August 28, 2018 3 min read 1 Comment
Feeling the love
It's hard to describe how amazing it is to have someone like my designs enough to buy one of my t-shirts. I feel a real responsibility to live up their expectations. When someone ordered a single t-shirt from New Zealand I was amazed. It was simultaneously awesome and a worry ... what if it wasn't exactly what they'd expected? I spent an age on the printing for that one, if someone was paying to send a t-shirt to New Zealand, it was going to be immaculate.
The best thing that happens is when someone sends me a picture. Like this:
I know it's just a t-shirt, but to me, this young girl is a customer wearing my t-shirt that makes her feel powerful, celebrating her strength and place in the world.
Also, they can start so young. This little one is so delicious I could eat her!
Maybe it's foolish to imagine I can make a difference in these girls' lives, in how they see themselves and their place in the world. Maybe.
And I feel passionately that girls don't have to choose between playing princesses and being strong, they can do both and they can do both at the same time, the one doesn't cancel out the other. Here's a customer being regal and oozing with confidence in her Fierce Heart t-shirt.
Representation
I feel in my soul that representation makes a difference in how girls see themselves, so I try to draw girls and women in roles dominated by men. Not because I think women should do them instead of men, but because I want to live in a world where we don't need to have targets about representation. My Space Station collection is aimed at exactly that. All the astronauts are female, not because all astronauts are men (certainly not) but because it's already easy to find clothing for children with male astronauts, I'm just filling a gap. This customer sent me one of my favourite pictures:
Her review said 'Great designs that really sparked my 3 year old's imagination. She's been planning our trip to the moon ever since her T-shirt arrived!'. I couldn't be happier ... a little girl who can picture herself travelling to the moon because of my Blast Off t-shirt. Of course, a t-shirt isn't a constant topic of conversation, you can also wear it to feed the deer!
Not everything is girl power
Not everything I do is girl power, actually most of it isn't. I just shy away from the traditional kittens and unicorns really. I try to use a broad range of colours, not just pink and never cute. This Meerkat Line-Up is seriously popular, it's strange I had no idea when I was drawing it. I was just trying to draw animals that weren't kittens and puppies! I love that these friends have matching t-shirts. I remember wearing matching clothes with my friends ... takes me back! Don't they look lovely? Windswept and confident; looking like the world is waiting for them.
What about the grown ups?
I never really expected to be designing for adults, but I was overwhelmed with requests from mothers saying 'I want one too!'. Sometimes the mothers and daughters have matching t-shirts - then I know they must be cool, because I certainly never wore anything matching with my mum!
These I'm With Her Mother Earth t-shirts are being worn by mother and daughters all the way in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - though perhaps they might say they were made all the way in Inverness, Scotland?
What's next?
My next step is getting my Christmas t-shirts and jumpers ready ... yes, I know it's August. I've got my designs, I'm busy sampling sweaters and seeing what the prints look like. I'll show you a sneaky peak of my designs next time!
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Cynthia Clarke
September 02, 2018
Brilliant stuff Emma, glad to see the pink is not banished but merely the message associated with pink, love the customer pictures! 2 nieces here so can’t wait to see the Christmas collection.