‘Ming’s Grocery’ Tee
Birds x Neil MacCormick
These tees are a collaboration between Birds of North America and artist Neil MacCormick. Neil has painted full time since 1984 and co-owns Birds of North America with his partner, designer Hayley Gibson. The two have shared a studio since meeting in 2006.
‘Ming's Grocery’
Ming’s Grocery was located across from one of my childhood haunts in Victoria, BC, the Crystal Pool. My Mum used to drop my brother and I off at the pool on summer afternoons for the 2-5 pm ‘free swim’, where we would spend the entire afternoon cannon-balling, going down those terrifyingly short and steep poolside slides and jumping off the various heights of diving boards. We would exhaust ourselves over the three hour period, going from the deep pool to the slightly warmer childrens’ pool, to the steam room, the hot tub, the sauna, and round and round until our fingers and toes were completely pruned and we felt like wet bags of sand trying to walk back to the locker room when the three hours were up.
Everything about pool afternoons absolutely delighted me. The whole pool experience, to be sure, but also the changeroom lockers with the little keys on safety pins you could attach to your swimsuit, the showers with the dispensers that released bright pink shampoo, and the general excitement, and occasional fear, of being set free inside the pool area, unsupervised, for several hours. One of the most delightful things about this particular pool was that there were three small underwater windows in the deep end that looked into a sunken lounge in the lobby. You could swim down there and open your chlorine-reddened eyes to look through the thick glass portals and occasionally see someone waving at you, or if not, just admire the empty room with its 60’s decor of swirly brown carpeting and moulded orange chairs.
When we were satisfied that we had seen and done everything possible at the pool several times over, we would rinse off, get changed, and then call my mum to come pick us up. We would wait either in the lobby of the pool, or just outside, across from Ming’s Grocery. I remember being absolutely ravenous after these afternoon swimming sessions - I don’t know if I’ve ever felt as hungry as I did on those days! Sometimes we would have enough change to get a bag of chips at a vending machine in the lobby, or (dream scenario) a Dole Whip from the snack counter. Sometimes we would just go wait outside for my mum and gaze longingly at Ming's, knowing it was full of fudgsicles, chips and candy, as our stomachs growled from the hours of exertion.
For Neil, not being a patron of the Crystal Pool, Ming's was a total unknown before he stumbled upon it on this day, walking up a sunbaked street he didn’t know very well. ’It used to happen a lot in Victoria, where in the middle of nowhere there would be a convenience store. It made you wonder how it could be a viable business.’ Of the walks he used to take to look for inspiration for paintings he said ‘I used to be in such a weird mental state - very outsider, feeling like an alien. Things like this convenience store spoke to me like they were also alien - it connected with that lost feeling I had. I used to feel so lost when I was walking around on my own. Still do. It was like the store was saying ‘yeah, I’m lost, too. I’m in the middle of nowhere. We’re both in the middle of nowhere.’’
This image captures all the complexity of summer for me, not just because of my Crystal Pool memories, but because of the timeless familiarity of the convenience store - I hope you feel it, too!
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These tees are made in a Toronto factory out of locally milled, medium weight, 100% organic cotton jersey. These tees can be machine washed and tumble dried. The classic tees will shrink 1" total in length with a wash and dry, and the cropped tees will shrink just 1/2" total. We haven't found there to be any width shrinkage with washing and drying.
In these images, Hayley is 5'7" and wears our size L Cropped White tee, and Neil is 6'1" and wears our size XL Classic Black tee. These tees fit on the larger side of the Birds size chart, but for your everyday classic T-shirt, that fits a bit more generously, they fit 'normally', or as you would expect them to.
If you're going by your regular size in the Birds size chart, we recommend that you take a full size down. If you normally take a S in Birds, the XS will work for you in this. If you normally take a 3X in Birds, the 2X will work for you.
A tip for fit - if you have a favourite classic tee at home, and you'd like the same fit, just lay it flat and measure across the chest to find the closest equivalent in the charts below!
Cropped Tee
Classic Tee
Everything at Birds of North America is vegan and has been made ethically in Canada since we began in 2007. We have a strong focus on sustainability, and strive to create high-quality garments that last a long time. You can browse vintage Birds styles that we've gathered back as part of our buyback program in our ReNesting section!
