This collection was created in 2011, consisting of T-shirts, long-sleeve, maxi and men's shirts, printed with copperplate engraving by the artist Sisetta Zappone. I used a chintz cotton from Hausammann and Moos.  

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Sisetta Zappone's prints often depict mythological beings of anthropo- zoomorphic nature. I was particularly interested in enabling these composite beings, that are on the boundary between the human and the bestial or fabulous, to be worn as a second skin on the body. The dressed body may then appear as a manticore, a phoenix, a dragonfly with integrated human legs or as a chameleon. 

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The first image prints using copper engraving plate are dated around 1430. The copper engraving is thus the second basic technique for image printing after the woodcut. In the middle of the 15th century, Gutenberg invented a printing press with moveable letters for book printing and the publisher Albrecht Pfister put books on the market, in which typeface and picture printing were coupled for the first time. In 1462, the Biblia pauperum (Armenbibel) appeared as one of the earliest typographically illustrated books. The print becomes an important tool to distribute knowledge and culture and provide accessiblity to it. It is then Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) who emancipates the graphic image through relief printing as well as through engraving or etching to an independent art level. He changes fundamentally the repute of the artist 's profession, whose performance is now approaching a new social ideal: that of the technically trained, intellectually educated and socially respected subject.

Excerpts from Meisterwerke der Druckgrafik, Ernst Rebel.

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Printing techniques have evolved and multiplied over the centuries and especially in recent decades. Today`s textiles are mainly printed digitally or by serigraphy. The conventional copper-plate engraved image, however, retains a special character. Through various techniques that interfere with the plate, larger-scale structures, but also deep or very delicate lines can be created. By applying the paint manually and rolling the plate through the roller, every print becomes unique.

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