LOCAL COLOR/A T-shirt named Desire
When one thinks of New Orleans, refinement and the city’s wealth of history are often overshadowed by the more lewd aspects of its draw — and with all the glitz and debauchery that Bourbon Street offers, it is no wonder. To recast the city’s image and create resident pride and tasteful souvenir choices for tourists, this spring the city started its own product line, Desire. Reminiscent of the blue and white tiles used to spell out street names in the French Quarter, the T-shirts are attempting to generate a positive image for New Orleans.
About two years ago, when Mayor C. Ray Nagin took office, the idea of having a city store with custom merchandise — much like the city-run merchandise store in New York City — surfaced. With that as a long-term goal, the city’s marketing department launched an internal campaign with the slogan “It’s time to care again,” a takeoff on New Orleans’ rather unflattering nickname “The City That Care Forgot.” The campaign used lettering that looked like the old blue and white tiles in the French Quarter, and it proved to be such a hit that the city decided to use the tile-like lettering on T-shirts. “We saw these as an opportunity to kind of test the market for city-branded apparel and products,” says Matt Konigsmark, marketing director for New Orleans.
The understated T-shirts simply brandish the word Desire, hinting at the famed Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which is set in New Orleans. The marketing department wanted to appeal to residents as well as tourists. who otherwise have raunchier T-shirt choices with slogans such as “New Orleans: Proud to Crawl Home.”
Four designs are available on a variety of shirts, from standard men’s T-shirts to infant shirts and baby doll styles for women. The city has sold about 350 T-shirts so far, which are available for sale on the city’s Web site, and a few local souvenir stores have ordered them. In addition to T-shirts, sterling silver necklaces, pendants and cuff links with the Desire theme are available, as are products such as insulated can holders. The city hopes to sell merchandise such as city street signs and items with the New Orleans Police Department insignia in the future.
Because the venture is still new, all revenue from the Desire line is going back into buying more merchandise. Expansion is planned once the operation becomes self-sufficient. The T-shirts have received some national media attention. An Associated Press article was printed in newspapers nationwide, and the shirts have even garnered coverage from as far away as South Africa. The marketing department also gave samples to American Idol finalist and New Orleans resident George Huff, who wore the shirt in interviews, and to actress Patricia Clarkson, who wore the Desire shirt to her rehearsals for a production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Public feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “I’ve always had this gut feeling that there were a lot of fans of the city of New Orleans and that if we created tasteful merchandise and apparel that people would buy it and wear it,” Konigsmark says. “This has further convinced me of that. People say they love it.”
