'Sparkle Bright Launderette' 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.
Sparkle Bright Launderette
This one is particularly special to me because I remember it so well from my childhood in Victoria! The name of the business, plus the darling little girl in the yellow dress and red socks, hits me right in the heart.
Sparkle Bright was located in a little commercial strip on semi-busy Quadra street in Victoria, and there was a Dutch store right beside it that had traditional painted yellow wooden shoes in the window that I became obsessed with. I was 8 years old, and the shoes were $18, and it’s the first purchase I remember ever making (aside from candy!) with my own money!
I’m not sure why those shoes beckoned to me so urgently, as I have no Dutch heritage, but I remember finding them beautiful and fascinating, and I ended up wearing them a lot! Maybe the little girl’s outfit inspired me, and I thought those shoes would help me to sparkle as brightly as she did ❤️
Neil painted Sparkle Bright Launderette in 1994, when he lived in Victoria. He had moved out west in 1989, after growing up in Toronto, and found that certain types of things stood out to him. ‘Victoria had a really different feeling to me - in a way I was just trying to identify what exactly that feeling was. Part of it was that the culture was so different, like the trailers and campers that dotted the streets. Part of it was the time capsule feeling of things that had disappeared in Toronto before I left - old storefronts and signs especially. It was like everything I was interested in was still there - as if the era I grew up in was still represented in Victoria.’
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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 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 XS 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.
We'll be restocking any missing sizes in late August , 2025.
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!
