Local clothing designer spreads love with queer apparel

Japanese author, researcher, and entrepreneur Masaro Emoto claims that our consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water. His believes that our positive thoughts and energies has the ability to purify polluted water. Since 1999, Emoto published several volumes of a work entitled Messages from Water, which contain photographs of ice crystals and their accompanying experiments.

Basically, when water is surrounded by love, and not hate, then the water reacts beautifully, concluding that our emotions are contagious. Love can spread love, and pure water crystals, while harboring hate only makes the water unusable.

This is the same theory used by local streetwear designer Crys Shannon.

Crys stands out in a crowd. Sitting at the local coffee shop Crema, the designer is surrounded by a sea of multicolored coats and flannels, while she rocks an all black outfit, completed with chains hanging from her belt hoops. It’s be easy to spot a lone, white dog hair on her long sleeve, hooded shirt. The only pop of color that shines through is the skin poking through the holes in her black jeans, and a white mountain skyline with the word “DENVER” at the base and a dripping heart in the center of the silhouette. Crys made this shirt.

Crys started her apparel line, Dose Apparel, nearly two years ago with one mission on her mind: Spread love through the power of street apparel. All of her designs, logos, and brands are made with that underlying message.

The logo, which is a heart dripping, represents a dose of love.

“Everyone in this world deserves a dose of love,” Crys said. “The heart is the universal signal for love, which is the energy that I decided a while ago to surround myself with.”

Crys summed up that everybody on this planet lives within two energies: Love and hate. Clearly, she is focusing on the more approachable energy.

“When someone is filled with joy and love, that energy is contagious,” she said. “It’s the same for hate, but hate is not the energy that we want spreading around. Is it?”

So with a simple, but difficult, mission Crys used her love for fashion alongside her business and marketing degree to launch Dose. A feat that has taken over her life for the past two years.

Originally, Crys was farming out her print jobs. She would come up with the idea, and send them off to be screen printed. But when the cost was outweighing the sales, she decided to invest in a screen printer of her own, and dedicated the copious amounts of time learning how to use it.

“It took forever,” she said. “It was probably one of the most time consuming, frustrating things that I have ever done.”

But with the tools at her disposal, cost went down just as her line was starting to pick up. Last year, she sold more than 500 pieces of clothing. That’s a lot of time dedicated to a job that doesn’t pay her bills fully. So on top of producing hundreds of screen printed shirts, Crys is bartending at Blush and Blu, which is where her screen printer is located in the basement.

Even with her busy schedule, Crys is pushing forward. She is currently working on an androgynous line of high end streetwear for women named Sacred. She is also expanding Dose beyond the local market, but in order to do that she needs to outsource production in order to produce larger quantities. This will enable her to have enough product to sell to retail stores as well as open an online store to continue her mission of spreading love across the world.

But, there’s something unique in her designs. Instead of using the stereotypical approach to love, complete with every color of the rainbow, Crys only uses the colors black and white in her designs. Yes, it’s cheaper and easier to screen print on these colors, but that’s not the only reason she does this.

“Love doesn’t have to be soft and fluffy,” Crys said. “Love comes in all forms and shines through no matter the facade.”

Check out some of the clothing Dose offers below, and visit her Kickstarter to help expand the line. If you like what you see, Crys will be showcasing her designs at Tracks on January 29th.