You may have seen this on Instagram or even in your inbox, but two of my early designs are now available on dresses at Zuri!

One day after work about five years ago, I was waiting for the bus outside of a small boutique in Park Slope when a turquoise and orange dress with giant mushrooms on it caught my eye. I love that color combination and the giant mushrooms were just too fun for me not to want. While trying on the dress, the shop owner told me that the brand was started by two New Yorkers living in Kenya. I was intrigued. I bought the mushroom dress and another — a pink, yellow, and blue geometric print called Let’s Dance.

On the bus ride home, I googled and found an article in the New York Times and there I learned how Sandra and Ashleigh became friends and started Zuri. I really liked what I was reading and signed up for their newsletter. I got to learn a lot about their brand values over the years. I liked that they worked with local artisans and spotlighted these artisans. I liked their transparency about their supply chain. I liked seeing pictures of their trips to fabric markets and teas with the local merchants. It felt authentic. Those values plus wax print dresses with pockets that I could wear to work with fun prints that allowed me to express myself made it easy for me to buy dress after dress.

Fast forward to the end of my time in the one year Textiles program at FIT. I'd just finished two mini collections for screen printing and Illustrator classes. Both collections were my take on wax prints. I thought the work was pretty strong. Why not pitch it to Zuri?

I quickly set up a portfolio website.

I learned from reading their newsletters that they’d set up printing facilities in Kenya and were able to print fabric using original designs. I had seen their collabs with other designers and dreamed that I would someday have my designs printed on their dresses. I wrote to Sandra and Ashleigh and invited them to have a look at my portfolio, telling them how much I love the brand, how their dresses had become my uniform and how I felt some of my designs might work for their dresses.

Awhile later, they got in touch with me about licensing. I was over the moon! They’d chosen one design from each wax print inspired collection.

Behind the Design

The screen printed collection part of a collection I called Analog. It's a whimsical conversational collection that was inspired by my research of vintage wax prints. I saw a photo of a print that had a motif of the original iPod and it sparked an idea.

That retro iPod made me want to go even more retro and Mixtape was born. I channeled my teenage years when I had a huge collection of tapes full of music I’d taped off the radio. I remembered the red Sony radio my sister had gotten for Christmas one year. These memories made me smile. But I also remembered how low I often felt growing up. There was a lot to be down about in the 80s and 90s in Queensbridge, lemme tell ya. Plus, being a teenager isn’t easy, first loves and heartbreaks and all that. I guess I wanted to channel a little bit of that energy, making light of it but also honoring those feelings. You’ll notice some of the tapes are labeled. You might also notice one of them is a Radiohead lyric. That’s because I was probably listening to Radiohead a lot while I worked on this design. There’s even a couple of unraveled tapes and one of them has a pencil sticking out of it. Gen X remembers.

For the class assignment, we had to screen print our designs in three colorways using 2 colors and halftones. Back then, I struggled mightily with color, especially with screen printing, but here is one colorway of my design. I was experimenting a lot with printing on dark fabrics my first year and I was not always successful. It's ok. That's why we experiment and that's how we learn — but I did like this version that was printed with metallic pigment.

When Zuri licensed this designs I made nicer colorways in Photoshop, but in the end they went with black and white and I love the result! I’ve been wearing mine with a scarf for a pop of color. (Scarves are coming soon!)

The second design they chose was from a collection I made in my Illustrator class. For that collection, my theme was the trees of New York City. Sandra and Ashleigh chose a poplar leaf design that uses some of my overspun yarn as a background texture. It’s a simple leafy motif set up as a stripe. For class we could use up to 12 colors, but I only used four with one halftone. Here are my two colorways as I turned them in for my class assignment.

I do like the Zuri one-color version a lot. It is frenetic and I’m really into that right now, as you may have noticed from portfolio related IG posts.

I’m really excited to see my designs on dresses for Zuri. I think Sandra and Ashleigh are great and it was really wonderful of them to give this new designer a chance. It means so much to me that my first designs are on their dresses. And a big thank you to photographer Emily Hargraves (@emilyjreports) for putting me at ease during our photo shoot in the garment district. Thank you for letting me use your photos, Emily.

xo, Tammi