For our Fashion Faceoff contest, we asked six juniors at Moore College of Art & Design to come up with embroidery or screen-printing concepts to embellish a garment offered by Vantage Apparel. The designs are meant to complement athleisure outfits the students have been creating throughout the school year. As part of the contest’s educational aim, we encouraged representatives of Vantage to provide feedback on the students’ concepts and make suggestions on how best to translate them to their chosen medium.

Erin Keenan, one of the contestants submitted to two possible designs, one meant for a men’s full-zip two-tone jersey knit hoodie in dark heather and black, the other meant for a men’s micro-fleece pullover in grey and dark grey. Keenan wanted Vantage to embroider multi-colored squiggly lines onto the garments – a pattern that mimicked, but didn’t repeat the one on her athleisure looks.

Diana Mumm, creative director of Vantage, reviewed Keenan’s initial concept, noting that the supplier-decorator would not be able to achieve the full-back embroidery design she was interested in. Instead, Mumm suggested using laser etching to create an all-over outline pattern on the front and back of the garment. “This will allow for the most coverage of the piece,” she explains.

For the hood, however, laser etching and embroidery wouldn’t be possible, due to the size restrictions of Vantage’s embroidery hoops, Mumm says. She offered two options: either screen printing or embroidering her outline design onto cotton rib fabric and using it to line the inside of the hood. Vantage also offered Keenan the opportunity to add a contrast draw cord in a shade to match her full-color art.

Keenan opted to go with screen printing for the hood lining and other decoration, and requested a white draw cord to complement the white draw cords she’s using in her other athleisure designs.

Check out the slideshow below to see the evolution of Keenan’s design for Vantage.

Her concept is based on this pattern she created for the male and female athleisure look she's been working on all year.

An initial concept sketch

An initial concept sketch

An initial concept sketch

An initial concept sketch

The vector art Erin submitted after receiving feedback from Vantage

Vector art of the design that will be used in her Vantage hoodie.

Erin Keenan's artwork will be printed and laser-etched onto the dark gray version of this  micro-fleece hoodie from Vantage.