We don’t know how we stumbled on Kleidersachen, a German tumblr whose name name literally translates dresses things. Its many sublime examples of out-there clothing and textiles had us transfixed, culling ideas right and left on a variety of themes, in awe, inspired. To start, we’re thinking about neutral apparel that can be drawn, painted, written on.

We are especially inspired by Edda Gimnes, above. All we really need is basic white…

…to use acrylic paint or fabric markers to paint our “canvas”…

Claire Barrow
Claire Barrow

Claire Barrow
Claire Barrow

…Bold, graphical letters can be applied with heat transfer vinyl sheets you can cut to whim…

Anna Sophie Berger
Anna Sophie Berger

Heat transfer letters can be ironed on to all sorts of clothes, for messaging beyond t-shirts

Artists' Books and Multiples
Artists’ Books and Multiples

…then of course, you can just take an indelible pen to…whatever…

Cruello via kleidersachen.tumblr.com
Cruello via kleidersachen.tumblr.com

…We’d love this map of tailoring instructions on our inexpensive Target white poplin shirts...

kleidersachen.tumblr.com
kleidersachen.tumblr.com

…Kleidersachen fired us up to test out the fabric pens we’ve had waiting. As an experiment we wrote artist Holton Rower’s wise mantra, first in red, then going over it in orange and pink. We ended up with pleasing Day-Glo which, when washed, held up just FINE. We’re going to try different materials, strokes, techniques on that one shirt, to say get our bearings for future creations…

Sally Schneider
Sally Schneider

Lots of possibilities …

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One thought on “Clothes to Draw, Write, Paint On

  1. I saw a post recently where a teacher let her class of young kids draw on white material then made a dress of it. So cool!

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