The Well-constructed Colors of the Rainbow…

“How to make Boy Shorts”

Handmade in Brooklyn under the watch­ful eye of the Statue of Liberty the designs by “ruf­feo hearts lil snotty” are hit­tin’ per­fectly on the pulse of the moment.  This group works out of “Parachute Studios” an artist’s col­lec­tive in Redhook, Brooklyn.  They begin each day by first doing a funny dance before get­ting down to the busi­ness of mak­ing their orig­i­nal clothes.

From the freakishly-fun undies to their space-age-Japan style shirts.  The sporty but fash­ion y look of this cloth­ing line is refresh­ing and unmis­tak­able while being one hun­dred per­cent recy­cled.  Each piece is fash­ioned from exist­ing sports­wear.  The design­ers of “ruf­feo hearts lil snotty” Sarah and R. Mackswell Sherman pro­duce these hand-made goods for sale on Etsy.com and whole­sale to select retailers.

R. Mackswell started his fash­ion career inad­ver­tently while in the prac­tice of pup­petry and speed-rapping.  He took a cos­tum­ing class and dis­cov­ered he was good.  Even on Etsy you can tell.  The clothes appear well-made and pos­sess a strangely ele­vated aes­thetic in con­struc­tion and com­po­si­tion — though the sub­ject mat­ter is utterly whim­si­cal.  This com­bi­na­tion makes for the best kind of fash­ion prod­uct, in our hum­ble opin­ion.  Not only are the pieces well-made and hand-made — they are so cool, they are even fun to look at.

A cus­tom piece was recently fash­ioned by R. Mackswell for jour­nal­ist Mo Rokka dur­ing a seg­ment on “CBS Sunday Morning”.  Mo made an appear­ance in his one-of-a-kind hoody on “the Martha Stewart Show”.  Martha seemed impressed, though,  in keep­ing with tra­di­tion, she did not pass up an oppor­tu­nity to demon­strate her unend­ing knowl­edge of craft mak­ing by cor­rect­ing Mo on one tech­ni­cal, sewing-related point.

Honestly, there was no deny­ing, even Martha agreed– the shirt looked awe­some on him.

In cre­at­ing their busi­ness, Sarah and Mackswell wanted to be a part of a move­ment for social change.  Making some­thing from dis­carded materials…something made excel­lently with­out tak­ing itself too seri­ously?  That’s seems like a good start.

Leah Spurrier.HighStreet.Cincinnati