Every print in the Late Set started as a photograph taken on the floor of a small show: a raised arm, a floodlight, a crowd leaning forward. This is how those photos end up on a tee.
1. Shooting in the dark
Low light gives grain and deep shadows to work with. The best frames are rarely the sharpest ones. We look for shapes that still read when everything else falls into black.
2. Breaking it into dots
A screen print can only lay down solid ink, so the photo has to be turned into a halftone: a grid of dots that are large in the shadows and small in the highlights. From a distance your eye blends them back into a picture. Up close, you see the dots. We keep them big on purpose.
3. Pulling the screen
The halftone is burned onto a mesh screen, and ink is pulled through it onto the garment. We use a soft ink that sits in the cotton rather than on top of it, which is what lets the print crack slowly instead of peeling.
4. Choosing the placement
The same image works differently at different sizes. On the Halftone Boxy Tee it runs large across the chest. On the Encore Coach Jacket it sits small over the heart, like a backstage pass you forgot to take off.
5. Living with it
A halftone print is never quite finished. It softens and cracks with every wash and every night out, and the picture slowly becomes more yours than ours.
The Late Set is our first drop. Twelve pieces, one rail, all in black, stone and grey.
