Held der Arbeit Men's T-Shirt, Red Lettering

An East German honour turned into a chest print

Held der Arbeit, Hero of Labour, was a state award in the GDR. Frechstoff turns it into a two-line motif in a red serif face with strong stems. Between the lines two hands take hold of one another, drawn in thin white strokes that run out into horizontal bars at left and right.

For the nostalgic and for the genuinely hard-working

Worn, the honour reads as a wink: for the colleague who has run the shift for decades, for a father going into retirement, or for anyone who sees no reason to hide roots in Sachsen, Thüringen or Brandenburg. At a school reunion it starts conversations on its own.

Shades and fit

The red comes into its own on dark ground. Navy and black carry sizes up to 5XL, brown and burgundy up to 3XL. The garment itself: cotton only, knitted as a tube, short sleeves, a round neck with its tape, and a straight regular fit.

The drawing

Both hands are laid in as outline alone, unfilled, with fine strokes for fingers and knuckles. To either side the line continues level and fades out at the edges of the motif. The first pair of words stands above the drawing, the last below it.

Widths and cloth

Eight widths make up the series. In XL the garment weighs 195 grams, in 3XL 225. Quiet and soft is how the 185 g/m² jersey meets the hand, something a wash at 30 degrees leaves in place. In the shop the motif belongs to the Osten & DDR section.