Erdem and Gay’s The Word have released a Pride t-shirt featuring artwork by Derek Jarman
The limited edition piece raises funds for AKT, Not A Phase and Terrence Higgins Trust, and tells the story of one of British culture's most defiant artists.
Derek Jarman spent the final years of his life going blind. Diagnosed with HIV in 1986, the filmmaker, painter and activist documented his deteriorating vision in Blue, his last film, released in 1993. There was a single, unwavering shade of International Klein Blue projected onto the screen for 79 minutes, accompanied by his own voice reading from his journals. It remains one of the most radical works in British cinema. The image on Erdem’s new Pride t-shirt is taken from the zine that became Blue’s origin, Bliss, a piece of work as intimate and uncompromising as everything Jarman made.
The t-shirt was created in collaboration with Gay’s The Word, the Bloomsbury bookshop that has been a cornerstone of LGBTQIA+ life in London since 1979, and was photographed on British actor Russell Tovey by Erdem Moralioglu himself. All profits are split equally between charities AKT, Not A Phase, and Terrence Higgins Trust. At £120, it is available exclusively from today at ERDEM.com, the Erdem stores in Mayfair and Sloane Street, and at Gay’s The Word.
A short film accompanies the launch, drawing on rarely seen footage and archive material from The Garden, created by filmmaker David Lewis, a longtime Jarman collaborator, alongside Sara Moralioglu, Erdem’s sister. The score is by Simon Fisher Turner, who composed music for many of Jarman’s films and whose work is inseparable from that world.
It is a considered piece of collaboration rooted in a specific history, in grief and defiance and the particular blue of a man losing his sight, and wearing it lightly enough to sit on a t-shirt without losing any of its weight.
The Erdem x Gay’s The Word Pride t-shirt is available now at ERDEM.com, Erdem Mayfair, Erdem Sloane Street, and Gay’s The Word, Bloomsbury. £120, all profits go to charity.
Credits:
Images courtesy of Erdem
Words: Roisin Teeling @roisinteeling
