Pop Art in Oman

Elham is challenging the norms of fashion design in Oman with her pop-art T-shirts with her brand, Ellystshirt. This young designer brush paints the funkiest and funniest T-shirts.
It doesn’t matter if it is for girls, boys, or children, she has a design in hand for everyone.
Queen of the month is one of her bestsellers. Available in any colour and adorned with a princess crown, this T-shirt can be the coolest birthday present. “But I really enjoy painting the dream catcher design. You need to be precise and lot of attention but the final result is worth it.”
Ellystshirt also designs the cutest T-shirts for couples: “Beast” and “Beauty”, or “if you are Nutella” “I am the bread” are just a few examples. But her portfolio is large and ready to expand with each new ideas of customers.
“I customise any design I do, so everyone can choose the design, colour of the T-shirt, and also the colour of the letters. Most of the customers like some pictures or funny jokes they see online and so they send it to me and I create a T-shirt out of it by adding my own touch,” says Elham.
Equipped with her brush and her painting for textile she is ready to take any design challenge. “What I usually do is to take the T-shirt and paint it directly with the brush with a special painting for textile. I don’t use a template or transfer the design to the T-shirt before painting it because if not the final look will be the same in all the T-shirts. Also the effect of the brush will not show. I have tried other techniques, like printing, but the results are different. Less casual, I prefer to simply take the brush and paint. This is my style.”
Elham has been doing pop art for a while now. “It all started in 2011. We were in college and my cousin and I had the idea to paint T-shirts for the graduation ceremony. All the students loved them and I enjoyed the process of making them. So I continued, first selling to friends and family and then to other people who started contacting me. That’s how Ellystshirt became a reality.” Instagram is her main marketing platform, and although most of her customers are local some of her T-shirts have already made it to the UAE. Elham, apart from designing, is also studying electronics and telecommunications engineering. She plans to keep expanding her business. “Anyone can wear my T-shirts; men, women, and kids. I would also like to start creating skirts and bags but will keep the casual look,” she adds. No doubt, her enthusiasm and the novelty in her work makes her so unique among the Omani designers.
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