How to Style Graphic Tees?

In 1984 Katharine Hamnett went to meet Margaret Thatcher wearing a T-shirt that read 58% DON'T WANT PERSHING, a reference to American missiles being based in Britain. A decade earlier Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren were selling confrontational printed tees from their King's Road shop, and in 1977 Milton Glaser's I ♥ NY design started life on a tourism campaign. The graphic tee has always been a way of saying something without opening your mouth.

 

That is why styling graphic tees is mostly about giving the print room to talk. My rules are short: one graphic per outfit, two colors in the rest of it, and shoes that decide how dressed up it reads. Volume on top wants something narrow below, so an oversized band tee goes with a slim skirt or straight jeans, and a fitted baby tee can take a wide trouser.

 

The first grid is the biggest, and every tee in it has a real graphic on the front. Daydreamer, Laura Glover's Los Angeles label, does the band tees: Stevie Nicks Bella Donna, Sun Records x Elvis, Blondie and Willie Nelson. Junk Food, which Natalie Grof and Blaine Halvorson started in 1998 with nostalgic licenses like Twister and Candy Land, brings Tom Petty, David Bowie, The Beatles and Def Leppard, and Madeworn does the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead. For animals there are ANINE BING's Kent Eagle and Walker Tiger, Kenzo's Jumping Tiger and Lauren Moshi's Wolf. The Laundry Room's Saint Tropez Sardines and Wild Caught Oyster Market tees and Damson Madder's House Preserves are the food prints, and Alexander Wang's lipstick baby tee and Casablanca's butterfly are the designer end.

 

Hold any tee up to the light before you keep it. Opacity is the thing product photos hide best, and a thin white tee under a jacket shows every seam.

We The Free is Free People's in-house label for lived-in staples, and it makes most of the softest tees on this page. The Heirloom Printed Tee has a bandana print across the chest, the Laid Back Tee and the Mountain View are the soft washed ones, and You're A Star is a long-sleeve version with blue star patches. Daydreamer's Beach Boys Surf Jam, Queen 1975 Off-the-Shoulder and Johnny Cash Doodles are the band tees here. Junk Food's Earls Garage, Ragabond's Birds In Flight, Sunday Market's East West Love and City Tee and Promesa's Leopard Tee fill in the rest.

 

MOTHER's Boxy Goodie Goodie Tees and Lil Goodie Goodie Tee are the louder end of the shelf, with tour-style and rodeo-style prints, and Show Me Your Mumu's Travis Tee brings a tomato graphic that is hard to wear grumpy.

 

My test for an everyday tee is the wash test. Turn it inside out and look at the back of the print. If it already feels stiff or shows hairline cracks, it will not survive a summer of washing.

 

What I would skip: three soft washed tees in the same colour. One white, one black and one faded colour will cover the week.

Most of the band tees here come from Daydreamer, the Los Angeles label Laura Glover started after leaving her hometown of Chicago. Daydreamer says it works directly with the artists and their management to keep the art authentic, which is why the prints look like real tour merchandise rather than a guess at it, and Glover was given the whole Rolling Stones art archive for one collection.

 

In this grid that means the Fleetwood Mac Doodles Oversized Tee, the Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream Tee and the Elton John Los Angeles Tee, plus Hold Your Horses, which is pure illustration. We The Free, Free People's in-house label for lived-in staples, brings the Next Level Printed Tee, the Landscape Indigo, the Lucky Locket and Farm Friends, the softer, more artful side. The newer tees are about places and speed: MOTHER's Lil Sinful Tee in Speedway, Original Retro Brand's Motor Speedway Ringer Tee and Montauk Lobster House Fitted Tee, and Made Some Sportswear's Morocco Baby Tee.

 

What decides whether a band tee looks styled or borrowed is the shoulder seam and the length. The seam should sit at the edge of your shoulder, or just past it if the tee is meant to be oversized, and the hem should hit the hip, not the thigh, unless you are wearing it as a dress.

 

A test I like: wear it with your sharpest piece first, a blazer or a pressed trouser. If it still looks deliberate, it will look good with everything else.

 

What I would skip: a band tee for a band you could not name a song by. Someone will ask.

If the tee is the point, keep everything around it plain. These four are the ones with a story on the front, so they need the least help. Daydreamer's Fleetwood Mac Rumours U-Neck and Stevie Nicks Collage Tee are the music pair, the On The Road Again Burnout Tee is worn thin on purpose, and The Bureau's Protect Our Tee is the one with a message.

 

Three outfits I keep coming back to. A faded band tee over a long satin slip skirt with cowboy boots, which is the look in the photo at the top of this page. A tee under an unbuttoned men's blazer with straight dark jeans and loafers. And a burnout tee over a lace slip in summer, with sandals and nothing else.

 

A small trick: a half tuck at the front gives an oversized tee a waist without losing the slouch. Roll the sleeves once if they hit the elbow.

 

What I would skip: a graphic tee with a printed bag or a loud shoe. Let one thing talk.

Clare Vivier was working as a journalist for French TV when she could not find a laptop case she liked, so in 2008 she started making her own, and Clare V. grew from there into a Los Angeles handbag and accessories label. Her tees carry the same French sense of humor: Libérez Les Sardines and Moules Frites are the kind of print that makes a stranger smile.

 

GANNI, the Copenhagen house Ditte Reffstrup has led as creative director since 2009, does the playful version on its basic cotton jersey: a strawberry, a western zebra boot and a teddy in a forest. Sunny Somewhere's founders, Lisa and Nikki, have been designing graphics since the nineties and make everything in downtown Los Angeles, and their Fresh As A Daisy and New York Apples tees are the sweetest things here. Sunny Somewhere's Amalfi Spritz and GANNI's Future Jersey Baby Fit Cherry Tee add two more, the Etro Embroidered Cotton T-Shirt and the Chloé Printed Cotton-Jersey Top are the dressier versions, and the Nova Graphic Tee rounds it out.

 

Small prints are the easiest graphic tees to wear to work. Put one under a navy blazer with straight jeans and the print reads as a wink, not a statement.

 

What I would skip: tucking these into a high waist. They are cut to sit right at the waistband on their own.

If you are starting from nothing, buy one faded band tee for a band you love and one small-print white tee. Between them they cover jeans on a Saturday, a blazer on a Monday and a slip skirt on a warm night.

 

Wash both inside out in cold water and dry them flat, because heat is what cracks a print and shrinks the shoulders. After that, buy graphic tees the way you would buy art: because you like looking at them, not to fill a gap. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together The Tops Edit.

If you want to see how I would wear one, I picked graphic tees from Peanuts and Disney prints to vintage band shirts.