Pencil to Shirt – Contour Print
In making our shirts we wanted to celebrate being from London and being British. Now that doesn’t mean we’re going to be supplying shirts to Nigel Farage in the run up to the election. More that we wanted to not only manufacture our shirts in London but also for our print designs to be fuelled by Britain, its traditions, culture and general all round quirkiness.
Britain has so many ideas to inspire us and close to the top of the list that we thought celebrated all that it was to be British was the Ordnance Survey. Created in the 18th Century to chart areas for military use the whole country was mapped between 1783 and 1853. We find there’s something about their maps and keys that draws you in, the process of unfolding and exploring brings out nostalgia of our childhood adventures.
Our Contour shirt is a nod to this tradition and after re-drawing a section of a map we liked we created files to send off to our printers. We use a family run company called IVO who are based in a big shed near Heathrow. They’ve been going for over 50 years and are a factory after our own heart as they have tinkered, restored and cajoled their machines over the years to create the specific finish they want.
Our contour print was made by their rotary printing press where our pattern has been transferred onto a cylindrical rotary and then the shirt fabric is fed underneath and the ink transferred from the rotary to the fabric. After it has been printed and dried, it is sanforized to flatten the ink into the fabric for a smoother feel.
Once complete we pack our fabric roll in the back of the car and drive round the M25 to our factory to be cut, made and trimmed. in our North London factory.
