These sweatshirts have been a long time coming (thanks COVID...) and have been through many loving hands. Here is a little bit of their journey...
We started by collaborating with locally renowned artist, Kane Lehanneur, for the illustrations. Our pattern-maker in Manly, Mon, then spent a long time perfecting the fit and style of our sweatshirt and many samples were made. Our beautiful team of ladies from The Blessed Sewing Project in the Philippines then created the sweatshirts and sent them back to us here in Australia. We then took them to our screen printers in Brookvale to have the illustration puff-printed onto the garments (again...many samples were made). Finally, last but not least, we went to Turrametta beach in Sydney for a sunrise shoot last week with our amazing team to shoot the final product!
ABOUT THE ARTIST: KANE LEHANNEUR
Below is an interview from Kane, as well as some images showing the team in the Philippines lovingly sewing your sweatshirts!
Tell us a bit about yourself...
My name is Kane Lehanneur i am 27 and I live in Manly NSW and have a studio in Brookvale.
Tell us a bit about your journey as an artist?
I've always been into art, for as long as i remember, and always loved using my hands. It’s only in the last few years, I've really started my journey as an ‘artist’ which usually consists of painting, printing and looking into experimenting with new art forms. When i was younger I was very into photography, that then lead into videography and a bit of writing & directing. Now days other than painting I find myself doing a lot of illustration, design and some animation too.
Where do you draw your inspiration from for your artwork?
I draw inspiration from a lot of different places. There is an obvious influence from nature. I’ve been working on a few different collections at the moment, one has an eco-political statement, another focuses on affect, and the other focuses on the ‘illusion of time’ and portals to various apocalyptic outcomes we are faced with on earth. Other than direct inspiration I'm trying to make art with an idea, story and purpose. Music also directly influences way I paint/create, which is more in the moment, rather than a wider perspective.
How do you spend your free-time outside of work?
Pretty hard question this one at the moment, although outside of the studio at the moment, just trying to play music, exercise regularly and get out into nature and the ocean as much as I can. There's not much else to do during lockdown.
ABOUT THE MAKERS: THE BLESSED PROJECT
These beautiful women are survivors of human trafficking. Through The Blessed Project, they learn to sew. Sewing under the supervision of team leader, Edil, provides them with an income, a new skill and it is also used as a form of therapy while the women decide what they want to do in life.
Many of the women decide to go to university and school, while some continue to sew as their main source of income! You can read more about our makers here.
Some of these images have been blurred for privacy reasons.
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