Over the years, a huge array of T-Shirts were produced for FAC 51 The Hacienda. Various shirts were made for the individual club nights (even those outside of the Hacienda itself) but there was also an impressive side industry in Staff, Security and even Customer T-Shirts. FAC 201 Dry also had its own birthday night, Staff and Security shirts. A selection is presented here, courtesy of Ang Matthews, ex-Hacienda manager, who takes up the story for Cerysmatic Factory:

"I worked at the Haç, behind the bar, '83 to '84 whilst I was a student: then went back as Assistant Manager '89 to'90: then, after the police court case & we re-opened, I became Manager & Licensee from '91 to '96.

"So, the T-Shirt thing. T-shirts had always been a major part of the Factory artefacts since the Hacienda had opened. The first T-Shirts, the Birthday T-Shirts and the Staff / Security T-shirts were always freebies but then we started selling some from the Haç cloakroom and they did OK. It was then decided to do this 'properly' & sell them from FAC 281 The Area. In true Factory fashion we never made a penny on them. This was a constant question of Wilson's - how come we lost money on our T-Shirts, especially the World in Motion ones - a large part of FAC 301 Factory Conference was taken up debating this. And no, we never came up with the answer.

"It was easy to get sponsorship from the drinks companies for the T-shirts - I'd just ask. The staff were always on at me to get new ones for them. I later found out why, they were selling them on the side. I found this out when I saw more than a few holiday-makers in Pasha, Ibiza wearing staff T-shirts - they told me they'd paid £50 for them off various members of the bar staff.

"Anyway, I got all the T-shirts together and decided to sell them. I love that pic of them all stacked up. Why did I sell them? Well, I didn't see any point in just keeping them in boxes - there were far too many to frame, so to eBay they went. There are 3 T-Shirts I've kept - the Black 'Haç '90 Hoodie', 'The Haçienda Must Be Built' and 'Haç Flowers' - these 3 were my favourites and, for me, epitomise a certain time long ago."

Many thanks to Ang for her memories and to Eastie for photography.

Labels: artefacts, FAC201_Dry, FAC51_The_Hacienda, T-Shirt

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