Designer of Menstruating Vagina Shirt 'Trolled the Mainstream Media'

By Kate Dries  |  October 8, 2013 | 7:00pm
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Petra Collins, the artist behind American Apparel’s new menstruating vagina shirt, spoke to VICE and said that all the attention the shirt has gotten has been “really awesome” and “exactly” what she wanted.

The shirt had a mixed reception from potential consumers on our site, but some media outlets reported that others were far more critical; as demonstrated in the screenshot Collins posted on her Instagram account above, the Daily Mail blurred the shirt out and headlined its article “Has American Apparel gone too far? Shoppers attack ‘vile’ and ‘disturbing’ T-shirt showing menstruation” (as if this t-shirt could really be the final straw that proves American Apparel will stop at nothing to be controversial). In her interview with VICE, Collins said that the whole point of the shirt is to point how ridiculous it is that people are “shocked and appalled at something that’s such a natural state”:

…it’s funny that out of all the images everywhere, all of the sexually violent images, or disgustingly derogatory images, this is something that’s so, so shocking apparently. The graphic on my shirt is a line drawing, too. It’s not even a full-on image.

“Deep down it really saddens me but it’s also awesome that I’ve just trolled the mainstream media,” added Collins.

The actual t-shirt was created by Collins’s friend Alice Lancaster, who may or may not have drawn it via an actual selfie she took of herself masturbating:

We went back and forth about what we wanted—I told her I wanted a girl masturbating from a certain angle. She kept saying: “This is hard. I’m going to have to take a selfie and draw it.” She was like: “Can you take a selfie?”
Is that how she ended up drawing it?
I don’t know what happened. But we had a lot of trouble. It’s hard to get a selfie that’s accurate for drawing.

When asked if American Apparel had any issues with the shirt, Collins says no. “We had to figure out how to place the graphic on the t-shirt but other than that they were just like, ‘cool thanks.’ That was basically it.” Dov wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chatting with Petra Collins About Her Menstruating-Vagina Shirt [VICE]

Image via Petra Collins/Instagram

 
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