If vintage rock tees are the ultimate style accessory, then no one has accumulated more currency than Samantha Ronson, the British-born DJ to the stars, street fashion icon and GFOL (girlfriend of Lohan). From Tokyo to Toledo, she’s been spotted with astonishing frequency in her preferred outfit: wayfarer-inspired shades, designer denim, high-tops, top hats, and classic rawk band shirts. Having surveyed the body of photographic evidence, I’ve compiled a gallery of her best shirts for your viewing pleasure.

10. Here, our subject is looking pensive and distracted in a salmon-tinted Boston tee.

9. This one is difficult to make out due to the angle, but Ronson is sporting a pink t-shirt with the mug of none other than the King, Elvis Presley.

8. I’m feeling the design on this Pink Floyd top. The interplay of text and graphics is simple, colorful and linear.

7. Smile! Ronson must have a genuine thing for Pink Floyd. At home behind the ones-and-the-twos, she is wearing a different Floyd t-shirt that is just slightly more representative of the band’s psychedelic music.

6. Samantha shows off her Southern roots—who knew?—with a timeless Skynard design (that takes its inspiration from a whiskey bottle).

5. You can do a lot worse than this classic image. Stick your tongue out…and say ah!

4. Nothing burnishes your hard rock credentials quite like AC/DC.

3. Everyone loves Guns ‘N Roses, sure. It’s just that some of us, apparently, love them more. Take these photos, which depict Samantha in three such garments.

2. No rock tee collection would be complete without this iconic logo. Rumor has it that Lindsay loves to squeeze Ronson’s lemon til the juice runs down her leg. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist…)

1. This one tops the list because it came directly from the source. Ronson’s step-dad, Mick Jones, was a song-writer and guitarist for Foreigner, an act responsible for penning cheesy, soft-metal ballads like “Jukebox Hero” (bearable on the right occasions) and “I Want To Know What Love Is” (an affront to human ears everywhere). For what it’s worth, I’m feeling the blond accents, but does she really need to toss up gang signs?

Love it? Hate it? I exhort you to direct all feedback here: travis@founditemclothing.com.

Amidst quickly spreading rumors of his imminent un-retirement, Lance Armstrong confirmed earlier this week that he will return to professional cycling for the 2009 season. As most people already know, Armstrong is a survivor of testicular cancer, a 7-time winner of the world’s most prestigious and grueling cycling event, Le Tour de France, and a global, Nike-branded icon that transcends sport. That said, he is also a polarizing figure of sorts, beloved in the U.S. for his triumphs, but viewed by some in Europe as a cheat who has thus far eluded testing positive for performance-enhancing substances — allegations of which Armstrong has steadfastly denied — or worse yet, an arrogant, headstrong, American cowboy.

Regardless of how you feel about Lance (or his gold-plated, rock-star celebrity status), it’s hard to deny that he won’t raise his sport’s profile. Indeed, in a discipline desperate to rebuild its credibility with the public after a series of doping scandals that took place at the highest levels of competition, his presence alone is guaranteed to attract additional sponsors, media scrutiny, and fan interest. This, in turn, will generate increased attention for cycling in general, a development we wholeheartedly support here at It Goes to 11, especially at a time when alternatives to gas-powered vehicles are becoming more appealing, popular, and necessary.

Whether Armstrong can come back and perform at his own lofty standards, remains to be determined; his coach and at least one ESPN.com columnist think he will.

Anyways, I pulled up some clips on Youtube of Armstrong at his best. Here he is showing off his incredible handling skills in a Nike-produced clip:

And here he is in another jaw-dropping sequence sporting the maillot jaune (that’s French for “the yellow jersey”), which is awarded at the end of each stage to the overall leader of Tour. It is, without doubt, one of the most coveted garments in the sporting world.

And while we don’t sell this jersey on our site, this is a convenient time for me to remind the cycling enthusiasts reading this that we have recently reproduced a pair of bike-related tees right here on our site. “Rad Racing” was featured in the 1986 BMX movie of the same name, while the “Cutters” tee comes from the 1979 classic Breaking Away, a tender coming-of-age story about a young Indianan teen who finds relief from his pragmatic, but loving father by immersing himself in the finer points of European road racing. It’s a sweet, inspirational flick that has become a huge cult classic in the years since its release.

As with all of our shirts, both of these designs are printed on soft, American Apparel tees; they have been carefully researched, with regards to font and color, and you won’t find a better version anywhere else on the web.

They won’t help you ride as fast as Lance, but they will designate you as a devoted spoke-head and make you the envy of your cycling-inclined friends.

T-shirts are a great vehicle by which to let people know just where you stand (on, say, a divisive hot-button issue). To this end, check out the fine examples pictured below, both created by a cadre of prison guards from rural Illinois in response to the proposed closure of their economic livelihood, the historic Pontiac Correctional Center. Apparently, the Big City Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is locked in a very public squabble with the Small Town Mayor of Pontiac, Scott McCoy, the messy contours of which are delineated here in this informative NYT piece. As the community’s second largest employer, the prison assumes an outsized significance in local affairs and any attempt to change that has and will be met, naturally enough, with resistance and, in a strange, ironic twist, reverse N.I.M.B.Y.-ism.

Spotted at the big rally:

A second version for good measure:

Granted, they’re not much from a design perspective, but their creation seems distinctly American (not that there’s any problem with that, natch) and the message is, if nothing else, completely and utterly original. For what it’s worth, I prefer the fatter, thicker font on the second tee. It’s just a bit bolder, which is important when you want to convey the gravity of the situation. Anyways, I’m not much for prisons — or the questionable economics (or politics, for that matter) of incarceration — but I’ll give credit where credit is due; these guys have hit on a time-tested, winning strategy.

No word yet on whether Blagojevich (love that name, btw) has authored a t-shirted response of his own.

OMG, who is that garbed in the newest addition to the founditemclothing.com t-shirt stable? Why, it’s none other than the reigning prince of the mash-up, Greg Gillis. Better known by his nom de plume Girl Talk, Gillis is a twenty-something Pittsburgh-based beat blender who has released three mix-tapes — downloads, actually — in recent years, two of which rocket through the better part of 40 years of pop music history much in the same way that Michael Phelps cuts through water. 2006’s Night Ripper and this year’s Feed the Animals are staggering in their complexity, splicing short bits of hip-hop, alternative rock, metal, indie and dance faves (amongst many other genres) into larger compositions. To get pretentious about it, these albums are, to paraphrase the author/social critic Mike Davis, nothing less than “flagship titles in an emergent genre.”

After his recent sold-out concert in Portland this past July, the frenetic soundscaper was cooling his heels backstage after a particularly inspired set. Gracious and modest, Gillis was kind enough to model the “Death Before Disco” tee just long enough for us to snap these cool pics. Girl Talk may not be a household name (yet), but no less a music authority than The New York Times just recently took stock of his growing celebrity here.

FYI ladies, he’s garnered a well-deserved rep for getting all sweaty onstage and disrobing as he sees fit:

Once more with feeling:

Many, many thanks to local Portlander VJ Dantronix (the facilitator), ninjasinmypants.com (the photog), and the artist himself.

We posted a blog entry last week about the impending Summer Olympics (the Opening Ceremony is actually scheduled for today, August 8th, fyi) and German athletes outfitted with t-shirts designed to spotlight China’s woeful record on human rights (and by extension, its uneasy relationship with Tibet). A secondary controversy, however, about the quality of Beijing’s notoriously polluted air has been bubbling up in the background for the last 8-to-12 months — as detailed by The New York Times in this informative piece — and it now threatens to push all other issues, including one of government-imposed media censorship, to the backburner.

Upon their arrival in China this week, four members of the U.S. track cycling team drew intense media scrutiny with their curious decision to wear specially designed, United State Olympic Committee-approved masks after they deplaned and in the airport. (More details can be found here, but I’ve posted pics of the aforementioned face filters below.) As you might imagine, representatives of the host country and the Olympic establishment were less than pleased with the spectacle, though official response was somewhat muted, if not outright dismissive.

One official explained away the appearance of smog as yeah, you guessed it, simple fog stemming from the region’s severe humidity. Intense backroom diplomacy between Chinese officials and members of the U.S. delegation eventually yielded a face-saving compromise as the athletes in question quickly backpedaled (pun most certainly intended) away from their actions with a formal apology.

What’s ironic, and what most people are forgetting, is that this is hardly a unique or novel situation. In 1984, when Los Angeles played host to the Summer Games, similar concerns about smog and its effect on performance arose, and in great American fashion, and iconic t-shirt making light of the issue was born.

Not only that, this fine shirt was worn in not one, but two ’80s cult flicks produced in the wake of those games: 1984’s Repo Man and 1985’s Real Genius. We sell this very shirt here at the site (a shameless plug, I admit), which you may or may not know about.

Inform us, dear readers? What should we make of this controversy? Do you even care? And, more importantly, should we remake the tee (as one customer has suggested in a spot-on e-mail) to reflect these new times? Would you buy one if we donated a portion of the proceeds to an organization like Amnesty International?

EPILOGUE: More than 3 weeks after the Olympics concluded, the U.S.O.C. has e-mailed an official apology to the (somewhat understandably miffed) athletes in question.