Paul’s Boutique was the Beastie Boy’s second album, released in 1989. The idea for the album cover came from Mike D, featuring a fictional clothing store named Paul’s Boutique in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The location for Paul’s Boutique was an existing clothing store on the corner of Rivington and Ludlow Streets, called Lee’s Sportswear. The front of the album cover would feature the clothing store, but the cover would fold out to reveal a panorama of the entire intersection, photographed from 99 Rivington Street. Today the intersection of Rivington and Ludlow bears little resemblance to the iconic album cover. Lee’s Sportswear is long gone, along with its neighbor, Ben’s Shoes. Today the corner is home to a gourmet wrap restaurant. Following the huge success of Licensed to Ill, but estranged from their label Def Jam and producer Rick Rubin, the Beastie Boys sought to create a much more artistically sophisticated record. Pioneering the use of multi-layering, virtually all the album, excluding the Beastie Boy’s vocals, was composed of archival samples. Initial record sales of Paul’s Boutique failed to match the success of Licensed to Ill, and Capitol Records stopped promoting the album. But Paul’s Boutique received high critical acclaim, Rolling Stone calling it the Pet Sounds of hip hop. Its underground popularity continued to grow and today it is regarded as one of the seminal hip records of all time. And the rest, as they say, is history.

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Like all our designs, this one is treated with our signature ‘relic-ing’ process which includes our own secret recipe of hand-painted chipping, cracking, fading, and just the right touch of yellowing to ensure that it looks the part of a true vintage imprint.** We lay these works of art down on premium Next Level 3900 Premium Women’s tees, aka ‘the boyfriend tee, one of the softest, best-wearing women’s t-shirts available today. We utilize state of the art direct to garment (DTG) printing which allows us to create a vintage effect that simply can’t be accomplished with other printing methods. In short, these shirts are everything you’ve dreamed of and more – it feels soft and lightweight with just the right amount of stretch making it both comfortable and flattering while the feminine fit and shorter sleeves add a special touch to this classic missy cut tee.

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Not sure what size is your best fit? We recommend taking one of your current t-shirts, laying it flat and measuring it. The measurements in the chart below are taken with the shirt laying on a flat surface. To get the length, measure from the high shoulder point down to the bottom of the shirt. To get the width, measure approximately 1-inch below the armhole, across the chest, from seam to seam. The Next Level 3900 is a fitted women’s t-shirt, so if you are looking for a roomier fit, we suggest going up a size or with the unisex Bella + Canvas 3001 we print our men’s t-shirts on as they are the same super soft ring-spun cotton that feels like an old favorite. While our tees are all made using premium, pre-shrunk, ring-spun cotton, there can be some shrinkage depending on your personal wash and dry cycles. With that said, if you’re on the fence, we always suggest going up a size.

All sizes are provided in inches!

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*Heather colors are 90% ring-spun cotton and 10% poly. **Due to the nature of the printing process and different sizes of shirts offered, imprint position and scale may vary slightly from the product images, but we do our best to be as accurate as possible.