Unusual Love Tee

An unusual love tee that puts a heart into planetary orbit

A heart cast in iridescent chrome, wrapped by a thin orbital ring, UNUSUAL LOVE set above in stretched holographic type with a block of small caption text below and MCMXCVII marked at the side. The unusual love tee renders an emotion as an object in space.

The orbit ring is the whole idea. Encircle anything with a planetary band and it stops being a symbol and becomes a body — something with mass, held in place by forces acting on it rather than by sentiment. That was a favourite move of late-nineties design, when every logo acquired a swoosh or an ellipse to suggest technology and motion at once. Applying it to a heart turns affection into orbital mechanics, which is a colder and more interesting proposition than a heart on its own.

The rendering is pure turn-of-the-millennium. Iridescence in graphic design is an impossibility on a printed surface — the effect depends on changing with viewing angle, and ink cannot do that. Every holographic image you have seen on paper or fabric is a still of a moving phenomenon, frozen at one angle. The era built an entire visual language out of that limitation.

It comes in black, americano and slate. Black is where the iridescence works hardest, since the effect depends on darkness for the colours to emerge from. Americano warms the pinks and golds inside the chrome. Slate is the coolest and most restrained of the three.

Body fabric is 240 gsm cotton. An iridescent effect is built from several saturated colours transitioning across a small area, and every transition needs surface to happen on — squeeze them onto thin cotton and the whole thing muddies into brown.

Oversized cut, dropped shoulder, crew neck. Take your usual size for the intended drop, or size down for a closer fit. Low-rise trousers below and chrome hardware.

• Type: Oversized graphic tee
• Material: Heavyweight cotton, around 240 gsm
• Print: Back print — chrome heart with orbit ring, 'UNUSUAL LOVE'
• Fit: Oversized, drop shoulder, crew neck, short sleeves
• Sizing: True to size for an oversized look — size down for a closer fit
• Colours: Black, americano, slate
• Wear it with: Low-rise trousers, chrome hardware