Fashion’s A Zoo: Meet Wear This To That

In fashion, it’s usually not a good thing to “feel like a whale.” But one new fashion site uses just that—an orca whale—to model its clothes.

Meet Wear This to That, a hilarious new Tumblr that features distinctive pieces from recent fashion collections—on animals. It’s the work of friends Heather Pieske, 25, and Jeffrey Kieslich, 24, who met years ago at a “fish taco party” in Chicago and decided to move to New York together last summer. (She now works as an illustrator and graphic designer for Terrapin Stationers; he is a customer-experience representative at Warby Parker.) “Jeff and I were sitting around one night and talking about ways to marry our ideas and interests,” Pieske tells The Daily Beast. And so they began brainstorming which animals they’d like to see wearing certain designer pieces. Kieslich, who has a background as a menswear stylist, picked the clothes—and then Pieske drew them onto animals. “We were trying to find an animal that’s awkward,” she says. “The most ridiculous animal to wear the Miu Miu glitter booties. So we came up with the pygmy goat. It’s a goat in booties.”

In November, they began posting the illustrations to a Tumblr page with captions like: “Hey Camel, Wear This Stella McCartney poncho to that Parent-Teacher Conference” and “Hey Sad Turkey, Wear This rag & bone dagger sweater to that vegan potluck.” Each post includes a link to where viewers can buy the pieces, as if, well, a rat in an embroidered shirt might inspire you to make a purchase.

“It was a joke at first,” Pieske says. “But we were like, why not put this out there and see what people think?” Almost immediately, the response was overwhelming. The blog accumulated thousands of followers, and they started to receive press requests and interest from editors. Next, Pieske says, they’re going to try posting more regularly—and, maybe one day, compile them all into a book.