Fashion label Workshop offers John Reynolds T-Shirt collection

24 Jun '08

3 min read

Workshop invites you to visit in-store and purchase Certain Words Drawn by John Reynolds. To celebrate and complement this just released book Workshop is offering a limited edition T-Shirt range featuring Reynolds prints.

Certain Words Drawn, an impressive hard cover, almost 500 page book dedicates a section to the artist's involvement with fashion and discusses his collaborations with Workshop that have spanned twenty years. It includes photographs of Workshop/Reynolds garments including Architectural Weave, Rockpool variations, Crazy White Folk and the politically inspired Ta Ra Ra Boom Decay print.

This relationship between artist and iconic NZ clothing house came about organically and continues to be a fun and creative cohesion between local fashion and art. The designs of the T-Shirts reflect Reynolds contemporary practices. In the various range of fashion associations John has worked on, there's an apparent connection of the concerns of his art practice with the particular orientations of fashionable garments.

Of the Reynolds prints that have transferred onto Workshop garments over this period – front of mind include the image of episodes from Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel overlain with spidery Batman forms, the dense rubbery doily patterns, and simple acronyms. Significant milestones for Workshop's relationship with Reynolds include the 1992 Corbans Fashion Show that featured Rockpool prints on the brand's popular Linen Shirt's.

Reynolds was also commissioned to create an artwork mural for an entire wall in the original Newmarket store which included a plaster artwork that has been reinstalled at the current Morrow St site.

There are five of Workshop's favourite Reynolds prints available, one of which – the Rockpool - is available on both mens and womens T's. Men's T's also feature the Doodle and Crazy White Folk prints. Women's T's include another variation of the Rockpool, and Miss Behaving.

John Reynolds and Arch Mac Donnell - his collaborator and the book's designer, have also created an installation in the window of Workshop High St and the interior of the Newmarket store.

The book suggests that the T-Shirt can act as a substitute for the unattainable. “If I can't have the fullest version of that which is desired (the work of art) I can have the next best thing in the form of the T-Shirt, achieving through the purchase echoes of what the artwork signifies.” So this being the theory here is reason to pick up your piece of wearable art.

This John Reynolds collaborative T-Shirt collection is available at Workshop now as well as a unique and individually signed and numbered artist edition of Certain Words Drawn which comes with a commemorative Workshop Denim tote bag. Certain Words Drawn is also on sale at selected book sellers nationwide.

Workshop