There is a shirt 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.
Soft and easygoing, broken in from the first wear, 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 shirt she buys herself for the first week, and wears to the board meeting. It is also the gift a colleague or a parent reaches for when the mug and the rainbow tote have not said anything at all.
Set by hand, worn on purpose.
