Fresh prints
At the recently concluded annual Artwork T-shirt design exhibit, boldly designed shirts were displayed like mini works of art. Artwork, the local shirt and accessories purveyor with a taste for the quirky and fun, tapped students and young designers to create statement shirts that don’t rely on a cliché silk-screened across the chest. (After all, how often do you need to see the same pseudo-ironic shirts inscribed with something along the lines of “I wanna be your babydaddy!” before it gets tiresome — “and offensive!” my friend interrupted — and boring and deserving of a bitch slap, we might add.)
Dubbed the “‘Do Not Iron Art’ Arteest Series,” more than 520 T-shirt entries made their way to the competition’s HQ. Of those entries, 100 made the final list, composed of brilliantly-designed and etched graphic prints and wittily-inscribed shirts of the laugh-out-loud variety. Seriously, one shirt said “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha… ‘Di ko gets” in bold, colorful lettering. Even I busted out a laugh when I first came across it.
The grand prize entry, an image of a mocha-skinned girl with kinky hair, tribal jewelry and a pastiche of Americanisms painted over her figure — like a stars-and-stripes-print bikini sewn over her skinny frame, iPod shuffle notched to her bikini bottom, ‘80s-inspired neon earrings clipped next to white earphones and cat’s-eye sunglasses perched atop her cropped hair — spoke of a loss of identity, an almost pagan worship for all things western and an undiluted desire to fit in. Next to the drawing was a line, sewed on in swirly script, declaring the girl a “New arrival.”
Smart T-shirts, it seems, are not lost to this world — despite what teenage boys’ wardrobe choices have proven of late.
Runners-up included an eye-catching shirt dyed black and covered with black-dotted white resin buttons in a rectangular panel edged with black-and-white suspenders along each side, graphic black-and-white sketches of cartoonish cityscapes that appear to pay homage to Tokidoki with some noir influences thrown in, surreal circus-themed outer space images with some oversize safety pins added in for good measure and a perfectly lovely and slightly bizarre image of a tree growing out of a peach-hued elephant with playful robots, squawking fowl and flying fish layered with patchwork pieces and deliberately crude running stitches. (My descriptions hardly do these shirts justice. They are splendid and engaging and much more textured to behold up close.)
Some of the top 10 finalists garnered more than adulation from graphic design experts and the rest of the T-shirt wearing public.
Artwork will recreate — and sell some of them in a few days at select stores — in a limited-edition run, giving everyone the chance to glimpse and, yes, even wear, these cheeky works of art.
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The limited-edition tees will be sold in select Artwork branches in Glorietta, TriNoma, SM San Lazaro, SM Lipa, Santa Lucia, SM Pampanga, SM Cebu, SM Davao and SM Bacolod.
