Now that the weather has that familiar fall chill in the air and the kids are gearing up for winter, it’s time to supplement that back-to-school wardrobe with warmer items that will thrill parents and have the kiddies in stitches because they can read the animal name on his or her T-shirt because it’s upside-down.
Wait. What?
BioME5, a T-shirt company based in California, offers comfy toddler-sized T-shirts that feature animals that correspond to a letter in the alphabet. So, B for bear. The company produces short-sleeve tees and now offerslong-sleeve tees for the cooler days.
And though the creators, Becky Nix and Aleksander “Olek” Novak-Zemplinski, of Venice, Calif., admit they weren’t the first to come up with the idea of inverse text, the idea just made sense.
“It just seemed like the smartest — and coolest — thing to do,” Nix said, in an e-mail. “Think about it — if you’re going to design a T-shirt based on the alphabet with a word on it and use it as a learning tool, it seems only natural to focus on the wearer, especially since we’re talking about kids.”
For Nix and Novak-Zemplinski, the focus on children’s curiosity came naturally.
“For a child, everything is new and exciting,” Nix added. “They are little sponges for knowledge and we wanted to make sure that our products encouraged and supported their learning.”
The couple are in charge of bioLINIA, a creative Web site that focuses on digital painting, as well as furniture and clothing. It also led to the birth of bioME5.
“It was our passion for children, the learning process and sustainability that motivated us to really focus our efforts into the children’s line,” Nix said.
As for the name, Nix said: “It’s no accident that we use ‘bio’ (the Latin word for life) in both bioME5 and bioLINIA.
They feed off of each other and become, in a way, our personal mantra.” The companies focus on separate products for the time being, but perhaps, Nix added, the two will become connected.
Mimicking the Earth’s natural biomes as inspiration for art appealed to the couple as well. And the T-shirts are made from 100 percent certified organic cotton and made in sweatshop-free environments in the United States, as well as being tagless and preshrunk. The “green film” the shirts arrive in are made by Maverick Enterprises and are formulated to degrade in months when buried or discarded in a landfill.
“We wanted to do a [clothing] line based on the things that we find beautiful and, unfortunately, what many people overlook (especially living in an urban environment, like we do),” Nix said. “Our tees are not only learning catalysts, but are also beautiful and vivid reminders of what the Earth gives us on a daily basis to enjoy — to get out there and explore, all the while remain respectful to the Earth and how we [a]ffect it.”
Surf the web
bioME5.com
bioLINIA.com
maverickent.net
