Radiohead, The Charlatans, Ray Davies and Nine Inch Nails effectively giving away their latest albums, Columbia Records managing director Mike Smith agrees that a re-examination of the traditional record company business model is essential.

"Every single record company is in the same position - the business was complacent and needed radical solutions. In a way, the downturn in revenue could turn out to be the best thing that has ever happened to the industry," he says.

It remains to be seen whether such radical solutions will include marketing mugs for the likes of Robbie Williams or fingerless gloves for The Killers.

What is certain is that the T-shirt, following a fallow period of being perceived as unfashionable, is top of the pops.