The biggest faux pas a tourist can make? Dressing like one. Selfie sticks and oversized backpacks fall within this category, but there is one item that has seemingly transcended cringe and entered the realm of cool.

The “I heart” T-shirt is an instantly recognisable item. While it’s found in every souvenir shop in every major city across the world, there is no place the T-shirt is more associated with than New York. But what would ordinarily be found for sale at a stall on Canal Street for no more than $20 has recently caught the interest of a kitsch-loving, meme generation – and now it is making its way down the catwalk.

In fashion circles, designers have turned the T-shirt into more than a celebration of the city. Coach’s interpretation featured beaded hearts and pen-scribbled text, worn by Ella Emhoff, the model and stepdaughter of Kamala Harris, as she walked for the brand during New York fashion week back in September 2024. Matthieu Blazy’s Métiers d’Art show for Chanel, held in a subway station in December last year, styled a sequined version with a matching tweed set.

Then came the celebrities. Gen Z’s favourite supermodel, Alex Consani, wore the Chanel T-shirt at an event in Times Square in April, as did Teyana Taylor when she hosted Saturday Night Live in January. Amelia Dimoldenberg of Chicken Shop Date fame casually wore her own faded baby tee over a gown made by New York designer Miss Claire Sullivan on the red carpet at The Devil Wears Prada 2 premiere in the city.

The T-shirt is as synonymous with the Big Apple as a dollar pizza slice or an off-Broadway show – but where exactly did the design come from? Like all good New York journeys, it started in the back of a yellow taxi. In 1976, graphic designer Milton Glaser was commissioned by New York state and advertising agency Wells, Rich, Greene to develop a logo that would promote tourism in the city during an economic downturn and surge in crime. Glaser made the initial sketch while he was on his way to the advertising agency, inspired by Robert Indiana’s Love pop art image.

The New York state government has rarely succeeded in its efforts to uphold the trademark, faced with an uncontrollable amount of global knockoffs. The logo is ubiquitous, and has been imitated in memorabilia from all corners of the globe, from London to Paris to … Magaluf. It is perhaps the most salient example of city merch. Jose Filipe Torres, global director for nation and city branding at Bloom Consulting, says they are a sign that “the place has become aspirational”. “Fashion is effectively a third party narrating that city to a global audience in a context that shapes whether people want to visit, invest or live there.”

What started as a marketing ploy gradually transformed into a pop culture symbol during the 90s and early 00s. And here it is again now, catalysed by an online generation whose aesthetic sensibilities are governed by Pinterest boards of paparazzi shots and film stills from decades past.

The T-shirt’s resurgence also seems to move in tandem with the political shifts of the city. Just days after the September 11 attacks, actor Jenna Elfman wore a ripped and torn-up version by designer Rebecca Minkoff on The Jay Leno Show. Now, the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor has brought in a new brand of pride for the city – one that is egalitarian, embracing of difference and seemingly firm in its opposition to threats from the Trump administration. It has been met with enthusiasm across the world, making it stylish again to “heart” New York, regardless of whether you live in the city or not. It has become an anti-Maga hat, of sorts.

But brand consultant and content creator Miranda Shanahan thinks the T-shirt’s revival is more of a symptom of Laver’s law, whereby a trend follows a 20-year “emotional” cycle. “What feels hideous after 10 years becomes ridiculous after 20, then gradually ironic and desirable. The tourist tee’s cultural peak puts us at exactly the right distance for an ironic reappraisal,” she tells me. “They’re simple, bold and can be remixed endlessly for any city, subculture or in-joke – much like a meme template.”

British singer-songwriter Rose Gray has incorporated the tourist T-shirt into her onstage wardrobe, often coordinating with the city she’s performing in. “It’s such a simple way for me to show my love to a city and my fans,” she says. The first New York one Gray owned was passed down to her by her mum. “There’s this kinda tacky nostalgia I feel wearing it,” she says.

It’s a blend of nostalgia and irony, low culture and high fashion, that has elevated the T-shirt’s meme potential, and thus its virality. Much like the metropolis it was conceived to represent, it crosses boundaries. All at once, the tourist T-shirt is tacky yet trendy, accessible enough to be found in a souvenir shop and yet at the same time indicating a humblebrag of worldliness that says: “Look at me, I’ve travelled to this city.”

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