Many of you went out this weekend for a drink on the terrace with friends or a romantic picnic. It is indeed the arrival of sunny days and the opportunity to bring out spring outfits.
This is why I am going to tell you in this article about the collection of graphic t-shirts that I created with the Saint-Paul brand and which will be distributed on my blog JamaisVulgaire .
First, here is a short video to introduce you to the whole world of this collaboration. I invite you to then read the entire article carefully to understand all the issues.
A two-minute express trip to Cambodia, what do you think?
The introduction to a great adventure, to be enjoyed in HD...
The observation
For me, something was missing on the t-shirt market: on the one hand we have high-end t-shirts with a blurry design that is too avant-garde, made by a hyped Parisian artist and which requires a lot of work. interpretation to be appreciated. In short, expensive and not very accessible.
On the other side of the spectrum, we also have many much more beautiful prints but rendered with cheap flocking or with a bland print. All this on t-shirts made in China
But during my first trip to Cambodia in 2011, I found some of my roots (I am mixed French-Khmer) and I was able to discover Khmer painting. It is this art that I wanted to share with a line of t-shirts.
Khmer painting
I saw paintings there with immediately discernible aesthetic qualities and made using centuries-old techniques passed down from fathers to sons: know-how that is difficult to find elsewhere.
These prints have a very raw and rich style at the same time: they restore the aesthetics of the temples but also depict scenes of daily life in the villages, particularly those of fishermen and rice farmers.
Here are some examples:
The fishermen of Tonle Sap Lake: between pagodas and houses on stilts
In the land: the life of rice farmers
The celestial dancers of Hindu mythologies:
the Apsaras, which can be seen almost everywhere in the temples of Angkor
An already existing idea, but poorly executed
The idea of transposing these paintings onto a t-shirt was not new: these prints were already available on t-shirts at the old market in Siem Reap, the city of the Angkor temples.
The problem is that we find t-shirts of poor quality, with an approximate cut and finish and with a bland printing technique which does not faithfully transcribe the colors.
A desire for more careful development
I wanted to promote this advanced know-how with a support of equivalent quality, that is to say a high-end t-shirt made in Europe, from quality cotton and with a high-quality technique. advanced printing.
Better compensation for talent.
The ambition of making a high-end t-shirt is also to remunerate the painter's talents at their fair value, by paying him 25% of the profits on each t-shirt sold.
An eclectic painter: Sopheap Keo
The artist who was chosen for this project is the painter Sopheap Keo.
A survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, he was able to support his family first by selling toys, then by learning to paint on his own. It was only then that he formalized this natural talent at the Royal University.
He is a painter with an atypical career, who suffered the full brunt of the Khmer Rouge genocide and who nevertheless managed to survive with an innate talent that he was able to perfect with the typical Khmer know-how learned later at the 'University. The result is a unique and more in-depth style than that of other Cambodian painters.
He now actively participates in the artistic life of Siem Reap by training numerous painters in his workshop.
His paintings are rather popular in Cambodia and sell for between 30 and 50 dollars to expatriate and Khmer executives (this represents a good small sum in Cambodia).
Sopheap Keo and her son, Piseth (also full of talent and inspired by Western cartoons).
Here is the visual that was chosen, among his works:
The realization of the project
As you have understood, the ambition is to combine all the potential of Khmer art with a quality t-shirt.
This is what the young Belgian brand Saint-Paul offers (which we already talked about a few months ago), created by Jungho Geortay, artistic director at Armor Lux Heritage and already distributed in France at Bon Marché and on the select store the Exception.
The t-shirts are made in Portugal, where the factories are uncompromising in terms of quality of cut and finish.
They also use Portuguese cotton for their product and produce four-color printing, to better restore the richness of the colors of the original painting.
A print that restores the raw side of a painting and the richness of the colors
The result
The result is a t-shirt produced in a limited series (40 copies), sold at 55 euros each (the price of t-shirts from the Saint-Paul line). 25% of the profits made will be donated to the painter.
The cut: a happy medium
A regular fit cut was chosen, close to the body to highlight the silhouette. Without being too tight and keeping you too hot. It is easy to wear and a little elongated: it will particularly adapt to slimmer silhouettes.
A collar with the right proportions
I was very careful on this point because this is where many t-shirts make a mistake (Geoffrey and Benoît often talk about it): the collar is slightly indented and the neckline is thin.
Sleeves and shoulders
A precise cut that gives well-defined shoulders.
A sleeve that stops at the beginning of the biceps, for a very masculine cut.
To find out more and order the t-shirts , you can go to the JamaisVulgaire article (Valéry's site).
You will then have to register at the end of the article to receive the link when the t-shirts come out (Wednesday 24 at 4 p.m.).
