THE JOURNAL
T-shirts are back on the fashion agenda – did they ever leave? – with the frenzied discourse surrounding Season Two of FX’s hit series The Bear, and the sartorial choices of its star, Mr Jeremy Allen White, reminding us all of the enduring appeal of a classic white tee. And while we’re not here to deny that a white tee can indeed do wonders for a man’s style, especially when, as in the case of The Bear’s Carmy, it’s cut to fit, layered over a gym-honed torso and accessorised with a few strategically placed tattoos, we must also acknowledge the power of the T-shirt as a statement.
A T-shirt is your own personal billboard, a space for you to rep whatever band, sports team or political movement you’re into, but it’s also somewhere for designers to show off their own creativity. This is especially true of streetwear brands, for whom the graphic or logo T-shirt has become a kind of essentialist expression of their design philosophy: the equivalent of a chair to a product designer, or a Shakespearean soliloquy to an actor. And if you’re good at designing T-shirts, chances are you’ll be good at other things, too: just look at Mr Jerry Lorenzo of Fear of God, who got his big break designing tour merchandise for Mr Justin Bieber.
But what makes a good graphic T-shirt? And what T-shirt brands should you have on your radar in 2023? We’re into the show-not-tell kind of style advice here at MR PORTER, so in that spirit, here are five we’ve got our eye on right now.
01.
The SAINT Mxxxxxx motocross style
Jerry Lorenzo isn’t the only fashion designer to have dabbled in tour merch in the past. There’s also multi-hyphenate California creative Mr Cali de Witt, who is known, among many other things, as the merch designer for Mr Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo tour. De Witt’s latest project is SAINT Mxxxxxx, a collaboration with Japanese streetwear designer Mr Yuta Hosokawa, the fruits of which include this wildly colourful, logo-splattered, motocross-inspired jersey. It’s certainly a look. But isn’t that why you’re here?
02.
The Gallery Dept. logo tee
Rooted in the codes of streetwear, but positioned somewhere between high fashion and conceptual art, Gallery Dept. has come to represent a new vision for American luxury. Its paint-splattered T-shirts and upcycled, hand-finished denim have earnt the brand legions of admirers; this highlighter-yellow logo T-shirt is restrained by comparison, but the DayGlo colour still makes a serious statement.
03.
The Dries Van Noten sports jersey
Adhering to the philosophy that bigger is indeed better, this mesh jersey from Belgian brand Dries Van Noten is screen-printed with numerals so large that they don’t even fit on it. Mr Michael Jordan fans, stand down: the “23” is not a reference to the legendary basketball player’s jersey number, but to the autumn/winter 2023/2024 fashion season (look on the back of the shirt and you’ll find an equally gargantuan “24”).
04.
The RRR123 long sleeves
Mr Rivington Starchild’s RRR123 goes heavy on Christian imagery, even lifting a Bible passage from Revelations for the patch on this Gospel long-sleeved tee: “Behold, I am coming as a thief,” it reads. “Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.” An up-and-coming streetwear label given the seal of approval by none other than Jerry Lorenzo, RRR123 is a name to remember.
05.
The CELINE HOMME tie-dye tee
The tie-dye trend shows no signs of, er, dying, if this T-shirt from no greater an authority on style than CELINE HOMME is anything to go by. A spiral pattern of washed-out pastels overlaid with jagged streaks of black make for an eye-catching design that’ll look great worn with faded blue jeans, while a subtle CELINE logo printed onto the chest signals the shirt’s high-fashion pedigree.