Surface Design

Located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 4Kinship is a Diné owned sustainable artwear brand that is known for creating small production runs of upcycled and sustainable garments. The incorporation of dye is a frequent method used in the transformation of their apparel. In the sweatshirt featured here, the original image of a hummingbird with a flower remains visible, but a splashy mix of colorful dyes has been added to update the garment’s style. This is paired with a bubble skirt, one of 4Kinship’s signature designs. The skirt is created from an upcycled vintage military parachute and then dyed a yellow-copper hue. The brand states that the inspiration for the design’s aesthetic comes from “the clouds, the sky, the mountains, and the land” of their Southwest location.

This button up mini skirt is cream colored with a yellow banana print painted over with silver paint rectangles. The only alteration made to this skirt from its original appearance is the silver paint. New York artist and designer MI Leggett was inspired to create this garment in reference to the infamous Maurizio Catelan art piece “Comedian”. This installation, which appeared at Art Basel in 2019, featured a single banana duct taped to a gallery wall. Though the work of art was sold for $120,000 dollars, it was ultimately eaten by artist David Datuna for his performance art piece “Hungry Artist”. This garment typifies Leggett’s longtime practice of altering pre-existing garments of good quality with painted elements.

The embroidered cut-off shorts and clutch seen here are created from the same pair of vintage jeans. It is a common practice for The Falls designer, Leong Ong, to find ways to transform remnant pieces of materials that result from his production. After cutting the jeans into shorts, a large floral embroidery in the colors of yellow, white, lavender, and green was added across the backside. The remnant pant legs were then used to create zippered pouches such as this one. The pouch is highly embellished with brass rings, beads, and embroidery thread. Ong, who also runs a textile design studio, states that The Falls evolved into an upcycled brand after he began putting his textile design samples onto vintage garments rather than a blank piece of paper or fabric swatch. He believes his surface designs are heightened by vintage garments’ own appealing aesthetic. 

This ensemble features an embellished blue and white check button-up shirt with a pair of vintage jeans. Though the garments here have not been significantly altered from their original form, Picnicwear designer Dani Des Roches has updated their appearance through the addition of colorful embellishments. On the shirt, multicolored rick rack was added to the collar, cuffs, pocket, and the button placket. The jeans are embellished with colorful crocheted cotton circles accentuated with an array of seed beads. Des Roches, who originally started her brand with a focus on vintage terry cloth garments, has since expanded her line to include a variety of items such as these that focus on augmentation through surface design.

This Leonard Cohen patch was created by Joshua Tree artist Shari Elf. The patch features an original drawing of musician Leonard Cohen screen-printed in purple onto a piece of upcycled fabric, likely from a button-down shirt or a tablecloth. Elf claims that she first heard about Cohen in the lyrics of the Nirvana song “Pennyroyal Tea”. Years later, she came across three of Cohen’s records at a thrift shop and decided to give them a try. She has been a fan ever since. In Elf’s Joshua Tree art campus and retail store, Art Queen, (also home of Shari Elf’s World Famous Crochet Museum) she sells a wide variety of patches and garments that have been printed or hand painted with images and sayings.