Our philosophy at Exodus Wear is to give our clients free reign with their design and then try make it happen. A lot of companies stick to templates or patterns but we prefer to provide our clients with a blank line drawing and then let them free hand a design to see what they come up with. This encouragement of creativity is what has been the starting point for many of the exciting designs we have produced.
We recently worked with Commotion School of Performing Arts to create a special jacket that their students could wear at competitions. Dance costumes are generally so creative and flamboyant but a majority of the time that does not follow through into dance uniforms and tracksuits. If anything a lot of dance tracksuits can be quite boring. We were very excited when Commotion said they wanted to come up with something different that would represent who they are as a dance company and help them stand out when out and about at competitions.
The Commotion logo is a black and white checkerboard with the ‘Commotion’ text written over the top. The checkerboard is a big part of the Commotion brand and is used not only on their website, uniforms but also in the studio. Upon entering the studio you are greeted with a floor to ceiling black and white checkerboard with photos of their students in each box. Ben was very keen to use the checkerboard on the jacket design and came up with the idea of checkboard sleeves and checkerboard hood lining. In order to make this happen we needed to use a polyestor material so that we could sublimate the checkerboard design onto the material. The only challenge was that Ben preferred the feel of the polycotton fleece and so we decided to create the body of the jacket in the polycotton fleece and then make raglan sleeves out of the polyestor. This is the first time we used this technique and we have to say the end result was fantastic and we can see that a lot more of our clients will be interested in creating similar designs. It gives you the best of both worlds – creative and colourful but warm and comfortable also.
The design also included the Commotion logo and text screenprinted on the front and back but to make the jacket extra special Ben came up with the idea of following on with the checkerboard for the lining of the jacket. Instead of using just black and white boxes he wanted to make up the checkerboard using photos of his students. Ben organised to have headshots taken of all the students on either a black or a white background. He told them they were just new headshots but didn’t explain they would go in the lining of the jacket. Our team laid out the checkerboard onto the pattern so that the whole area was covered. When the jackets were delivered the students opened them to find their photos; it was a fantastic surprise! The team at Commotion now have a completely unique jacket that they love and feel proud to wear.
For more ideas and designs please check out our Dance Jackets page. If you would like to speak to one of our sales representatives please contact us on (02) 8188 7988 or email enquiries@exoduswear.com.au.
