— †he dirty chic

American Apothecary, the social and environmentally friendly avant-garde t-shirt company, educates society on the dangers of prescription drug use. Walking into the American Apothecary showroom located in New York’s Fashion District on West 36^th Street, there is a sweet man to greet and offer refreshments. The 14-month young design team consists of a range of different personalities that have the common goal of uncovering medical truth to benefit the world’s health.

The company’s founder Jeremy Sziklay, a psychology turned law major at Syracuse University, became interested in the commonality of prescription drug use today.  He began to research the many, now illegal drugs that were advertised as “safe remedies” 100 years before. Drugs such as Heroin; used as a pain killer and cocaine was put into toothache drops for children.

To most people this would seem crazy but this is not much different from today. We live in a world where anything and everything can be solved with a single prescription; or so we think. “So many Americans these days eat things, take things that are told to be good for them,” Co-Creator Sziklay says.  Sziklay saw this connection and wanted to educate people; he teamed up with his college buddy, Matthew Kronenberg and started American Apothecary.

The edgy T- shirt company addresses our society’s dangerous fascination with drugs and our addiction to self-medicating by putting vintage medicine labels on high-end cotton t-shirts.  “American Apothecary is commenting on how our perceptions of these and other once legal but now taboo substances have drastically changed over the last 100 years,” says the company’s publicist John Thompson II, “However, despite our amended perception of those substances, the public is being prescribed a new set of substances that are proven to be just as dangerous and addictive. History is repeating itself.”

American Apothecary products are 100% eco-friendly.  The company’s designer Anatanstia Fokina explains that their T-shirts are made from organic cotton and print with water-based ink.  Even the presentable T-shirt packages are biodegradable. Aside from helping the environment, the company also helps the community, donating 10% of all profit to Drug Outreach programs.

Although the company produces amazing t-shirts their intention is not to glamorize drug addiction, but rather shed light on the problem.  “It is our intent to create an epidemic of self education within the public,” Thompson concludes. “We want people to think for themselves and “take a closer look” before blindly ingesting products sold to them.”

(John and Matt of American Apothecary)

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