Slogan T-shirts are having a moment, but how powerful are they really?

They started out as a way to make political statements, before becoming vehicles for wry one-liners. Slogan T-shirts have been both popular and powerful since the Sixties, and right now celebrities are wearing them to make both serious political statements as well as irony-laced social commentary.

Last weekend, Babygirl star Harris Dickinson premiered his directorial debut, Urchin, at Cannes Film Festival. The film follows a homeless Londoner who is trying to get clean and turn his life around, and Dickinson shared a photo of himself at Cannes wearing a T-shirt that read “Living on the streets is not a lifestyle choice Suella”, on the front, while on the back it says, “It’s a sign of failed government policy”.

The lines are in reference to former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s claim in 2023 that rough sleeping was a “lifestyle choice”.

While the tee may be relevant to the topic of Dickinson’s film, it has little pertinence today: Braverman’s influence has dramatically waned since the Tories lost power in 2024. But other celebrities are using slogan T-shirts to send important political messages to the current powers that be.

Actors Pedro Pascal and Tilda Swinton, and singer Troye Sivan have all stepped out recently in Protect the Dolls T-shirts, made by London-based fashion designer Conner Ives. The slogan is a call to arms to protect transgender people, who are colloquially referred to as “dolls” by some in the LGBTQ+ community.

All proceeds from T-shirt sales, which cost £75, are going directly to a charity supporting the trans community. At the end of April Ives estimated that it had raised over £380,000 and counting.

Yet in the age of Instagram, earnest, liberal slogan tees can backfire. “Your favourite celebrities are protecting the dolls. But how? ” asked popular trans influencer, Devin Halbal, in an Instagram reel. “And ask yourself this: why, as a doll, do I need to be protected in this society?” she adds. “How are you, my allies, complicit in the very systems designed to exclude the dolls?”

While the reception to Ives’ tee has been broadly positive, some online have likened celebrities wearing it to the cop-out activism of the social justice warrior-esque slogan tees of the 2010s.

Cynical keyboard warriors aside, there is a risk of serious issues becoming a trend, which then becomes unfashionable. Images of Benedict Cumberbatch and Ed Miliband wearing the infamous ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirt of 2014 have become rich meme fodder, with critics pointing to the commodification of feminism into performative, sellable soundbites.

As designer Henry Holland told the BBC in 2018: "The way fashion works is Dior will put a 'We Should All Be Feminists' T-shirt out, and it'll be in every high street retailer within three months. Then six months later your T-shirt that says something really important is 'last season'."

For that reason, tongue-in-cheek taglines can be a safer bet in the slogan tee game. Model and writer Sydney Lima designed a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Rich Parents” in a nod to the fact that so many in the creative industry have had a leg up through nepotism or inherited wealth. “For those without such advantages, the dream of creative success can feel out of reach,” says Lima.

The plan is to create a production company and mentorship scheme which supports those from less privileged backgrounds entering into the arts. (In something of a double irony, some in the creative industries who genuinely do have rich parents have been seen sporting the tee).

Sarcasm and mischief translate well on a slogan tee, and others which have been popular with the fashion crowd include designer Laura Andraschko’s ‘My Boyfriend Went to Eton’ tee, and Kaia Gerber’s ‘Hot / Can Read’, designed by her book club platform, Library Science.

How much power do slogan tees really have? In 1984, grande dame of the slogan tee Katherine Hamnett wore a T-shirt which read ‘58% don’t want Pershing’ when she met Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street, a reference to public opposition against American Pershing nuclear missiles being based in Britain. While the image of the pair shaking hands went as viral as was possible in the Eighties, the decision was not reversed.

Hamnett herself is all too aware of the limits of her craft. "T-shirts by themselves are all very nice but they achieve nothing,” she once said. "The only way to affect political change is to contact politicians and tell them you won't vote for them next time unless they represent your views."