Ariana Atwater, a customer service associate at Bloomingdale’s in New York City, grew up in the US south, where “rap tees” – shirts highlighting hip-hop’s biggest artists – were nearly ubiquitous. The 32-year-old remembers buying Bow Wow and Jeezy garb, but last autumn, she added a far less famous face to her wardrobe: her boyfriend, Aaron.
Atwater customised a $30 (£25) shirt with his name in huge, orange ombré text above images of his face and wore the shirt as a surprise for his birthday. “I just wanted to find something cool and cute to celebrate him,” she says.
Atwater is part of a growing number of people paying homage to 90s hip-hop fashion with a 21st-century twist. Similar to music fans in the 90s, today’s shoppers buy bootleg T-shirts to honour the subjects highlighted on the tees. But instead of Biggie, brides-to-be and birthday boys can now easily slap their names and images on these shirts, making them feel like a superstar.
These bootleg rap T-shirts are being sold via Etsy and TikTok Shop. Online stores such as London-based Studio Sunnie have sold more than a thousand T-shirts displaying everything from multiple images of someone’s sister to pet cats.
It is as nostalgia obsessions grow that these shirts have re-emerged. Last September, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s daughter North West wore a black shirt with her name in sparkly, uppercase letters above pictures of herself, while former Saturday Night Live cast member Aidy Bryant and May December actor Charles Melton wore bootleg shirts bearing each other’s names during the Film Independent Spirit awards in February. Influencers have also taken to posting customised bootleg T-shirts of their own faces online, sparking a micro-trend.