ISLAND STYLE
Not your average T-shirt

• TEMARI celebrates birthday with 'Club Musubi'

By Paula Rath
Advertiser Staff Writer

From left, Rachel Borg, Jamie Cook and Richard Kuwada started off with the same T-shirt but found creative ways to change it. Photos by Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

What's it all about? Just take apart a simple T-shirt, cutting or tearing it up, then put it back together with originality. Readers with basic sewing knowledge can take these ideas and create their own deconstructed T. It's a great way to transform a wardrobe staple into something that reflects individual style and creativity. In fact, it's a piece of wearable art.

We asked The Advertiser's fashion forum to turn a basic white Hanes Beefy-T shirt into a style statement.

Here are the results:

'Rosco'

• Designer: Rachel Borg.
• How long it took: Two hours.
• Inspired by: "Nothing in particular. I've always wanted a purple shirt and I've never had one."
• Materials used: Rit dye, beads and a sewing machine.
• What she did: Cut out a pattern freehand, folded the front and made a slit and dyed it.

Willow Chang, left, said her T-shirt was inspired by the folk art of Japan and Egyptian belly-dancing costumes. Sherry Wong designed her shirt after designer Marc Jacobs' butterfly, using iron-on transfers.

Fuji is a blue mountain motif found on furoshiki (squares of fabric used to wrap packages in Japan) and farhana is Arabic for happy.

• Designer: Willow Chang.
• How long it took: One day.
• Inspired by: Folk art of Japan and Egyptian belly-dancing costumes.
• Materials used: Vintage Japanese furoshiki, beads, sequins, paillettes and gold bias tape.
• What she did: Cut the sides and sleeves, tapered them and sewed the seams, squared the neckline, trimmed four inches off the bottom, added bias tape and hand hemmed so it wouldn't roll.

'Butterfly Bohemian'

• Designer: Sherry Wong.
• How long it took: Five hours.
• Inspired by: Designer Marc Jacobs' butterfly. "It's a poor (wo)man's Custo Barcelona."
• Materials used: Fabric paint and pens, iron-on transfers, ribbons, sequins, seed beads and crochet-look stretch fabric for the back.
• What she did: Cut off the front panel and sleeves, cut a piece of crochet fabric to create the back, sewed on straps, drew a design on paper and transferred it to the T-shirt, painted it, ironed on the transfers and added sequins.

Jennifer Yoshimori cut off the neck and sleeves of her shirt and added a cut-out heart to create her "Jen's Junk Shirt."

• Designer: Jennifer Yoshimori.
• How long it took: Five hours.
• Inspired by: Not having enough time and a shirt that was too big.
• Materials used: Beads, thread and a sewing machine.
• What she did: Cut off the neck and sleeves, cut the sides and sewed in seams, cut out a heart and added beads to stabilize the cut-out.

'Pools of Bronze'

• Designer: Jamie Cook.
• How long it took: Two hours.
• Inspired by: Custo Barcelona.
• Materials used: Fabric pens, red glitter and beads.
• What she did: Cut the front while she was wearing it, cut the back to match after she took it off, stretched it over a wooden plate to draw a face, using bronze paint, colored the lips with red glitter glue and hot-glued silver beads around the neck.

Nathan Mochizuki splattered his shirt with fake blood and wore it in the shower to create realistic drips.

• Designer: Nathan Mochizuki.
• How long it took: Five to 10 minutes.
• Inspired by: 1977 photo of "The Heartbreakers," a '70s punk rock group.
• Materials used: Fake blood from Longs Drugs.
• What he did: Splattered the shirt with fake blood and wore it in the shower to create realistic drips.

'The Oppressive Nature of Consumer Culture'

• Designer: Richard Kuwada.
• How long it took: Three hours.
• Inspired by: "Abstract Grays," a 1955 gesture painting by Franz Kline, an abstract impressionist painter, and 2K Tees from Japan, who "do" artists' motifs to expose artists to the male population. "I think the concept of designer paint is ridiculous and superficial, so I used it to communicate something profound: the blue is for oppressions, the white is freedom. The blue tries to take over the white — it's like the human condition."
• Materials used: Ralph Lauren "Rip Stop Blue" designer paint with the Home Depot sticker as the designer label.
• What he did: Used a house-painting brush to apply the paint.

Rachel Barnette spray-painted her shirt and used a kitchen strainer as a stencil. This is her version of "Rip-Offs."

• Designer: Rachel Barnette.
• How long it took: An hour and a half.
• Inspired by: Fashion designer Stella McCartney.
• Materials used: Spray house paint, kitchen strainer and sewing machine.
• What she did: Cut out the neck and sleeves, seamed and ruched the sides and shoulders, spray painted using the strainer as a stencil.

TEMARI celebrates birthday with 'Club Musubi'

Creative types think alike: TEMARI, the Center for Asian and Pacific Arts, handed over white T-shirts to 25 local artists to do "whatevah."

The design challenge is one element of "Art & Soul," TEMARI's annual fund-raiser, to be held 5:30-9 p.m. Friday at Ward Centre, on the second floor next to Borders in the space formerly occupied by A Pacific Café.

This year, to mark the organization's 23rd anniversary, the theme is "Club Musubi" in honor of artist Grant Kagimoto of Cane Haul Road, whose whimsical musubi prance across a line of T-shirts and household items.

Kagimoto will be the subject of a roast in recognition of his 25-year career capturing images of local lifestyle with characteristic wit and humor.

Graphic designer Susanne Yuu fashioned her white T-shirt into a giant musubi in honor of Kagimoto. She used black net for the nori and painted a giant ume (Japanese pickled plum) as a surprise inside.

The evening will also feature an art marketplace where TEMARI will provide a gallery for local artists' work: ceramics, fabrics, jewelry, prints and small sculptures.

A silent auction and East-West pupu buffet (with gourmet musubi) are included with a $15 ticket.

For more information, phone 735-1860.