This week, Dua Lipa posted a mirror selfie in a plain white slogan tee made of semi-transparent cotton and printed with a politely provocative: “Show me your b00ks.” A play on the time-honoured heckle of the Worst Men (“Show us your tits”), worn with a Chanel 25 bag and hoop earrings.
Alongside being the internet’s reigning bikini influencer, Lipa is something of a public intellectual. Through her “cultural concierge” platform and newsletter Service95, she recently brought Australian literary icon Helen Garner to international attention—reviewing the author’s confronting 2014 non-fiction book This House of Grief and interviewing the author about her time spent covering the murder trial of a man eventually convicted of murdering his three sons, for her book club. She’s a woman who can sell you a triangle bikini and a seminal Australian literary classic.
Her graphic tee got the ELLE Australia team talking—not just about our summer wardrobes, but the slow rebrand of the slogan tee as a wearable form of resistance. A subset of the broader graphic tee category, these wordy garments have evolved from club kid kitsch to subtle protest wear. And as they trend again in 2025, their messages are hitting a nerve.
The last time graphic tees had a chokehold on our wardrobes, I was ten years old and mainlining Supre. For under $10, I could score a cotton-poly blend tee emblazoned with a cryptic one-liner like “Blondes do it better (but brunettes win in the end)” or “Because I’m a princess, that’s why…” They were flammable, of ambiguous meaning and absolutely everywhere.
OUCHEN STUDIO
“Show Me Your B00ks” Baby T
ARAMINTA JAMES
Mi Scusi Baby Tee
PINKY & KAMAL
Exercise Your Mind T-Shirt
RE/DONE
My Space T-Shirt
By the late 2010s, designer Henry Holland had rebranded the slogan tee for the fashion elite—sending models down the runway in oversized shirts reading “Cause me pain, Hedi Slimane” and “Get Your Freak On, Giles Deacon.” These were tees for fashion’s inner circle, marrying insider references with bratty aphorisms. Their charm lay in their nonsense-rhyming absurdity. It felt like a “let them eat cake” moment for a hedonistic generation.
But then the Global Financial Crisis hit, the fashion community got quieter, and the slogan tee faded into obscurity.
Now, in the increasingly dystopian landscape of 2025, the graphic tee is back with something to say.
Earlier this year, designer Conner Ives dropped a T-shirt that read “Protect The Dolls.” A statement in support of trans women, the tee raised money and awareness while racking up a celebrity roll call that included Troye Sivan, Tilda Swinton, Pedro Pascal and Lisa Rinna. It became a quick way for high-profile people to display solidarity with targeted groups.
Other celebrities have opted for more cryptic messages. Alexa Chung stepped out in Paris Georgia’s Career Girl tee. For the English majors in the shopping aisle, the fragment could have been intended as a knowing wink to her decades-long It-girl with ambiguous occupation tenure or a rejection of the tradwife rhetoric currently sweeping the US. Sydney Sweeney, Hailey Bieber and Charli XCX have all used slogan tees to push back at their detractors without saying a word. Sweeney, in a “Sorry for having great tits” sweater, a nod to the furious discourse about her body, Bieber donned a “Nepo Baby” tee that would’ve sent a 2004 celebrity blogger Perez Hilton into a tailspin. Charli tossed on a blush pink baby tee that read “They don’t build statues of critics” just before the launch of her album Crash in 2022.
GANNI
Grapes Tee
STELLA MCCARTNEY
No Smile, No Service
The Internet Club
Dicaprio
DIOR
J’Adore Dior T-Shirt
While they may not have been making sweeping political statements, something is thrilling about these heavily criticised All-American blondes flipping their critics a sartorial finger (whether you agree with said critics or not).
Jennifer Lawrence has sparked a many-hour eBay hunt for the impeccable Human-I-Tees Circle of Life graphic after a recent outing in New York. The graphic tee might be perfectly glib but her aesthetic long-sleeve tee captures a more political sentiment fuelling the rise of the trend. The shirts featuring the Earth’s ecosystem are experiencing a revival as the effects of climate change become increasingly hard to ignore.
Plus, it looks perfect styled with The Row sandals and a vintage Fendi Baguette Bag.
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