Julie Rego designer of “Minecraft T-shirt Dress”
Design collaboration with model, Nola Schaller
T-shirts, the article of clothing that started out as men’s undergarments has been a mainstream “fast fashion” for the last 60 years. We purchase and receive graphic t-shirts that reflect our personal expressions, vacations, politics, schools we attended, concerts we went to, etc., etc. There are many ways to reuse and recycle the many t-shirts we all own. When we outgrow them, or no longer want to wear them, they end up either being donated to charitable organizations or thrown away. With 2 billion t-shirts sold each year in the world, there could be a lot of textile waste going to landfills.
Quilters make memory t-shirt quilts to memorialize life events with the beloved graphic images on our t-shirts. I have recently made one for my son for college, using shirts he no longer wears, but would love to keep as mementos. After cutting the graphics from the shirts, I was left with a pile of t-shirt parts and the shirts he didn’t want in the quilt.
This pile of leftover t-shirt cotton/polyester knit was my inspiration for my Recycled Runway fashion outfit.
Working with my model, Nola Schaller, we designed a t-shirt dress around the Minecraft graphic t-shirts that didn’t go into the quilt, the cut off sleeves, and other t-shirt pieces for the skirt.
The Minecraft geometric theme inspired the skirt pattern with “creepers” blocks in the design. We flipped the cut-off short sleeves around to make the layered long sleeves.
With support of the NW CT Arts Council, the Artist’s of Whiting Mills received a grant in 2022 from the NEA (National Endowment of the Arts), to hold a day for the public to come into our mill community and get creative themselves. The first “Creative Day at Whiting Mills” was held on April 1, 2023, with over 200 people making art for free with 12 resident teaching artists and makers. We anticipate that grant funds may not always be available each year from national or local arts funding sources for this event. So, for us to repeat this event in 2024 we are fundraising, with the NWCT Arts Council as our non-profit sponsor, so we can provide the funds needed to purchase art supplies.
