Tranquility in a Tee

This summer, those trapped in the concrete jungle seek relief by wearing nature on their T-shirts. Hot styles include a silhouetted flock of birds hovering over an oak tree, and baroque, often airbrushed, images of dense forests and meadow grasses. As one who rode the crest of this trend, how does botanist-cum-T-shirt designer Sarah Nassif react? “I was really bummed at first,” said the thirty-four-year-old, who, three years ago, turned her passions for plants and apparel into a business called Rectangle Designs. “But,” she added, “images of plants have always figured into textile design, which I think is an interesting almanac of what’s going on.”

Nassif, whose goods are found in boutiques nationwide (including the Design Collective in Uptown and Truly… in White Bear Lake), points out that she is “focused on reproducing actual images from nature—not sketching.” That’s why she carries a digital camera, whether she’s hiking along the West River Parkway in her Minneapolis neighborhood or traipsing about her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Her favorite subjects include ginkgo trees (“They’re sort of ancient, like a living fossil”) and Queen Anne’s lace. She converts her digital images into monotones, then manually screen-prints them onto canvas clutches, soft cotton tees, and, recently—in keeping with the current fashions—extra-long tanks. But Nassif’s love of nature doesn’t extend to a taste for humdrum hues like “oatmeal” and “buff.” Her latest collection pairs black with magenta and even buttercup yellow over lavender. “I think Mother Nature would approve of these not-seen-in-nature color combinations,” she said. —Christy DeSmith