Made in the Now’s slow fashion T-shirts

For Made In The Now (MITN) it all began on July 18, 2011.  The online design studio’s goal was also its greatest challenge: to create and produce an exclusive tee a day.  You might have seen some of MITN’s cool and clever designs on your hip friends’ bodies or somewhere around town.  How would you know? How would you be able to recognise their ethically produced, slow fashion T-shirts? Well, simple: high quality tees with designs based on breaking news from around the globe. Have you seen, for example, the one that commemorates Steve Jobs’ life (No. 81)?

 Or the one that features a freed lab beagle coming out into the sunlight for the very first time (No. 136)?

And what about the t-shirt dedicated to the tragic attacks that took place in Norway in 2011(No. 7)? And of course, there are so many more!

After having successfully designed 365 unique T-shirts, MITN decided to slow the pace of its production.  This change made it possible for the public to become an integral part of the production process: the studio’s fans can now cast a weekly vote via Facebook to favour the story they most want to see featured.  The shift from daily to weekly production also gave the designers slightly more space to unleash their creativity and provided customers with more time to make their purchases.  Overall, it seems to be a shift in a good direction, one that certainly brings to the forefront the studio’s upheld Slow Fashion ideals.

MITN wants to offer a viable alternative to the world of disposable fashion, a world that seems to promote a culture of waste and to flourish on the exploitation of low-wage workers. In the words of Jess Huddart (Creative Director of Josephmark, the Australian studio that imagined and developed MITN), the aim of the online design studio is to create “limited edition garments that also promote a consciousness of the world”. How do they do this?  By bringing together and establishing direct connections between customers, global news, great design, and responsible production.

It is worth remembering that the T-shirts are locally produced and that the studio successfully manages to avoid general waste by printing only those T-shirts that are ordered. 

Check it out and become part of the MITN community!

For further information and to see the collection of past and current T-shirt designs visit their website here.

Carolina Perrone Carry
Photos: Courtesy of Made in the Now