Grope-Fest Erupts in Trendy Shopping District

New clothing designer notvanilla unveiled its provocative, fun and flirty t-shirts to the public on Wednesday, June 30 in Vancouver Canada. The shirts, with real raised braille lettering, invited and invoked a surprising response.

Vancouver, Canada July 5, 2004 -- Things got a little touchy Wednesday on Vancouver's trendy Robson Street, as clothing designer notvanilla unveiled its provocative, fun and flirty braille t-shirts to the public. Dave Gerry, Senior Reporter with Citytv, was taping a feature interview with the company's founders, Sally Blyle and Pete Pallett. The grope-fest began as Gerry invited passers-by to run their fingers over the braille message on Pallett's chest. Several women took Gerry up on his offer, and greatly enjoyed the tactile experience of rubbing their hands over a strange man's chest, in public. Many also expressed that while they would not normally wear a provocative t-shirt themselves, they would wear notvanilla's braille shirts.

notvanilla (www.notvanilla.us) is a new Vancouver company that manufactures a whole line of cheeky, provocative, fun and flirty t-shirts. While there are hundreds of t-shirt designs that cross the line into crudities and vulgarities, these shirts offer subtler yet distinctly erotic messages such as lickable, use me, harder faster deeper, and spank it printed in raised braille!

The graphically-appealing look of the braille, coupled with the feel-good quality of the high-density raised rubberized black ink lettering, tempts people to run their hands over the shirt, just to feel it. But if someone can't read braille, how would they understand the message? These shirts are interactive; the wearer can "flip it and flash it"; in other words, turn up the bottom of the shirt to show someone the braille translation printed just above the inside hem. The shirts are premium-quality American Apparel baby-ribbed cotton. American Apparel is a sweatshop-free clothing manufacturer based in downtown L.A.

notvanilla plans to release more clothing lines such as halter tops with the Braille expressions, called "Peekaboobs", all aimed at hip, urban 18 to 34 year olds. The shirts will be available at select retailers as well as on the internet; their website is up and running at www.notvanilla.us.

More public grope-fests are planned in the near future.

Please note: an image library can be accessed online at:
www.notvanilla.us/photoimages

For more information
Pete Pallett?604.730.8576
e-mail protected from spam bots

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