Off the Beaten Path
Jeff Garcia’s “Appeeling” New Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon Shirts
If you’ve been running for more than a few years, you probably have one by now. A shelf, a drawer, maybe a bag in the bottom of a closet full of finisher’s shirts. They sit there neglected until you’re out of clean shirts and need to go for a run, or it’s time to make some space and they’re finally carted off to the nearest second-hand shop. Some lucky soul out there is running around in my teal Townsville Turkey Trot Shuff le 5k “technical” shirt. That’s the life of your typical souvenir race shirt in 2016. And that’s why it’s so refreshing to see the offerings for this year’s Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, Half-Marathon and 5k races. The shirts – designed by Toronto-based artist-athlete Mango Peeler (real name: Jeff Garcia) – are pleasantly free of clichés: no CN Tower; no silhouette of a runner or pack of runners; not even a maple leaf. You might actually wear this one out at a bar. But that doesn’t mean the shirt doesn’t capture the spirit of stwm, one of just five iaaf Gold Label marathons in North America. The wavy design was inspired by the waterfront itself, where Torontonians train year-round just at the edge of the concrete jungle that is Canada’s largest city. Garcia’s vision for the design crystallized while running on Toronto’s Martin Goodman Trail, which follows the Lake Ontario shoreline. “Rolling along the trail, watching the waves crash, the repetition and ritual of grinding out kilometre after kilometre is always hypnotic and inspiring,” Garcia says, adding: “I was also listening to Kanye West’s “Waves” a lot during this time.” With that idea in mind, Garcia hit the studio. He took 42 basic lines – one for every kilometre in a marathon – printed on a piece of paper. He then passed that sheet through a photocopier 42 times, manipulating the initial image to give it a wavy distortion. Slicing through the wave pattern is a ref lective map of the stwm course. “Initially, I wanted the whole thing to be ref lective but that would have been too costly,” Garcia says. “The ref lective map makes the shirt completely different at night, paving the way for runners, keeping us visible.” Speaking of runners being visible, few stand out in a race more than Garcia,
with his multi-coloured hair, diy clothing and shoes he personalizes with felt markers. It’s clear Garcia’s vision for an elevated runner’s esthetic goes beyond this shirt design (check his ‘My Style’ profile in the March/April 2016 issue). “I have a pretty clear and contemporary vision of where running can grow esthetically in the future,” he says. This shirt was his way of inviting all runners to embrace their own personal style. “I want runners to feel smarter and more empowered by a fresh design by a contemporary artist,” he says. “I designed it with the intention of something I would want to wear, while keeping a wide open mind that anyone can wear it.”
Garcia has received the greatest form of positive feedback about the design of the shirt. “In the first 2 4 hours after the shirt’s online unveiling,” he says, “I had a bunch of friends texting me saying they signed up just to earn the shirt.”
For more insight into his stwm shirt design and custom editions, follow Garcia @MANGO_ PEELER on Instagram and Twitter.