"Nasty Woman" T-Shirt Designer Expands Feminist Clothing Platform
Amanda Brinkman was watching the final presidential debate in October when Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton a "nasty woman." As a spur-of-the-moment
idea she mocked up a "Nasty Woman" t-shirt and threw it on her website she'd
been using to practice her newly acquired graphic design skills.
When she woke up the next morning, she had nearly 10,000 orders for the shirt and called Shopify to report a glitch in their system. Turns out, it wasn't a
glitch. Fast forward to June 2017 and Brinkman has raised more than $130,000 for
Planned Parenthood with proceeds of the shirt, which has been worn by the likes
of Katy Perry and Will Ferrell.
This week, Brinkman expanded her website to include a host of other feminist-leaning designers. Her website's domain name is Google Ghost, which she
initially chose as a kind of joke, having never expected it to become a
full-fledged business. She will be announcing a new name for the platform in the
next few months.
"After the shirt initially went viral, I really wanted to think about different ways to sustain it," Brinkman tells Pret-a-Reporter. "I really wasn't
interested in going for the low hanging fruit of turning the Nasty Woman heart
logo into baby clothes or putting it all over every kind of product
imaginable."
Before designing the t-shirts, Brinkman was one of the founders of New Orleans-based contemporary art nonprofit Pelican Bomb. Both before and
especially after the election, Brinkman was contacted by people seeking advice
on how to get politically active. So, after the election, she and her Pelican
Bomb partner Cameron Shaw created an 18-month desk planner offering self-care
tips and dates to know, bios and quotes from feminists (the calendar starts on
Trump's inauguration day, Jan. 20, 2017.) "The hope was to meet people where
they were at on their political journey and not shame anyone for not knowing
enough," said Brinkman. "It was really important for us to make it a really
inclusive, fun product."
Now Brinkman is looking to highlight feminist clothing designers. She doesn't appreciate "big box retailers" who she thinks sometimes "capitalize on feminism"
in order to "make a quick buck." She prefers to tell the stories of people who
are feminists themselves, making products as artists and designers. All of the
products on her site at the moment contribute 10 percent of their profits to
either Planned Parenthood or the ACLU.
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