In 2024, we’re using our words, and we’re saying things with our chests. Or at least, on our chests. The celebrity slogan t-shirt industrial complex is the new press statement, and color me influenced. Just recently, Zendaya stepped out in Manhattan wearing a gray t-shirt that just says, “I TOLD YA.” Cryptic, but we were warned, apparently.
The rest of her fit was really casual. She has said that her style is way more laid back and unfussy outside of red carpets, and she’s right about that! But we can’t stop wondering. What did she tell us?
That same day, Sydney Sweeney posted an IG dump that included a crew neck sweatshirt that said, “Sorry for having great tits and correct opinions.” And say that, Sydney. She is, after all, the girl with the boobs everyone can’t shut up about and the girl whose words about her body keep getting twisted.
Slogans and signs on clothes are nothing new. If I went into a historic deep dive, I might have to go back to the time of Jesus Christ. We’ve been dressing, expressing our interests and beliefs since the dawn of time. But something culturally is cooking right now. Everyone is wearing a funny, edgy, cynical little message. It reminds me a lot of the white T-Shirts that New York Magazine’s The Cut made that were trending in 2019. Personally, I, a brown girl with black hair, had to get one that said ‘Mystery Blonde” because to communicate to my neighborhood that I was sooooo funny. Here are a few of our favorite celebs also being funny as hell.
Zendaya has said that her regular style is not quite the performance compared to her red carpet looks, and here she is, dressed very casually. It’s almost as if she told us so! Zendaya doesn’t seem like the type to do cryptic messages, and it seems like this might be random and not linked to anything she’s trying to tell us, but I like to pretend she’s my bff and she told me!
Olivia Rodrigo has worn a different white tank top with a new slogan every night of the GUTS Tour, and it’s fun! Sometimes it’s kinda silly—at the show I went to, her tank top said “Al dente.” She is so unserious, and I love this bit, and so do her diehard fans.
Okay, so Josette wore this black tank top with the word, “dyke,” written on it in rhinestones, and the gays spent the last year bedazzling their clothes in gothic font on TikTok. An icon.
