CAD - Fred Perry T-shirt Design

Fred Perry is a brand which started off in the 1940's when Fred Perry himself, a famous tennis player at the time was approached and asked if his name could be used as a brand for sports products. The first item to become popular using the Fred Perry name was a sweat band from here the brand soared. The brand really took off in the 1960's when Fred Perry clothing became heavily associated with the mod-culture. Fred Perry is still now a popular fashion brand with a modern edge.

Although Fred Perry does sell womens clothing and is already associated with beloved singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse I have decided that for my T-Shirt Design I am going to create a t-shirt which would be sold as a tribute to her for her 35th birthday meaning the T-Shirt would be released and sold in the September of 2018.

The Amy Winehouse Collection is still sold on the Fred Perry website, the site states: “ Referencing her original designs for Fred Perry, our collection remains rooted in Amy’s distinctive sportswear and pin-up silhouettes. British graffiti artist Pegasus known for his stencilled piece of the singer in Camden, pays tribute to Amy with an exclusive rose design, printed onto select pieces.” However although the collection does tribute Amy I feel that a special edition T-Shirt would be popular with fans and customers of Fred Perry. In order to make this T-Shirt special I have decided to encorporate more of Amy into the design. Amy was known for having plenty of tattoos so I feel that featuring some of her tattoo’s on the T-Shirt would make it more recognisable to customers that this is an ‘Amy’ T-shirt/Polo.

It is said that Amy had 14 tattoos in total. They were known to be 'old school in flavour, colour and style.' and were also said to be 'more like skin art from the 1950's or 1960's.' Most of Amy’s tattoos were of pin-up girls therefore I feel that in the design of the T-Shirt they should be included. I have created a pantone from Amy’s tattoos to see which colours we could work with.

As I have decided what sort of design I want on the T-Shirt I have to decide what sort of T-Shirt do I want. A normal ‘tee’, a shirt, a polo? I feel that to fit in with the brand I am going to create a Polo Shirt as although Fred Perry does sell T-Shirts they are notorious for the Polo’s.

For my first design I decided that the polo would be black. I felt it was important to have the Fred Perry located where it usually is on all of the brands existing polo shirts. For the collar and edge of the sleeves I went with a red tartan pattern. One of Amy’s most memorable stage outfits consisted of a tartan top tucked into a leopard print bodycon skirt.

This is why the bottom of the shirt is going to feature a leopard print pattern too. Ultimately resembling Amy’s exact outfit for one of her shows. As planned the shirt also features some of Amy’s tattoo designs, these will be embroided onto the polo.

Another design idea of mine is to keep the Fred Perry logo in its familiar position to be consistent with the brand. I have chosen to have the polo in white with a checkered pattern running down the seams of the polo.

The checkered pattern is reminiscent of the classic ska and punk movement of the late 1970’s. A era which Amy was greatly influenced by which resulted to her unique style. This is something which potential customers will be aware of. The checkered pattern is actually featured on one of her album covers as you can see here.

For my final design idea I decided to focus more on the colours of some of Amy’s tattoos. With this design I chose to focus on the blue and pink colours from two of her tattoos. This is a more simple design as there are no specific patterns incorporated with it. Again I decided that the Fred Perry logo should be located on the right side of the shirt in the chest area. The logo itself would be embroided onto the polo, same with the tattoo designs they would also be embroided. I have placed the horse show tattoo design parallel to the logo.