Sarah Levin

Globalization is a process in which people, ideas and particularly in fashion, materials and goods spread throughout the world. It allows for integration and interdependence between countries, economies and cultures. With the fashion industry, the production of clothing is a long process that involves many places worldwide. In order to produce a T-shirt, something that’s not usually expensive in cost, there is a tremendous amount of work that the videos we watched in class, and the essays we read, discussed.

The long process of T-shirt production begins in the cotton fields, most commonly based in America or India. The cotton balls are placed in a gin in order to separate seeds and chaff. The cotton fibers are then spun (very often in China), and carded in order to separate fibers into loose strands. Then the fabric undergoes heat and chemical processes such as printing and dyeing. The fabrics also become the soft feeling and color desired whilst in this stage. Next, the fabric needs to be sewn. This step happens in many different parts of the world as far as Columbia, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. As we watched in the video, hard working people in factories, many with high hopes and aspirations, produce the clothing we wear. Screen-printing occurs next. It is here that sizing is differentiated, and colors are specified. After, each T-shirt is folded and placed into inventory and then packaged and shipped to places all around the world.

Thousands, if not millions of T-shirts are produced and travel the world before they arrive at their final destination. I find in fascinating that before the T-shirt is folded in my closet, it has had an entire life experience. It starts off as cotton, and ends up as something I wear. This process of globalization is necessary in order for the production of T-shirts. Although each label reads one place, “Made in China,” or, “Made in Indonesia,” in actuality, each label should read many places throughout the world.

I chose my tie-dye T-shirt, because it serves as a memory. I made the T-shirt myself in camp when I was 11. My friends and I worked hard, everyone with her own T-shirt in order to produce the best T-shirt we each possible could. Although we took no photographs at the camp activity, the shirt itself serves as a memory. It is only now though that I discovered that it was not I alone who made the shirt despite the fact that it was me who tie-dyed it, but rather many people whom I don’t know, from around the world, who worked hard and long hours to make the T-shirt.

In my art practice, I commonly work with a number of recycled items: worn clothes, scraps of fabric, paper, etc. I find that the use of these types of “throwaway” items also allows me a lot of creative freedom. When I don’t have to worry about wasting the “good stuff” I find that I’m a lot more willing to take creative chances, really allowing myself to go in and experiment, whether through new techniques or in the creation of silhouettes that I’ve not worked with before.

My goal in working with this t-shirt was one that I often have when upcycling items: to keep the used materials front and center while making the fact that they are being upcyled completely recede. I want people to see this as a new, fully realized article, with little or no thought to what it used to be. Generally, I feel my most successful projects are the ones where people don’t know that it has been upcycled at all.

In the case of this shirt I wanted to keep it as a top, but to combine it with a contrast material to move away from the feeling of it being just a plain cotton t-shirt. Ultimately, I chose a chunky, cream-colored yarn.

To start, I rolled and stitched the sleeves into very short cap sleeves, and then I cropped several inches from the length.
The design I decided on was a simple diamond pattern that was to be embroidered into the shirt with the yarn, so I used a ruler and fabric pen to mark out a grid across the shirt surface of where I would be doing the sewing. After that, it was ready to be embroidered.

The final touch was adding a wrap-around stitch to the cap sleeves and around the collar.

I left the cut bottom of the shirt as is, since I really enjoyed the ruching effect it was given by the tension of the embroidered stitches.

Unfortunately, I was not able to be part of the workshop with artist Shelby Head last week. I was disappointed because I am always looking for ways to recycle clothes or accessories I no longer us and try hard to avoid the guilt of simply throwing them away. Nevertheless, for this post, I had the chance to think in depth about the role of the t-shirt, a garment which is usually underestimated for its simplicity and – in some cases – even considered banal and boring. While looking at the Fabric of Cultures website, an item in particular surprisingly caught my attention: a white, plain but classy t-shirt. This fact made me think about the role of t-shirts in my personal experience but also in modern society.

The T-shirt in general is considered a comfortable and practical piece of clothing for everyday life, usually perceived as too basic to be worn in a professional environment or an elegant occasion. But yet it is used in varied circumstances, showing adaptability among its hidden properties. It is often underestimated because it is cheap and easy to wear: it is ready-to-go, it does not need much embellishment and it fits different body types. It is a symbol of fashion equality, as everybody can afford and wear a t-shirt (i.e. let’s think of the t-shirt business in impoverished nations).

When I think about the t-shirt, I associated it with the idea of western culture and modernity: born at the beginning of the XX Century, this piece of clothing became a universal symbol of democratization that can be declined in many different ways, without losing its simplicity or becoming irreverent. It is linked to youth and spontaneity but it is also worn by people of different ages, cultures and social statuses.

If we follow Eco’s thinking, in his article Lumbar thought, that clothes are make us assuming a specific demeanor (Eco 316), we can conclude that t-shirts affect human beings the least: as they are comfortable and easy to wear, they do not lead us to think about what we are wearing and how we are perceived by society in that moment. However, if we are, we are associated with the idea of conformity and neutrality. If we think about someone who does not want to be noticed, we can picture them wearing a plain t-shirt.

Nonetheless I pushed myself to redefine my idea of t-shirts and in particular the white one. This is probably the article of clothing in my wardrobe that I consider least and yet it is the most important and has never been missing. Since I was a teenager and I started to make fashion choices for myself, I can remember having a white t-shirt. Whenever I am shopping for something to wear, I tend to go straight to the pile of the white t-shirts. It almost seems my subconscious pushes me to the piece that I know I will always wear whenever I feel challenged in my outfit decisions. A white basic shirt has all the potential I need: it is almost like an empty space I can fill with my imagination (i.e. jewelry, jacket, pants, shoes); I can play with it, reshape and redesign the surroundings of my own person, and once I am done, I can always go back and start from the beginning.

I like the idea of thinking that, instead of having only one piece in my wardrobe to rethink, I could use my white t-shirt to create something new every time. A white t-shirt that I can erase and modify and finally bring back to its original self.

This is the first segment of the video 

Second 

When we were told we had to take one article of clothing and turn it into something else, I was really stumped as to what we would do. Once we got started, my mind started working. You could honestly see the gears turning. I suggested we turn the shirt into a pair of shorts. The rest of the group agreed and the rest is history. We folded up the bottom of the shirt to make the pants shorter. We used hot glue to keep it in place. Krzysztof had the brilliant idea to put the sleeves in and convert them into pockets. That really made the shirt look like a true pair of shorts. We decided as a group to add some rips in the shorts to give it a Yeezy vibe. Along with some minor alterations to the shorts to make them fit better, the shorts were practically finished.

Our Professor, Eugenia Paulicelli, told us we would be having a lab, in which we would be taking a regular old T-Shirt and transforming this garment into something else. My group decided to take a red T-Shirt and transform this shirt and a pair of wearable shorts. We stretched out the neck as much as possible without tearing or ruining the shirt and had one of our members wear the shorts and from there we experimented. Our first idea was to put the sleeves inside the pants to not have them dangling outside and we realized that the sleeves tucked inside themselves could make great pockets. Next we had to get rid of the dress/loose look that came from the shirt waist just dangling with no support in between the legs. We grabbed the middle part of the shirt to distinguish a right and left leg hole and hot glue gunned to securely hold the middle. We took scissors and added some holes and slashes to give it a more street look. For the chest and head, we added a black bandana and a white T-Shirt cut down on sleeve to make a poncho. We created a new form of street style/gang style.  

      Saad, Shamsiya, and Isabel’s T-shirt Workshop

       Turning a t-shirt into something other than an ordinary t-shirt proved more difficult than we had anticipated. However, we collaborated, and found the process rather enjoyable as we were able to think creatively with fabric. For this workshop, we used one of Saad’s t-shirts. We initially thought of turning the t-shirt into a dress, but our t-shirt wasn’t big enough. With a little bit of experimenting, we stretched out the neck of the t-shirt, and slipped it over our model’s (Isabel) hips to make a skirt. We twisted the little sleeves and tucked them into different parts of the skirt to create an asymmetrical shape. Taking newspapers and magazines, we began to cut out pictures. At first, we thought we should cover the skirt with pictures and words. There were plenty of pictures of food, so we thought that would be our theme. Instead, we decided to keep it simple. We left the majority of the skirt plain. A few clippings of the comics  from our newspapers was added to one side of the skirt. This would give it the quirky design we wanted, without being too over the top. We also made a belt out of red construction paper, but decided only to put it in the front of the skirt to keep it as simple as possible. The simplicity of the white fabric of the skirt contrasted with the little red belt, and the few pictures. We had collectively made a complete masterpiece.

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       My group used a grey t-shirt, a white t-shirt and magazine pages to transform these old objects into something new that can act in unison. We were inspired by the Japanese kimono. We decided to add our own original touch to it by not creating a slit directly down the kimono. In order to wear the shirt, the person must slip it over their head rather than them wearing it like a jacket. The grey shirt under the drape was cut from a t-shirt into a halter top. I decided to add the fringe and braiding to draw attention to certain parts of the shirt that I felt needed something more. The circular piece of folded magazine paper really captured a focal point of the shirt. This activity helped me realise that old clothing can be transformed int something new and fashionable. Before this workshop, I thought I was not creative and that my renewed shirt would end up looking horrendous. I was able to come up with the idea of adding braiding and my group members loved it. I didn’t know I was capable of being creative and imaginative but this piece of clothing taught me otherwise. We didn’t exactly have a specific inspiration for this piece. We brainstormed and all decided whether we liked an idea or not and if it was feasible. We were all very proud of our end result and we had a lot of fun during the process of creating it!

-Julia Francione