There is a sweatshirt that shouts about the freedom to read, and there is this one. THE FREEDOM / TO READ set in two lines of heavy typewriter capitals, letterspaced edge to edge and held between the thin double rules of a catalogue card, then, small and quiet underneath: DEFENDED DAILY BY YOUR LIBRARIAN.
That last line is the whole design. Without it this is a slogan; with it, the sentence acquires a person, and the person is the one wearing it. Not a placard, a professional credential, stamped once with the broken ink bite of real rubber on paper.
Substantial and warm, built to be worn all term, with a plate that sits in the fabric rather than on top of it, offered in a range of soft paper shades, because the light garment is the paper, and the paper is the point.
It is the sweatshirt for the cold library in February and the one she pulls on for a board meeting. It is also what a staff team buys together, when the mug and the rainbow tote have not said anything at all.
Set by hand, worn on purpose.
