Entry I - Art, Fashion & Psychology

Shall I tell you a story?

Once upon a time, I studied psychology and played university tennis, with a goal of leaving all of that behind to pursue my fashionable life calling.

If my goal fell through, I would have to surrender either to sport psychology, art therapy, or music therapy.

Then, in the beginning of my Junior year, I met my most impactful teacher and class, ultimately altering my academic brain chemistry: Professor K and Social Psychology.

In that moment I knew that if I had to, I would willingly succumb to playing tennis and pursuing psychology (which would have meant going all the way to my PhD), with a focus on social-psych. This (plan) would still put me in a great position to fulfil my dream and pursue fashion full time. And it was because I now knew, beyond my own intuition, that psychology (like philosophy), was inherently a parental-figure to fashion, as it was prerequisite to understanding the landscape historically, culturally, as a business and as an industry.

Quite literally bringing me right back to where I began…like a wheel of fate & fortune.

With that piece of personal history in mind, I love an interesting t-shirt that adds to the story of a person, without them needing to say anything.  Equally, I love an interesting t-shirt that adds some intrigue and sparks a conversation, leading to the story of a person who wants to express it. Though these can be two different individuals, they find connectivity through an item, a specific element of style, a particular brand and ultimately, a community.

Then there’s the third party: The Observer.

This is the one who sees the t-shirt while standing in a bank line, or at a coffee shop.  The person who may have been having a rough day, leading them to this precise moment; to see something that shifts their mood, potentially creating a new experience or perspective (while reading a random interesting t-shirt) that alters their brain chemistry. Have you ever had one of those moments? I have, though often it was an introverted experience. Not so much seeing a t-shirt but having one interaction with a thing, that stimulated a thought much larger than the thing itself. I’ve also seen t-shirts that are distinctly cool; the ones that you just cannot take your eyes off of.

Naturally, I thought about the way I could combine both of those experiences, to create a mixture of both.

This story is real, so the question becomes how does one contribute to the culture of the environment?  Maybe somewhere out there is a psych student that would love one of my ‘Emotional Support Tees’, because they think it’s a great way to get people thinking about expanding their descriptive vocabulary, which in turn helps them better communicate how they feel. Or even for the sheer entertainment of stating the obvious choice of major that they’ve selected in Uni!  Maybe there’s a Trinbagonian abroad who travelled into the city often when they were growing up and had to take a St. James taxi to get home from Port of Spain. The St. James taxi stand near the Holy Trinity Cathedral, was what I had to take to get home after work, before I got my car. Sometimes, I would wait for the next round of taxis that came through, just so I could go into the Cathedral’s garden and sit among the flowers. That stand isn’t there anymore, those experiences now a memory. And I didn’t even know that when I created my HTC T-Shirt!

Now it becomes a memory that can live on outside my mind and connect with someone else who has a similar memory. It may not be of the place itself, but they can feel it through the art.

Art, Fashion & Psychology being in commune is a historical fact and with so many spaces to express opinions in modern day, I believe that people are seeking different ways to play with the conversation between their inner space and the outer world.

And that’s one of my favourite things to do.