T-shirts and hooded shirts custom-designed by two Rhode Island School of Design students may soon add a unique flare to College Hill wardrobes. In the meantime, look for RISD sophomores John Verdery and Zio Ziegler wearing their art on their sleeves.
The students, who both have experience in apparel design, began collaborating this semester on a new clothing line called Thunder Over Thunder. In addition to planning marketing campaigns at Brown, RISD and other universities, Verdery and Ziegler have shown samples to high-end boutiques in New York and Los Angeles. Their work combines screen print and applique in a montage Ziegler describes as "graffiti color and style meets Rembrandt and Botticelli" - with a spiritual side.
"I'm Buddhist ... and pretty into Eastern philosophy and literature right now," Ziegler said.
The name Thunder Over Thunder comes from the "I Ching," a classical Chinese text, and evokes "the creation of a new, strong entity," he explained. The two said they hope to fill a niche in the fashion industry.
Verdery said he "started getting disappointed in the brands" available in New York City's SoHo neighborhood.
A native of the city, Verdery established a reputation customizing sneakers in high school. "I started seeing a lot of the same stuff, the all-over prints that were way overpriced," Verdery said. "That's when I started wanting to learn to print T-shirts."
Verdery found an ally in Ziegler, who transferred to RISD this semester from Chapman University in his home state of California.
"I was always the guy that did the soccer team T-shirt" in high school, Ziegler said. As a high school freshman, he began marketing his own apparel under the brand name Live Loyal. Ziegler studied film and advertising at Chapman - he had never taken an art course before arriving at RISD.
Though they have different styles, both students "wanted to have the great, new spectacular shirts that you can't find in stores," Ziegler said. Both study illustration and began making late-night trips to RISD's printmaking studio early this fall to design clothing in their free time.
"We'd hike up there at two in the morning with bags of ink and bags of T-shirts," Ziegler said. "We had to sneak in, climb up the stairwell, look out for the monitors and wash out the silk screens by the end of the night. Silk screening is pretty new to us. ... The first time we tried to burn a screen it ended up not working. We ended up sleeping on the tables in the printmaking lab (waiting) for the emulsion to dry" to finish the prints before a 9 a.m. class.
The two have since paid a lab fee to use the studio and spend weekends and late nights after class experimenting with different designs.
"It's so awesome ... to have all the ink, all the facilities, and figure everything out ourselves," Ziegler said. "We like wearing them ... but the fun thing is printing them."
An example of the pair's recent work is a lightweight, white full-zip top with a faux-fur-lined hood. Across the back, an etched scale balances a heart and a revolver over a macabre landscape and the words "No Effort No Desire." A variety of graffiti-style designs are layered all over the shirt, extending vibrant colors across the seams and onto the margins. Faded flowers cut from vintage floral-print fabric are stitched on as a final touch.
The multi-stage, labor-intensive process has yielded 60 to 70 complete pieces so far, according to Verdery. He does much of the paint and ink work, while Ziegler draws the base etchings and also works on sewing.
"It's more of a collage effect in our clothing," Verdery said. "We come up with individual images that we think would look nice on a piece ... and we make each T-shirt and each hoodie individual," he said. Many shirts move from concept to reality in a matter of hours.
"Pieces will go from my sketchbook in a class in the afternoon to a silkscreen and then to a T-shirt by the end of the day," Ziegler said. After a limited run, the silk-screens are washed out, "so it's like a transitory art form."
Rather than rotate merchandise on a seasonal basis, the silk-screeners produce everything on a limited-edition basis.
"The images constantly change ... if you buy something from us then the next day we're going to have a different stock," Verdery said. "Hopefully it never dies. It keeps it fresh. If everything is being printed on the spot and it's only going for a limited run, it can always change."
Verdery and Ziegler created a Facebook group for Thunder Over Thunder and are planning to launch a Web site with photos of their work and contact information.
To help fund the project, the two have submitted designs to T-shirt Web sites. On Nov. 30, Ziegler won "Shirt of the day" on Designbyhumans.com - earning him $750 and a wider audience for his work.
On their own Web site, they hope to include a store for higher-volume prints and an auction area for more limited items. The students have recruited Kate Owen '10 to publicize Thunder Over Thunder at Brown, a job that will include distributing promotional stickers and wearing the brand around campus.
"People put business cards in wallets, people put stickers on posts and stop signs," Ziegler said, citing the advertising strategy of the company Obey Clothing as an inspiration. "The job's up to us to make the product that awesome, that it stays in your mind all the way until you get home. ... This is an independent, creative piece of artwork that is available in, what, 15 shirts? Maybe 100 shirts?"
As the business grows, Ziegler said he hopes to incorporate other students' art into Thunder Over Thunder designs.
"We're going to start featuring a whole bunch of our friends that are artists in school," he said. "We'll expand and take it where we want to as it progresses in our minds, but it's a fun thing to do."
