MEMORIES:

Manufacturer:

 

For the color obsessed 80s, a single color wasn’t enough. When Generra introduced their HyperColor shirts at the end of the decade, there was a brief love affair with the color changing t-shirts. But love that “hot” was just bound to go downhill.

 

Generra used their patented "Metamorphic Color System" to create a material that allowed the shirt’s color to change when it came in contact with heat. So, for instance, you could press you hand on your green shirt, and when you took it away, it would leave a blue hand print. This Mood Ring-like material would work with anything – blow dryers, hot breath – and the color where the heat was placed would change accordingly. It went perfectly with your Body Glove bike shorts or your acid wash jeans.

 

But there were two major drawbacks to the heat hype. First, people would keep touching you to see their hand print emblazoned on your shirt. Secondly, the simple fact that it’s pretty hot under your arms gave a colorful rendition of pit stains. Not exactly the look you were going for.

 

By the spring of 1992, the craze had faded – fast. Generra laid off a quarter of its workforce and the HyperColor shirt had gone the way of the super-bright neon fabrics that had come before it.