ART SHOULDN’T LIVE ON A WALL.
We love galleries. We love prints. We love artwork hanging proudly in someone’s home.
But we don’t believe that’s the only place great art belongs.
We believe art should be out in the world.
It should be worn. Seen. Talked about. Discovered by someone walking down the street, standing at a gig, wandering around a market or sitting in a coffee shop.
VAIN & MORTAL exists to turn clothing into another canvas.
Our aim is to bring together incredible artists and great-quality clothing to create pieces that people genuinely want to wear — while making sure the artists behind those designs are recognised, credited and fairly rewarded for the work they create.
We want to work with illustrators, painters, tattoo artists, designers and other creatives whose work fits somewhere within the strange, beautiful and darker corners of the VAIN & MORTAL world.
Gothic. Alternative. Macabre. Romantic. Tattoo-inspired. Beautifully unsettling.
Not because we want to take an artist’s work, stick it on a T-shirt and move on.
Because we want to build something together.
MEET OUR COLLABORATING ARTISTS.
Rowena Searby-Rodgers
Multidisciplinary artist working across drawing, ink, painting and mixed media, exploring atmospheric, macabre and beautifully unsettling visual storytelling.
Shannon Iero
Nottingham-based tattoo artist working across dotwork and blackwork, with a visual language rooted in skulls, nature, eyes, texture and darker imagery. Shannon is currently developing Project Wendigo with VAIN & MORTAL.
ARTISTS DESERVE BETTER.
Too often, artists are expected to hand over hours of work for a small one-off payment while somebody else continues making money from that artwork for years.
That isn’t the kind of relationship we want to build.
Our collaboration model is designed around something simple:
If your artwork helps create something successful, you should share in that success.
Depending on the collaboration, artists may be offered a straightforward upfront fee or an ongoing royalty arrangement linked to sales of products featuring their work.
Everything is agreed clearly before anything goes into production.
No vague promises.
No hidden catches.
No pretending exposure pays the bills.
Just artists being properly valued for what they create.
YOU MAKE THE ART. WE’LL DO THE REST.
Creating great artwork is one thing.
Turning that artwork into a properly manufactured product, building a shop around it, photographing it, marketing it, packing orders, answering customer emails and dealing with returns is something completely different.
And frankly, it can suck the joy out of creating.
That’s where VAIN & MORTAL comes in.
We want artists to be able to concentrate on the bit they’re brilliant at:
making art.
We take care of the machinery around it.
If we collaborate on a design, we can take that artwork and turn it into something real — whether that means a T-shirt, hoodie, vest, tote, patch, pin, print or another product that makes sense for the artwork.
WHAT WE BRING TO THE TABLE
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
We work out how to turn the artwork into a product people will actually want to buy — including garment selection, print methods, sizing, placement, sampling and production.
You don't need to become an expert in screen printing, embroidery, garment weights, manufacturers or minimum order quantities just because you drew something brilliant.
PRODUCTION AND SUPPLIERS
We source the products, work with printers and manufacturers, order samples, arrange production and deal with the inevitable emails, specifications, revisions and problems that come with making physical products.
We also carry the commercial risk involved in actually getting those products made.
THE UPFRONT INVESTMENT
Producing clothing costs money before a single item has been sold.
Stock, samples, printing, packaging, photography, website costs, market fees and promotion all have to be paid for somewhere.
That's our side of the partnership.
You aren't being asked to buy 100 T-shirts and hope somebody wants them.
A PLATFORM FOR YOUR WORK
Your artwork becomes part of the VAIN & MORTAL world and is put in front of an audience interested in alternative art, clothing, tattoos, gothic culture and independent creativity.
We sell through our own channels, online and increasingly through markets, events and retail opportunities.
As VAIN & MORTAL grows, we want the artists who helped create it to grow with us.
MARKETING
Making the product is only half the job.
We photograph it, create content, promote it through our social channels, feature the artist and their work, take products to events and markets and actively try to put the collaboration in front of people who might love it.
You don't have to suddenly become a full-time content creator because somebody put your drawing on a shirt.
SELLING
We build and maintain the storefront.
We take the payments.
We manage the listings.
We deal with payment providers, website maintenance and the less glamorous side of actually turning interest into orders.
PACKING AND FULFILMENT
When somebody buys something featuring your artwork, you don't need to find a mailing bag, print a postage label or queue at the Post Office.
We handle the order.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Wrong size?
Parcel hasn't arrived?
Customer wants an exchange?
Something has gone wrong with an order?
That's our problem — not yours.
We handle customer enquiries, returns, replacements and refunds so you aren't spending your evenings answering messages about where somebody's T-shirt is.
AND YOU GET PAID.
We believe original artists deserve fair, transparent royalties. Each collaboration is considered individually, with terms reflecting recognised art-licensing practices and agreed clearly before production begins.
That means one piece of artwork doesn't necessarily result in one payment.
If people continue buying it, you continue earning from it.
Where appropriate, a design might also develop beyond its original product.
A piece that begins on a T-shirt could potentially become a patch, tote, print or something else entirely — and any use of the artwork would be covered by the agreement we make with the artist.
For artists who would rather know exactly what they're receiving from the beginning, we can also discuss a one-off upfront payment instead of ongoing royalties.
Different artists want different things.
We're happy to have that conversation.
WE'RE NEW. WE'RE GROWING. AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO PRETEND OTHERWISE.
VAIN & MORTAL is still a young brand.
We're building our audience, expanding our products, developing relationships with suppliers, attending more events and working towards getting our clothing into more physical retail spaces.
That means we can't honestly tell an artist that putting a design on a VAIN & MORTAL T-shirt is going to suddenly pay their mortgage.
Maybe one day.
But we're not there yet.
What we can offer is the opportunity to become part of something while it is still being built.
The artists we work with now aren't arriving after the audience, the infrastructure and the opportunities already exist.
They have the chance to help shape them.
If VAIN & MORTAL becomes what we believe it can become, we want the artists who took that chance with us to have been part of that story from the beginning.
And because we're still growing, we're currently looking to work with only a small number of carefully selected artists and designs.
We'd rather build a few genuine collaborations properly than collect hundreds of designs that we don't have the time, money or attention to support.
IF WE SAY NO, IT DOESN’T MEAN YOUR ART ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH.
This matters to us.
We know how personal artwork can be.
Sending something you've created to a company and effectively asking, “Do you think this is worth putting into the world?” can feel surprisingly vulnerable.
So if we talk about a collaboration and don't move forward with it, please don't take that as us saying your artwork isn't good enough.
It might simply not fit what we're developing at that particular moment.
We might already have something similar planned.
The design might be incredible but difficult to reproduce successfully on the products we're currently able to manufacture.
Or we might simply have reached the limit of how many collaborations we can realistically give proper attention to.
There are a hundred reasons why the right artwork might arrive at the wrong time.
BUT WE WILL LOOK.
Every genuine collaboration proposal we receive will be considered.
Not fed into a pile and forgotten.
Not judged purely by how many Instagram followers you have.
And not ignored because you haven't worked with a clothing company before.
We will listen to your idea. If we decide to explore it further, we’ll put an artist agreement in place before you share any artwork.
We will consider whether there's something we could build together.
And we will reply to everyone, whether the answer is yes, no or simply not right now.
That's basic respect.
If you've taken the time and had the confidence to get in touch about a collaboration, the least we can do is acknowledge it properly.
YOU DON'T NEED AN AUDIENCE. YOU NEED AN IDEA.
We're not just looking for established professional artists.
You don't need thousands of followers.
You don't need an agent.
You don't need a huge portfolio.
And you don't need previous commercial experience.
Maybe you sell prints every weekend.
Maybe you're a tattoo artist.
Maybe you've been illustrating professionally for twenty years.
Or maybe you've been drawing strange things in sketchbooks for years and have never seriously considered that somebody might want to wear one.
We care about the work.
If something stops us in our tracks, we want to see where it could go.
WHY NOT JUST DO IT YOURSELF?
You absolutely can.
And if you love running an online shop, sourcing clothing, negotiating with manufacturers, buying stock, photographing products, making reels, answering emails, packing parcels and processing returns, you probably should.
But being an incredible artist doesn't mean you should also have to become a clothing manufacturer, marketer, photographer, retailer, fulfilment department and customer-service team.
We're building that infrastructure so you don't have to.
You bring something we can't manufacture:
your ideas, your style and your artwork.
We bring the infrastructure required to take that artwork out of the sketchbook, studio or gallery and put it into the world.
That's the collaboration.
Not simply buying a design from an artist.
Building something with one.
YOUR NAME DOESN'T DISAPPEAR WHEN THE PRODUCT LAUNCHES.
We don't want anonymous artwork.
Where appropriate, we want people to know who created what they're wearing.
Collaborating artists can be credited through the product story, our website and promotional content, giving customers the opportunity to discover the person behind the artwork rather than treating the artist as an invisible supplier.
Because if someone stops you in the street and asks:
“Who designed that?”
We want the answer to have a name.
MAYBE IT SELLS TEN. MAYBE IT SELLS A THOUSAND.
Nobody can honestly promise that before something exists.
What we can promise is that if we choose to put our name behind your work, we'll genuinely try to sell it.
We'll invest in the product.
We'll put it in front of people.
We'll take it to markets and events.
We'll photograph it.
We'll promote it.
We'll deal with everything that happens after somebody presses the Buy button.
And if people fall in love with what we created together, you'll share in that success.
You don't have to build a clothing company around your artwork.
We've already started building one.
BETTER CLOTHING. BETTER PRACTICES.
The artwork matters.
So does what we print it on.
VAIN & MORTAL is working towards a range built around high-quality, organic and responsibly sourced clothing, alongside more sustainable and considered ways of producing, packaging and selling what we make.
We would rather create something worth owning than contribute another disposable T-shirt to the world.
That means carefully choosing garments, printers, manufacturers and partners wherever possible — and continually trying to make better choices as the brand grows.
Got an idea for a collaboration? Let’s start with a conversation. Please don’t send artwork, design files or portfolio links at this stage. We’ll talk first and put an artist agreement in place before any artwork is shared.
Let’s Talk ArtYou create the art.
We build the product.
We put it in front of people.
We handle the headaches.
And when it sells, you get paid.
Beauty Fades. Art Remains.