Since starting her line in 2019, Isabella Lalonde of Beepy Bella has become well-known in fashion circles for creating whimsical, fairy-dust-sprinkled jewelry. Her pieces are dotted with natural stones—freshwater pearls and teardrops—and dotted with pendants of mushrooms and crosses, worn by the likes of Dua Lipa, Bella Hadid, and Halsey. And now Lalonde has transferred that magical air to a T-shirt in a collaboration with the label A.Avaati.

Enhancement of Reality Tee, $120; beepybella.worldPhoto: Courtesy of @beepybella

Lalonde discovered A.Avaati through Instagram. The Brooklyn-based label, founded by Alex Caivano and Alex De Ronde, had created a shirt called “Body Jewelry,” printed with images of chains, crosses, and charms. “I immediately saw an opportunity to do a similar concept with my own jewelry,” says Lalonde. From there, she reached out to collaborate, giving them creative direction and themes. “It was a symbiotic relationship,” she says.

Caivano and De Ronde gave Lalonde’s mystical creations a digital-minded take, resulting in a kaleidoscope of trippy visuals. One shirt, titled “Enhancement of Reality Tee,” is dotted with fungi and fluorescent butterflies. A cherry and pink tie-dye shirt named “Protection of Inner Aura” is decorated with a completely beaded bra. “I love the idea of having a shirt that has another garment on top of it,” she says.

Protection From Confusion Tee, $120; beepybella.worldPhoto: Courtesy of @beepybella

While many designers create psychedelic, mushroom-dotted clothing and accessories, Lalonde’s storytelling sets her apart from the pack. “I was able to throw a lot of emotion into them and design them in the same way that I designed my jewelry, which is heavily based on personal experience,” says Lalonde. “There are little elements of myself I’d put into every shirt.” Even though the story may not always be immediately evident to the viewer, this personal bent allows her to experiment freely and go down rabbit holes other designers would not. This is especially apparent in her “Protection From Confusion Tee,” which boasts a pair of fairy wings on its back. “I had the idea to do that because when I was younger, I genuinely believed I had fairy wings,” Lalonde explains. “I was scared of my parents seeing them and being outed!”

Designing the T-shirts has provided Lalonde a larger canvas than a necklace or pair of earrings, allowing her to really show off her range. To go a step further, Lalonde collaborated with her sister, Ines, on producing the music for the A.Avaati promo videos. The clips feature an alien-like avatar with elven ears in a digitized, Mars-like universe. While the figure rotates in one of the T-shirts, a bizarre but satisfying cacophony of sweet sounds plays. If you think the short soundtrack sounds how the shirt looks, that was Lalonde’s intention. During the creation process, Lalonde gave her sister prompts like, “how would you describe the sound when you bite into the berry?” or would send time-lapse videos of mushrooms growing

While Lalonde doesn’t have plans to delve further into clothing design just yet, the collaboration with A.Avaati helped her develop her own creative process as a designer. Most of all, it allowed her to put trippier designs out into the world in a new format. “All of these directions I’ve been giving everyone throughout this project, including A.Avaati, and my sister, have been a lot about senses and distorting our senses in terms of making,” says Lalonde. “You ‘hear colors’ and ‘see tastes’. You feel that psychedelic type of disorientation, which is a natural high.”

Photo: Courtesy of @beepybella