019: The White T-Shirt

It's not rocket science, but it was for me!

For years, the humble white t-shirt has eluded me. A proverbial blank canvas, I waver at the vulnerability the white t-shirt must be afforded, how to imbue it with my personality beyond a smudge of lipstick at the neckline and a smattering of pasta sauce across the chest. In it, I have felt awkward and not right. Nonetheless, I am still intrigued by it, of its seasonality – an added layer of warmth under a sweater in cooler months, a saving grace in oppressive heat – and how it can transform an outfit from overdone to understated.

Harper’s Bazaar, January 2011 (by J.J. Martin, former fashion journalist and founder of La DoubleJ!)

A few years ago, I did a photoshoot which required wearing a plain white t-shirt or shirt. The evening before the shoot, and an hour before all shops were due to close, much to my consternation, I discovered that I did not own a single white t-shirt (or tank or shirt, for that matter). Somehow, I had spent the entirety of my adulthood not in ownership of a white t-shirt (barring a stint with a white crop top that swiftly met its fate in the dryer), a garment deemed so vital that it warrants weekly listings of the very best by fashion publications, the fabric of legends. And yet here I was, the last woman standing. As a now recent owner of three white t-shirts, every time I’d put them on I felt not quite right, less je ne sais quois and more je n’aime pas, not quite comfortable with how to style them in a way that felt natural to me.

I didn’t grow up wearing t-shirts all that much. My brief teenage rebellion involved asking my father to pick up t-shirts for me from Hot Topic on his trips to America, such as “A for Anarchist”, a personal favourite, perhaps with the slight motive to horrify my mother. My mother would be beside herself – gone were the days of her smocked-dress wearing daughter – and these t-shirts often mysteriously turned into cleaning rags. I have no recollection of ever seeing either of my parents in a t-shirt outside of our home, only at home to do housework or with pajama pants. Like many immigrant families navigating spaces that are unkind and restrictive of our entry, I was cognizant of the importance of looking “put-together” to weather indignities. T-shirts signaled an informality and ease, a casualness we couldn’t readily access. As I got older, I was firmly a tops and blouses girl and decided t-shirts were for the Jane Birkin supplicants and their blue jeans.

Prada SS 2004 skirt; Marni sandals; Maryam Nassir Zadeh bag

Last week, however, stumped by the suffocating heat we’ve been experiencing in New York City, bewildered by how few tops I own are made of breathable fabric or that even exist on the market (how is it that the more expensive the brand, the higher the polyester content?), I had to confront my neuroses about white t-shirts, blocking out the noise from the umpteenth article about how the best and perfect white t-shirt should be. '“It doesn’t have to be that serious, it’s just a white t-shirt!!!” I exclaimed to myself and my unbothered cat. I think part of the reason fashion, the entity itself, seems joyless as of late because it takes itself too seriously, insisting on the best and the perfect of the most rudimentary stuff, which is how we end up with things like far too many black trousers than needed or eighteen near-identical white t-shirts. Less is the insistence on having fun, on delighting in the imperfect, awkward or even weird; there are so many rules and so much rigor, you’d think we were all lining up for roll call and not simply expressing ourselves. It’s not that serious, she said to herself as she wrung her hands over a white t-shirt.

Prada SS 1996 skirt

How could I make a white t-shirt work to for me? Jeans and t-shirts is not the life destined for me, but I certainly enjoy a Prada skirt, an illness we’ll discuss another time. For most of the summer, my collection of vintage Prada skirts were gathering dust. The few cotton and linen tops I have didn’t work with them, and with my chest, back and armpits being the sweatiest bits (apologies but we are talking real life here!), this meant spandex, nylon, polyester are all out of the running. I took inspiration from women I’d seen in Milan dashing about in their simple t-shirts and very good skirts in the city heat, and of course Miuccia Prada, the patron saint of white t-shirts and very good skirts, i.e. My Kind of Women. The result: not too shabby, I think!. The resumption of my silly skirt agenda and minimal under-boob precipitation? I’d say that’s a win!

Prada SS 2017 skirt and sandals; JW Anderson bag