19 September,2020 07:33 AM IST | Mumbai | Sukanya Datta
Rhea Chakraborty at the NCB office. Pic/PTI
Actor Rhea Chakraborty made headlines last week as she breezed past a mob of media crew, into the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) office for questioning in a drugs case, allegedly linked to the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. While Chakraborty was eventually arrested, it was her black typographical T-shirt that grabbed eyeballs, as it read, 'Roses are red, Violets are blue, Let's smash patriarchy, Me and you'. With a section of the society terming the aggression Chakraborty has been facing a witch hunt, her T-shirt found an echo among netizens. Several celebrities shared the quote, and Chakraborty's casual T-shirt was deemed as a subtle, but loud political statement.
But this is not the first time the humble T-shirt has caught the world's attention. In fact, Chakraborty's choice is part of a line of merchandise that The Souled Store made in collaboration with the NGO GiveHer5 to help make menstrual hygiene accessible to women in rural India.
The T-shirt was created by The Souled Store and GiveHer5. PIC/giveher5 on instagram
Fashion activist and entrepreneur Aishwarya Sharma, who shuttles between Delhi and Mumbai, reminds us of the time British designer Katharine Hamnett met then-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 in a T-shirt that read '58% don't want pershing', to drive home the public's anti-nuclear sentiment. "Since then, there's been no stopping. It was like revolution through T-shirt slogans; it gave people a voice," Sharma shares. From gathering support for those suffering from AIDS to standing up against gun violence, here's how the T-shirt has often been used as a fashionable tool of subversion and awareness.
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Miley Cyrus sports her âProtect kids/Not guns' T-shirt. PIC/Instagram
Amid increasing gun violence in schools and educational institutions in the US, Sharma points out how pop idol Miley Cyrus wore a T-shirt that read, 'Protect kids/Not guns' in December 2018. The star had layered the T-shirt with a plaid suit.
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Rihanna in a âWe should all be feminists' T-shirt. PIC/Instagram
Most prominently used as a title of the speech Hillary Clinton delivered at a UN conference on women in 1995, 'Women's rights are human rights' has become one of the catchphrases of the feminist movement, and made its appearance on T-shirts, too. Dior's 'We should all be feminists', inspired by the title of an essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Sisterhood series are also some of the popular T-shirts that helped further the cause. "Slogans on T-shirts are a simple way to add identity to one's look, to be seen for who we are, and to be known for our social and political stands," Sharma notes.
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MP Kanimozhi with youth wearing anti-Hindi T-shirts. PIC/Twitter
The ongoing debate on the alleged imposition of Hindi as a national language took a viral turn last week when social media was abuzz with pictures of youth wearing T-shirts that read, "I am Indian, I don't speak Hindi" and "I am a Tamil speaking Indian". This included Thoothukudi MP Kanimozhi who tweeted a picture of herself with a group of youngsters wearing these T-shirts.
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Inputs by Aishwarya Sharma
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