I plunged the scissors into the parcel tape, dragged them effortlessly along the seam and drew the flaps apart, invoking that pleasant sound of a cardboard sigh.
A satisfying plume of scent filled my nostrils; the smell of America. The vision that greeted me inside the box was awash with chaos and colour.
So this is what a swatch of T-shirts from an infinitely expanding vat looks like...
Several weeks ago I told you about a fantastic company out in the States who wanted to give me every T-shirt they could spare to help aid my THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE challenge. In fact, they could probably have catered for the rest of my year, making the challenge less of a challenge and more of, well, just getting dressed in the morning.
However, Custom Ink's international shipping policy meant that they couldn't flow the river of garments directly out to me, and that I'd have to settle for a small puddle instead.
Rummaging through this box, I see that the puddle is actually around 24 T-shirts, each a cast-off from the various print runs that Custom Ink has done for various clients. And by 'various', I mean pretty freakin' varied! The array of designs in here ranges from pretty regular to pretty abstract - some of them I have no idea what I'm going to do with!
The first T-shirt I've pulled out of the box is this blue Enfield Paediatric Dentistry garment featuring a cartoon toothpaste, possibly worn by the staff at the facility. I say 'possibly' because I'll never know, and that's the most intriguing part of this package from Custom Ink; all the garments in here are unfamiliar. I won't be able to relate to the majority of them. They each have their own story and purpose; a statement about something, a celebration of something or a context that I will never fully understand. All I can do is adopt each one and add to those stories - the next chapter in their adventure.
So in short, Day 163 is the story of a T-shirt that came to a design office in London all the way from a kids dentist in America*.
Custom Ink are a garment specialist print works based in Virginia.
See more from Custom Ink via their Twitter account
*I couldn't not include this little factoid:
Whilst looking into the story of Enfield Paediatric Dentistry I discovered that the premises is specifically from a place called Hazard Avenue of Hazardville. What a magnificently fiendish place to open a dental practice!
