Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s new steamy love-triangle tennis flick, opens in cinemas today, having already proved itself a critical ace for its A-list cast counting Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist. But while the grand slam film has pushed on-court style into the limelight for spring and summer (anyone for tenniscore?) its cult fashion item is a little more left field — a bold slogan t-shirt which reads, loudly, ‘I TOLD YA’.
The Call Me By Your Name director’s latest offering was always going to draw attention to its wardrobe; he enlisted London Fashion Week star and creative director of Loewe, JW Anderson, to design them. But it is this t-shirt, pinched from historic shots of JFK Jr wearing a matching style while throwing a frisbee for his Alsatian in the early nineties, which appears to have won match point. It is worn by Zendaya and Faist in the film, as well as about town; O’Connor wore a spin off version (‘I TOLD YA’ printed on his tuxedo shirt for the UK premiere), while Anderson himself sported the grey iteration for a special Loewe screening of the film in London.
