How this started
He wanted my shirt & I only had one.
Half past seven in the morning. The older one stands in the doorway, pointing at my T-shirt. Not at any shirt. At that one. So I went looking for the same thing in size 104.
Kitsch or polyester.
What I found: teddy bears in sunglasses. Slogans that turn dads into mascots. Glitter prints that last three washes. I didn’t want a costume. I wanted the same shirt.
So I made it myself.
One motif, printed twice: once big, once small. No slogan explaining anything. And only ever as a pair — because that’s the point. You’re not buying two shirts, you’re buying one thing you share.
The tree stands still & the apple rolls.
He’s got my walk. My pauses mid-sentence. He holds his cocoa in both hands, the way I hold my coffee. I never taught him any of it. At some point someone said it out loud: the apple never falls far from the tree.
Not forever.
One day he won’t want to look like me anymore. That’s how it should be. Until then we wear the same thing and head outside. And I make a note of how short the sleeves still are.
Where it comes from.
Apfel & Stamm is a brand of Das Merch. FlexCo in Linz — the same people who do the printing. No supplier to take on trust, no middleman: whoever makes these shirts sells them too. GOTS-certified organic cotton, knitted and sewn in the EU, own tailoring workshop in Fafe, Portugal.
The production in detail: dasmerch.com- GOTS organic cotton
- 180 gsm, firm jersey. The same fabric big and small.
- Made in the EU
- Own sewing facility in Fafe, Portugal. Fair wages, GOTS-certified print shops.
- No plastic
- Plastic-free packaging in a paper box. Nothing you throw out right away.
Quality control lives here.
The first testers were three and one. Control has run daily ever since: getting dressed, at the playground, in the washing machine. Whatever does not survive that does not go in the shop.
— a dad from Austria
The rest happens outside.
See the sets