‘I Told Ya’ reads the T-shirt worn by Zendaya and Josh O’Connor in the Luca Guadagnino-directed tennis movie Challengers, released in April of this year. The shirt, a replica of one worn by John F Kennedy Jr in the 1990s, was recreated in the film by British designer Jonathan Anderson, creative director of Loewe and JW Anderson. Here, he was working in a new role: costume designer, one which he would continue on Guadagnino’s second movie of 2024, Queer (released this December).
The T-shirt, which would retail on Loewe’s website for £225, took on a life of its own after the movie, worn by the film’s stars on the press tour and becoming ubiquitous on social media streams (it would also make for a particularly popular Halloween costume come October). Quite what the T-shirt was ‘telling’ us – in the film, the T-shirt swaps between Zendaya’s Tashi and O’Connor’s Patrick Zweig, seeming to symbolise who is holding power in their relationship – one message seemed loud and clear: movie merch is now high-fashion.
