High seas inspire collection – Royal Gazette

Published Jun 16, 2017 at 8:00 am (Updated Jun 15, 2017 at 10:52 pm)

Lindsay Amerault jumped from coast to coast following her fathers naval career.

More than 15 years later shes doing the same, this time to promote The Admirals Daughters, a line of graphic T-shirts.

The former Bermuda residents designs are now on sale at Tabs; models wore them at the Ladies Day fashion show in the Americas Cup Village last month.

Ms Ameraults father, retired vice-admiral Jim Amerault, encouraged her to start the company after flipping through her sketchbook.

[He] was doing a lot of speaking gigs with military spouses because it can be difficult to have your spouse away for six [to] nine months at a time, she said. [He was] talking about how important the support role is for families.

I had a sketch that said, My heart is out at sea. The heart was made of waves.

He held it up and said, This would be cool on a shirt.

The 32-year-old assumed her father wanted to use the design to inspire the women hed been speaking with. Instead, he suggested a different way to put her artistry to use.

We started discussing the idea of being able to use my skills to create something that would provide for me and my family in the future and a way to support those coastal communities that raised [us] when we were moving around so often, said Ms Amerault, who moved nine times before she graduated from high school.

It was a really nice coming together of ideas. We seemed to be, for the first time in my adult life, on the same page at the same time.

They decided $1 from every shirt sold would be split between Navy Safe Harbour Foundation, a charity her father founded which gives back to military veterans and their families, and Plastic Tides, an ocean conservation group Ms Amerault met during her time in Bermuda.

The designs are ocean-centric, but not specifically navy. All carry positive messages.

We made sure that the material we sourced was the softest, most comfortable you could find, so the second you touch the shirts you want to put them on your body, said Ms Amerault, who now lives in Jacksonville, Florida.

The bigger and more well known we are, the bigger the reach to raise awareness and financial contributions for those charities. The hope is that people buy into the story of, not so much who we are but what we are doing and what we are trying to provide and promote.

The graphic designer moved here in 2010 and stayed for six years, initially working at Aardvark.

Prior to that, shed been in New York.

I was working at Madison Square Garden and had burnt out with the 12-hour days. One of my bucket list items was to live on an island not Manhattan, a real island, she laughed,

Her honest and impassioned cover letter landed her the job here.

She left last year to focus on the T-shirts and be close to her family.

I stayed for much longer than I anticipated, said Ms Amerault, the youngest of five children. The response to her designs so far has been fantastic.

The tees have taken off in the Florida area. Ms Amerault created two designs specifically for the Bermuda market: a triangle with local motifs including longtails, moongates and a roof-like line pattern; another that reads Ace Girl depicts a gombey mask [with] fierce eyelashes.

In Bermuda, specifically, we sold two thirds of the inventory we brought over in a week, she said.

The Admirals Daughters tees cost $30-$60 at Tabs on Reid Street.

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High seas inspire collection - Royal Gazette