It doesn’t get much more iconic in the United States than Harley-Davidson, and The Rolling Stones fit pretty much the same bill in England. Okay, so Harley-Davidson has been around for 116 years, and The Rolling Stones just 57 years—still, that’s a pretty good track record for two brands that inspire fanaticism.
So, some marketing people working overtime came up with the idea of combining Harley-Davidson and The Rolling Stones on a single t-shirt and call it the H-D x Rolling Stones line—that’s unambiguous. Forgetting for a moment that some outlaw Harley-Davidson riders got The Rolling Stones into a bit of trouble at Altamont Speedway 50 years ago, this does seem like a natural collaboration.
The result is multiple designs that are printed on all sorts of fabric concoctions—58 in all, according to a Harley-Davidson spokesman—so men, women, and children can all enjoy the graphic coming together of international brands.
Modern Mashup takes the Harley-Davidson name and super-imposes it over The Rolling Stones’ tongue-and-lips logo, as designed by John Pasche, with modifications by Craig Braun. That logo has served The Rolling Stones well since 1971, when it debuted on the Sticky Fingers LP.
If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there is the Start Me Up design. Named after The Rolling Stones’ 1981 single. Apparently, it means something a bit different when applied to a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Or, maybe it doesn’t. The beauty is, you get to decide, and the tongue-and-lips logo helps you make your choice.
Next up is the Groovy design. It is a bit of an odd one. It combines 1960s iconography, with The Rolling Stones 1971-and-later logo, plus the Harley-Davidson Bar-and-Shield from 1910. Okay, so everything is from the 1900s—we’re sold!
Moving onto the Jet Engine design, the Bar-and-Shield appears again, and this time with The Rolling Stones’ 1975 Tour of the Americas logo—an eagle with jet engines under its wings. On that tour, the Rolling Stones played to over a million people, and would love to sell one of these shirts to each person who attended.
Finally, we have the Midnight Rambler t-shirt. It has a graffiti-inspired Rolling Stones graphic, along with the Harley-Davidson Bar-and-Shield. Let’s not get into the topic of Midnight Rambler—we’re all familiar with the unforgettable Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out performance. Still, an outlaw is an outlaw.
The Harley-Davidson x Rolling Stones apparel is available at Harley-Davidson dealers and on the Harley-Davidson website.
