Tag: Stella McCartney

As with most impactful trends, it began with Madonna. Or at least got kickstarted by her (see also: vogueing). More to the point, the pop culture tastemaker spotlighted the “About Fucking Time!” shirt by sporting it at the August 24th birthday party she threw for her twins, Stella and Estere. Soon after, Charli XCX posted a “chest shot” photo of two unidentified people (though it looks like her and Sweat Tour co-star Troye Sivan) wearing the same tank tops with the increasingly familiar phrase. Though, in truth, the t-shirt goes back much further than its current “it” moment, created by one of Madonna’s long-standing besties, Stella McCartney. The latter, in fact, appropriately donned a “prototype” at the 1999 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony when her dad (you know, Paul) was finally inducted.

Not so coincidentally, McCartney was also present at the aforementioned “high-brow, who’s who” of a twelfth birthday party—pictured next to Madonna as the two held a cluster of balloons in each hand. Only Madonna wasn’t wearing the tank top in this image, but rather, saved it for a photo of herself sandwiched in between Stella and Estere. Thus, the shirt often tends to be worn during instances when something has been “long overdue” (like, apparently, Estere and Stella entering their final preteen year). Which also appeared to be the case with Paris Hilton wearing one for her September ’24 Nylon feature, “From Paris With Love.” Because, after all, she thinks it’s “about fucking time” that she released a sophomore album (though there aren’t that many other people who feel quite the same). Her newly unleashed Infinite Icon record being the topic that the majority of the article focuses on.

And, talking of that particular “2000s icon,” it seems that “About Fucking Time!” is fast becoming the “20s” version of one the 00s’ biggest t-shirt trends: “Jesus Is My Homeboy.” Later, “Mary Is My Homegirl” would also take celebrity closets by storm, reaching a zenith in 2004, when, yes, Madonna was spotted in arguably one of the most 2000s ensembles ever captured by a paparazzo: track pants, trainers, a Von Dutch hat and a “Mary Is My Homegirl” tee.

Like “About Fucking Time!,” the “Jesus Is My Homeboy” shirt went back much further than when it experienced a sudden uptick in sartorial cachet thanks to a clothing company called Teenage Millionaire (oft touted by the likes of Ashton Kutcher and the abovementioned Hilton)—which once boasted a store on Melrose. But long before that brand cashed in on the design, thanks to Teenage Millionaire’s Doug Williams coming across the original version of the t-shirt (the rest of the stock was lost when the screenprinting shop that the OG creator used was looted during the 1992 Rodney King riots), the story began sometime in 1980s L.A.. Specifically, when a man named Van Zan Frater was mugged and beaten by a bevy of street gang members. According to Frater, one youth’s urging to “kill him, homeboy!” inspired Frater to say, “Jesus is MY homeboy. And he’s your homeboy, and your homeboy.” This, apparently, got them to gradually scatter, leaving a bloodied Frater to recover only briefly before being mugged a second time in about as little as ten minutes (oh certain parts of L.A. in the 80s).

When the discarded shirt Frater created to commemorate the “event” was unearthed years later (some accounts say in a vintage store, others in a dumpster), Williams and his Teenage Millionaire partner, Chris Hoy, came up with a backstory about the shirt’s “origins,” claiming “they created the ‘Jesus is My Homeboy’ t-shirt while talking one afternoon about [Hoy’s] Irish Roman Catholic upbringing in a largely Latino community in Hollywood.” It didn’t take long for the shirt to absolutely blow up, appearing on the chests of everyone from Britney Spears to her number one celebrity crush, Brad Pitt. Indeed, that shirt practically was the 2000s.

Cut to twenty years after its cultural peak and now it seems there’s a new shirt with a similar kind of celebrity cachet making the rounds: “About Fucking Time!” And, in keeping with the gentrification of everything, it of course comes from the runway rather than the streets of L.A. What’s more, although McCartney’s shirt has a much less scandalous and fraught backstory, it does speak to “the trend” of the moment—especially in fashion—to make a big performative to-do about preserving the environment. Hence, McCartney’s fashion show during Paris Fashion Week centering around the theme of “Messages from Mother Earth” (in other words, what MARINA already did by writing “Purge the Poison” from Earth’s perspective). Among those messages, “Gaia’s” most ominously exhorting missive is none other than: “it’s about fucking time”—that humans paid her some respect. She is, after all, the source from which we’re all derived and sustained (the double meaning, to be sure, is that humans are running out of time to amend their behavior, which is why everything, as usual is all about [fucking] time).

To pay her respect, apparently, means buying clothes from Stella McCartney and, as a sidebar, following her lead on “sustainability.” Alas, while McCartney has been a long-standing proponent of environmentalism and animal rights, there is an almost willful naïveté (that can perhaps only come from being born into wealth) in believing that anything about the fashion industry can ever be sustainable (regardless of McCartney touting, “the sequins are plastic-free”—okay, but they’re still sequins that are probably going to end up in some fish’s mouth—and besides that, what else in the collection couldn’t avoid using plastic?).

Which is why it’s so ironic that someone like Charli XCX, recently tapped to do a campaign with one of fashion’s biggest offenders of fucking up the planet, H&M, and Paris Hilton, down to wear whatever makes her look “hot,” should have the audacity to wear these “statement” tank tops designed to “advocate” for Mother Earth. When, in truth, the biggest favor anyone in fashion could do for said mother is declare that wearing one outfit per season made out of hemp or recycled cotton is permanently chic. Either that, or come out and say that everyone should only shop at thrift stores going forward. But then, that would put every designer out of business, wouldn’t it? Thus, the idea of “overhauling” the industry instead of eradicating it altogether is the best way that people like McCartney can soothe themselves about their chosen moneymaking endeavor.

In this regard, there was a greater honesty to the backstory behind the “Jesus Is My Homeboy” t-shirt (which was also completely inauthentic when worn by any celebrity). Because even though it, too, was ridden with the kind of exploitation unique to the fashion industry (read: stealing a design), at least the original creator’s mantra was “purer” and more believable in terms of motive (not to mention more accessible by way of price range). However, contrary to McCartney’s supposed intentions, many people will have no idea that the “About Fucking Time!” shirt refers to Mother Nature (voiced, for McCartney’s purposes, by Olivia Colman). And her demand that humans treat her with more kindness before she punishes them in a way that means “looking stylish” will be the last of anyone’s concerns.