EuroSpaceHub by Francesca Mirabile – Unisex organic cotton t-shirt

Francesca Mirabile is the 3rd award winner of our EuroSpaceHub Vintage Space Collage Contest.

F.M. ROBOT is the protagonist of a vintage toy box that I made using the digital textile collage technique. Here textiles with different patterns, initially scanned, were assembled together to compose the final image. Bright colors, flashes and vignettes envelop the Robot in a nostalgic atmosphere. To get to this point, FM ROBOT went through several stages of design and research. The first step was archiving: I made a mood board with reference images (movie stills, comic book images, images of old toys with iconic style). The choice to draw a space toy box, where the ruined paper effect is voluntarily visible, was instinctive: as if any of us could feel a bit of nostalgia looking at it and wearing it. The second step was the aesthetic one: combining my vintage textile aesthetic with the vintage space style while remaining consistent with both. The last, more playful creative step was to decorate the box with stickers and recreate (custom) lettering inspired by that of real vintage toy boxes. This robot is a small creature that bears my initials “F.M. ROBOT by Francesca Mirabile” as Frankenstein’s monster bears the professor’s name; but I am proud of him. Finally, I made a prototype three-dimensional cardboard box to be used as the actual packaging for the goods. This could be fun: the box in the box.

Each garment will be sold at the price of 300,00€ on EuroSpaceHub and Collabwith website only. The revenue from the sale of each t-shirt will be equally divided among the artists (€100,00), the student analog astronaut training (€100,00) and EuroSpaceHub consortium (€100,00 for production costs). The winning designs will also be displayed in the Log In page of EuroSpaceHub digital platform.

This year’s call focuses on the topic of Vintage Space Art. Each artist is asked to produce a digital artwork inspired by the retro imagery of Vintage Space Collage and Space Art of the 1960s-90s, which is characterized by dreamy and often surreal atmospheres.