Muijs + Jones: when fashion meets art

Written by Sara Black

Photographed by Ophelia Mikkelson

When fashion and art collide, great things can happen. Case in point: New Zealand’s Sherie Muijs and Ryder Jones.

Fashion designer Sherie Muijs knows shirts. Her tailoring is impeccable, her natural material choices are forever spot on. And artist Ryder Jones knows art. A visual arts graduate, he generally works in the realm of sculpture and furniture with a highly instinct-driven style.

Put these two creatives in the same room and they work in beautiful unison. Their ‘Painted Shirt’ series, a collection of mid-weight, cotton men’s shirts are employed as a canvas for Jones’ artworks. Colours loosely flow and evoke a sense of playful freedom, the paint strokes interrupt the perceived austerity of a shirt.

“The shirts challenge adult assumptions of competence and organisation. Plainness and conformity. Instead opting for something akin to the failure and of a broken list, forever growing incomplete and undone.”

Made in New Zealand, the shirts feature a front-inset pocket with bar-tack ends, two-piece sleeves with pearl buttons, closers at the cuff and centre-front placket. A back yoke, hanger loop and a curved hem. Tight double-stitch details ensure the highest quality with all enclosed French and flat-felled seams. Perfection.