Stronger Than You Think: The Story Behind the Design
Most of our designs start as a laugh. Something you would yell out the window of a fourby. This one did not.
October is breast cancer awareness month, and the pink ribbon has been doing its job for decades now. It is recognised everywhere, which is exactly the point of it. But a ribbon on its own is a symbol, and symbols can go a bit weightless when you see them often enough. We wanted to draw something that had a person in it.
What ended up in the design
The girl
She is not posed and she is not sad. She is standing there in a paddock like she has got somewhere to be. That was the whole brief for her. Every version where she looked fragile got binned.
The cattle dog
Because nobody who has been through anything hard did it entirely on their own, and out here the one who sits with you is usually a dog. He is not decoration. He is the point.
The fourby
Ours is a brand built around getting out of town, and the vehicle is how you do that. It is the thing in the picture that says the world is still open and you are still going.
The windmill
A windmill turns because the wind pushes it. It has no say in the weather. It just keeps going and it keeps water coming up out of the ground for whoever needs it. We did not overthink that one at the time. It felt right, and looking at it now it is probably the most honest bit of the whole design.
The ribbon
Pink, and stitched through the middle of it, because there is no ambiguity about what this shirt is about and there should not be.
The badge that goes with it
There is a matching pink longhorn badge from the same set. Same idea, less on it. Some people want the whole picture on their back and some want a small thing that only means something if you know. Both are fine.
Who it is for
Whoever wants it. Someone going through it now. Someone who came out the other side. Someone wearing it for their mum, their sister, their wife, their mate. Someone who just wants to be visible about it during October.
There is no right reason to wear it and nobody has to explain themselves at the servo.
How it is made
Same as everything else here. Printed to order on a 180 GSM combed cotton tee, pressed on our own machine in a shed in Brisbane by a husband and wife team, then posted out. Sizes S to 3XL. Nothing about it is mass produced.
And whatever else you do in October, book the scan. That part matters more than any shirt.