BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Walking around Musikfest this year, you may have noticed a familiar throwback: the ‘Fest’s original poster art from nearly 40 years ago slapped on T-shirts.
You can thank Lehigh Valley Apparel Creations, of Bath, for those works of art.
Also, for clarity’s sake, the art wasn’t just “slapped on” the shirts, but we’ll get to that later.
Look around the SteelStacks campus a bit more, and you’ll find even more of their wares: the staff and volunteer shirts, as well as some of the merchandise tent pieces, are all from LVAC.
Chances are, some of the shirts for bands you’ve seen at Musikfest were made by LVAC, including Slingshot Dakota’s tees.
“You can tell they're all dancing to these different genres. We're kind of giving a little nod to the polka and the German tradition, which I think is really cool."ArtsQuest Senior Retail Business Manager Amy Love
LVAC has been a staple of the Lehigh Valley’s small business scene for a while, and you may recognize owner and operator Chris Regec as a pivotal part of the area’s music and wrestling worlds.
But at the core of the operation is what matters most for LVAC, ArtsQuest, and Musikfest — celebrating that local love, and supporting a sense of creativity across the Lehigh Valley and beyond.
The Musikfest '85 tee
According to Regec, LVAC has been producing Musikfest shirts for the past few years, and some of the 'Fest merchandise can be found at their tent. This year, Regec’s group also printed the staff and volunteer shirts.
But the standout of this year’s event is inspired by a piece of art from almost four decades ago.
ArtsQuest Senior Retail Business Manager Amy Love said the idea to use the classic poster art stemmed from the marketing team following last year’s successful 40th-anniversary throwback tee.
“It was such a hit. People loved it. It really resonated with everybody,” Love said, leading to the group selecting the 1985 poster art for this year’s shirts.
The classic ’85 print just had something special about it — a sort of timeless quality which set it apart from other prints during that era, Love said, with an inspiring feel to it.
“You can tell they're all dancing to these different genres. We're kind of giving a little nod to the polka and the German tradition, which I think is really cool. And then it's everybody enjoying the ‘Fest at the bottom of the strip, and so I think the layers of it still hold true today.
"And of course, it's a beautiful image. So we decided to kind of, once again, do a little nod to the past and offer another throwback, and Chris did a phenomenal job, absolutely beautiful. We couldn't ask for a better design,” Love said.
In order to get the perfect look and feel, Regec said it took some teamwork between ArtQuest and his team.
“That Musikfest ‘85 was just one of the old posters, and I had our graphic designer here give it a little bit of a rough edge, kind of give it something of a weathered look so they would feel a little more vintage and feel less like a rectangle stuck on a shirt, you know?” Regec said.
The edgework, combined with the heavy ringspun cotton, produce a garment that seems classic and fresh at the same time — “not like the modern, super lightweight, thin shirts” you normally see, Regec said.
LVAC has also printed other shirts for the ‘Fest, including the volunteer and staff tees, a custom tie-dye piece, clothing for Charter Arts, and more, all in support of the local creative scene, so their presence is practically everywhere at Musikfest.
Independent art in the LV
Fostering the arts is part and parcel of LVAC’s mission, one Regec has been carrying for over 20 years.
Printing shirts for local bands and eventually pro-wrestlers in a DIY fashion, Regec was passionate about putting out quality merchandise for those in his own backyard.
If you happened to be part of the local punk scene, you almost certainly knew Regec or his work, perhaps seeing him at a local show, or almost certainly one of the myriad shirts he printed up for countless bands over the years.
Eventually, that dedicated hobby transformed into a career, one which has continued to grow more and more.
“It's been my full-time job for just about 15 years. But I would say the first five years of that was me just trying to avoid having a real job. And so, over the last 10 or so we've gotten more serious, and we've scaled up, got new equipment, a lot more people, and we recently bought a building and moved in,” Regec said.
Building a positive relationship with ArtsQuest and Musikfest has been a huge part of that growth, Regec said, “not just for the jobs, but also the association, and that sort of seal of approval from them has been really good for public perception.”
And the appreciation goes both ways, Love said, as working with trustworthy local businesses with a connection to the community.
“It's one of the most important things that I look for when I'm sourcing, is community partners. That's what we're all about, right? For ArtsQuest, we're all about the community. We're a nonprofit. We're about community awareness and community togetherness. Everything we do is to build the community,” Love said.
“So to find really solid artists who we can partner with to do anything that we do when we're looking outside of ArtsQuest, the very first thing we look for is ‘Who's local, who's true to their craft, who can we get to do something that's not this giant corporate, larger-scale thing?’ We love that family connection we get from dealing with our local community partners. So it's kind of a no-brainer, right? Our missions align.”
That community connection is integral to keeping the arts alive in the Lehigh Valley, Regec said, and to see a group like ArtsQuest reaching out to independent creatives is “very much putting your money where your mouth is and giving back to the community.”
“That can't be overstated, how important that is for a small local business to be a partner with somebody like ArtsQuest,” Regec said.
As it stands, LVAC is looking at a bright future: their new location on North Chestnut Street in Bath is up and running, community building is better than ever, show bookings at National Sokols in Bethlehem have been going well (with Regec booking beloved indie band Braid last year), and SteelStacks Smackdown III is just around the corner in October.
It’s been a wild ride, but a story of a small operation making its mark through hard work, tenacity, and a die-hard belief in the power of art and the independent spirit.
That, and some really cool, well-made shirts, of course.
