Kinesthesia fellow member's new gender-neutral clothing brand focuses on sustainability

Jacob Victorine, a function-time faculty member in the English language and Artistic Writing Section, wears a jacket and stands next to pants sold by All Nosotros Remember, a clothing make Victorine and three of his friends fabricated with gender-neutral designs and eco-friendly production methods. Zachary Clingenpeel

Jacob Victorine met three of his closest friends and before longhoped-for business concern partners while working at a retail store in Logan Foursquare. Five years later, the four would create their own gender-neutral clothing brand.

Victorine, a function-time faculty fellow member in the English and Artistic Writing Section, Rob Johnson, Noah Zagor and Alex Van Dorp tried a variety of dissimilar ideas, such as T-shirts featuring poesy on the front, before landing on gender-neutral clothing.

At Meyvn, the Logan Square retail store where the four met, Zagor was the owner, Victorine managed the store and Van Dorp, who at the time studied graphic design and photography at Columbia, was a sales employee. Johnson was a regular customer at the shop and said while he initially went to buy clothes, he started visiting the store just to talk with the others.

"It became clear that we were all very dissimilar in a lot of ways only we shared a lot in common," Johnson said.

Victorine and his fellow designers said a large part of their design is sustainability, and the brand officially launched on April 22. Zachary Clingenpeel

All We Retrieve began every bit an idea Victorine and Zagor had to create graphic T-shirts, simply as it grew and gained other members from the Meyvn team, the brand evolved.

The group knew the main goal of their clothing make was to create clothes that fit well and look good on every bit many people equally possible, and they realized that meant the clothes would have to exist gender-neutral.

The official launch on April 22 included a line of gender-neutral clothing fit for a variety of body shapes and sizes. The brand currently offers sizes 0-v, or U.S. sizes XS-XXL, and they desire to create more sizes in the future.

Gender-neutral clothing does not have a distinct gendered pattern, which allows information technology to work for many people regardless of gender, Van Dorp said.

The group of four remained friends afterward Meyvn closed in 2017—due to the market shifting away from high-end boutiques —and in the summer of 2020, Victorine, Van Dorp and Zagor reached out to Johnson to see if he would be interested in working on the All We Call back clothing line.

This jacket is made past the Chicago manufacturing cooperative Blue Can Production using organic cotton wool. Zachary Clingenpeel

The brand initially launched with three products: a knit T-shirt, a drawstring jacket and a pair of drawstring pants. All of the items are made with organic cotton fiber and are produced by Blue Tin can Product, a Chicago-based apparel manufacturing company.

Each of the three items is a neutral cream color and designed to be accessible and comfortable. The shirt is a knit-jersey material, and the pants accept six pockets, along with a drawstring that allows people to conform the fit. The jacket includes four big pockets to concord a variety of items and is as well secured by a drawstring.

"A large part of the brand is responsibility," Victorine said. "I don't think any of united states actually feel that sustainability is possible right at present because of all the various systems that we're entrenched in, [such as] white supremacy, capitalism [and] patriarchy, and then I think for us … it's more than nigh nuance and nigh doing things as ethically every bit possible."

All We Remember clothing is produced by Blue Tin can Production, a worker cooperative that focuses on sustainability and exclusively hires "women of color, trans, gender non-conforming, intergenerational, queer, working-class, and/or immigrants and refugees," according to its website.

Zagor said it is important to the brand that every material used is sustainable and able to go dorsum to the earth.

"If nosotros're going to create something in this world that'southward already chaotic and filled with disposable design, then there has to exist thought that goes into every detail, and nosotros want to create as little affect in a negative way as we can," Zagor said.

The All We Call back clothing line was designed with accessibility and comfort in mind. Pockets on the inside and exterior of the jacket are big enough to agree phones and wallets while a drawstring at the waist allows the jacket to accommodate to different trunk types. Zachary Clingenpeel

The three available wearable items range from $150 to $395 due to the toll of sustainable production, and the group understands not anybody can beget to purchase an item at that price.

The grouping also wants potential buyers to go on in mind that the dress expect good, and quality is not sacrificed to produce the wearing apparel in a sustainable style.

While the four promise to keep to design clothes and aggrandize their brand, Victorine said they do not desire to sacrifice their message in order to attain their goals. They will continue to design and release new clothes, but non at the same rate equally many fast fashion brands do.

"It's more about making beautiful, thoughtful, meaningful things and connecting to people through those things," Victorine said.