Details looks at the ironic slogan T-shirt, a trend that probably should have ended around the time of Britney Spears' first marriage. And yet people are still walking around with shirts that say "Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl" (preferably worn by an African American male), or "I'm a Virgin (But this Shirt is Old)" (preferably crumpled on the floor of some dude's SUV limo by Paris Hilton).

We sort of support the ironic slogan T-shirt, mostly because without it, Britney, Lohan, et. al. would be deprived of their only means of communicating with the world. But Details wants to bury them once and for all.

In the very adamantly titled Stop Wearing Slogan T-Shirts, Laura Brown talks with the experts on the subject: publicist Lara Shriftman ("Brad Pitt can get away with it"), and Bungalow 8 proprietress Amy Sacco, who gives us this fashion critique with a side order of ethnic snobbery:

I only notice them if they re stupid, like MY GIRLFRIEND S OUT OF TOWN... And there are plenty of stupid T-shirts. I really don t need to see Vinnie So-and-So walking down the street saying AVAILABLE.


Ya hear that, Vinnie! Go back to Bay Ridge, ya mook!

For more on problems of signification in American low couture, see Glasgow Philips' The T-shirt: More Problems of Signification in American Low Couture (Or, what am I saying?) from Might magazine.

Stop Wearing Slogan T-shirts [Details]