For my honours project, I chose to create three hand-crafted illustrative T-shirts. Each T-shirt was carefully constructed out of damaged tablecloths and curtain scraps that I sewed together to create the base fabric. The base fabric is constructed in a patchwork manner as patchworking is a way to make use of the still perfectly intact parts of material that would otherwise be discarded. Interweaved between and on top of the patchwork base are embroidered appliqué illustrations. I created the fabric illustrations using a mixture of slow fashion and art techniques such as flower hammering, natural tie-dying and free-motion sewing. Each shirt makes reference to a popular human-centred artwork from history that has been altered to present anthropomorphic characters inspired by local flora and fauna. On the shoulder and hip of each t-shirt are handmade clay buttons inspired by the illustrations.
To complement the T-shirts, I also created a sustainable fashion brand which I named Bloomsday. Bloomsday is a brand that aims to create a place for waste. It is a hand-crafted slow fashion brand that makes artistic T-shirts using old clothing and material scraps that are destined for landfills. Each T-shirt displays textile illustrations crafted using slow fashion mending practices, that promote the ethos of slow living and encourage conversations that question our society’s current growth paradigm. To communicate the ethos and aesthetic of the brand, I created a campaign, lookbook and zine/tag. The campaign and lookbook were shot in a local natural setting to communicate the brand’s value for local sustainable fashion. The zine acts as a price tag for the T-shirts and communicates the three major pillars of the brand: craft, care and consideration.
Bloomsday suggests an alternative way of making and a less destructive road for the future. One where we are not counting down to an inevitable doomsday but rather a potential Bloomsday.
Shirt #1:
The first T-shirt makes reference to Henri Matisse’s artwork Dance (1910). Each human dancer has morphed with local South African fauna and flora to create new yet still recognisable figures. On the front is a dancing protea twisting and swaying next to a skipping largemouth bass. On the back a kingfisher figure towers over a prancing aloe. Each figure was constructed using onion skin tie-dyed and flower-hammered material.
Shirt #2:
The second T-shirt makes reference to Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1485-1486). On the front sits a closed scallop shell with two hand-like proteas growing out of it. On the back, an anthropomorphic protea stands tall on a scallop shell surrounded by hand-sewn waves.
Shirt #3:
The last T-shirt makes reference to Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (1508–1512). On the front, a flamingo emerges out of a lace pocket reaching towards a strelitzia that has grown over the shoulder from the back. On the back stand two flamingos with
hand-like bodies reaching out to each other. Each flamingo stands in a hand-sewn wavy pond and has extra stems growing out of their necks leading to strelitzia heads.
