The Shirt

My discharged shirt design will act as a marketing tool for my bow ties and concept.

(See discharge method and materials on Materials Explored)

Crunched in diluted bleach.

Bleach sprayed through lace net.

(Detail)

 Words painted with bleach and a small brush.

Undiluted bleach poured on the shirt in big drops and blotches.

Circular crunch in diluted bleach.

The words, "READ, LEARN, EXPLORE" correspond with my concept and act as a sort of slogan . This I printed on two of the discharged pieces that would become my final shirt designs.    

Printing "Read Learn Explore"

Next was colour painting.

Swatches of different colours I tested. 

One shirt I painted in full. I did this before printing. 

This resulted in slightly running dye in the print as the material had already absorbed a lot of dye. Also this shirt is 3% spandex and 97% cotton. The stretchy spandex may also have caused the dye to run.

The next shirt I first printed before adding colour dye. And as this shirt is 100% cotton, the dye printed neatly without running.

The turquoise dye fades away in the black spaces. But instead of simply painting the bleached spots with colour, I created a texture with the use of doyles.

Finishing touches include cutting off the arms (although this was done earlier), adjusting and sewing the sides of the blouse to fit better, and sewing a long sliver of fabric for the bow around the neck of the blouse.

Machine embroidery was applied over one of the prints to make the words visible.

Earlier exploration with cutting and navy ribbon.

Final Shirt designs for Marketing