Alice's T-Party: Sofia Coppola, David Byrne, and Others Design T-shirts for Chef Alice Waters and Levi's
Vogue.com, August 19, 2011 [Link]
By Emily Holt

T-shirt designed by David Byrne
Photo: Courtesy of Levi's

Sunday, August 28, marks the fortieth anniversary of Chez Panisse, the iconic natural-foods restaurant in Berkeley, California, founded by Alice Waters whose name has become a sort of shorthand for an organic, local, and sustainable lifestyle. The planned celebration will undoubtedly be one of the most tenderly composed feasts in recent memory, but what’s a milestone birthday party without a T-shirt? And why not five?

To honor the occasion and—perhaps more importantly—to raise money for Waters’s Edible Schoolyard project, which educates students on growing and cooking their own food, the chef partnered with Levi’s on a limited-edition collection of T-shirts and enlisted friends Sofia Coppola, David Byrne, Dave Eggers, and Maira Kalman to contribute a design.

True to character, Kalman provided a whimsical illustration about liking pie, Eggers offered an abstract drawing of a Mandarin orange praising it as a “fruit of beauty and truth,” Coppola kept things simple with a green emblem, and Byrne rendered clouds on a piece of toast.

The shirts will debut on Wednesday, August 24, at a lunch in San Francisco. Elsewhere around the country they can be bought at Levi’s stores, or barring that, ordered on levi.com—which, though it’s not the most local and sustainable option, is certainly a step in the right direction.

Edible Schoolyard T-shirt, $30; levi.com.