Latest news with #Feral
Time of India
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Tees that talk: Homegrown brands add masala to messagewear
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Last month, influencer Apoorva Mukhija aka The Rebel Kid made her first appearance after the controversial India's Got Latent episode, where she was on a panel of judges when an offensive joke was made by guest Ranveer Allahbadia. In a five-second video posted on her Instagram account, she greeted her 3.7 million followers, with a caption pointing to an explanatory video on her YouTube, while wearing a white bandeau top that read, 'Stay Feral'.It was not the first time a slogan tee was used to drive home a point. Back in January 2023, Rhode founder Hailey Bieber wore a 'Nepo Baby' crop top after New York Magazine's cover on the topic. The same slogan was worn by filmmaker Karan Johar—often called the godfather of Bollywood's nepo babies—in January 2025, while cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal sported a 'Be Your Own Sugar Daddy' tee in the middle of his divorce from Dhanashree Uniyal of homegrown fashion label Mixxd says slogan tees have become extensions of our digital personas: 'We are seeing fashion being used to reclaim narratives, challenge labels and express individ uality. It's the most wearable form of micro-activism.' Mixxd has only one slogan tee shirt but it's their bestseller: the 'Namaste Bitches' tee, which is not for the faint of is always the case with slogan tees, says Pranav Misra, cofounder of homegrown unisex fashion brand Huemn. Its current bestseller has 'Everyone Sucks' in bold print. 'If you are wearing that bold text across your chest, it is a reflection of your personality. It introduces you before you even open your mouth,' says Misra, who calls these tees a deliberate choice. He says text and design depend on the messaging they want. 'Everyone Sucks' connects with a lot of people but works better as current slogan tees are very different from those of the past, says fashion con sultant and writer Varun Rana. The long and rebellious past of slogan tees arguably started in the US in 1948 when Republican presidential candidate Thomas E Dewey had T-shirts emblazoned with 'Dew it with Dewey'.It turned clothing into a billboard. It democratised messaging: anyone could wear a political stance, a joke, or a belief right across their chest And it was put to good use: from anti-war movements to peace slogans in the 1970s to political statements like 'Choose Life' in the 1980s. Now, says Rana, it's more revealing of your personal self: 'You find slogan tees for literally any kind of thought or feeling you may have. And you can print your own tees for as little as Rs 300.'He adds, 'Slogan tees are always in fashion. The kind of world we live in today, what's happening in our country and because of social media, there are a lot of feelings out there, and if you give everybody a chance to express those feelings, they will do so.' And the tee is the medium of choice. Uniyal says that due to an overload of microtrends on social media, consumers are carving out a sense of personal style that feels authentic. She says, 'Indian audiences are not holding back—from cheeky lines to bold statements and Indianised phrases, people are proudly wearing their personalities, opinions and humour.' Misra says people want to wear their opinion on their sleeves. In 2020, actor Rhea Chakraborty walked into the office of the Narcotics Control Bureau, during the investigation and furore related to Sushant Singh Rajput's death, wearing a tee that said: 'Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Let's Smash the Patriarchy, Me and You.'In 2018, US First Lady Melania Trump wore a jacket with the slogan 'I Really Don't Care, Do U?' while visiting a migrant children's shelter, and in 2017, actor Anuskha Sharma wore the Dior tee 'We Should All Be Feminists'. Even luxury designers have come onboard. In 2017, Prabal Gurung had models walk the ramp with tees reading, 'The Future is Female' and 'I Am an Immigrant'. Last year Loewe's 'I Told Ya' tees were all the rage after Zendaya wore it in this year, Sabyasachi marked his 25 years' show with slogan tees in his trademark maximalist style with messages like 'Cat Lady', 'Dog Dad' and 'All Dressed Up Nowhere to Go'. Vedang Patel, cofounder of homegrown merch and fashion label The Souled Store (TSS), says the consumer is now demanding bold, witty and desifirst designs that spark conversation and says, 'Today, slogan tees are driven by nostalgia, pop culture and a renewed desire for selfexpression.' Lines from Bollywood like 'Control Uday'and 'Yeh Baburao ka Style Hai' are huge hits. TSS' best sellers often tap Bollywood, cricket and meme Gen Z and millennials are driving the trend, celebrity stylist Isha Bhansali says there's a slogan tee for every generation. She points to the Nor Black Nor White (NBNW) T-shirt sported by Zeenat Aman with the word 'Aunty' on internet's favourite daddy Pedro Pascal wore a tee, 'Protect the Dolls', created by designer Conner Ives, to a red carpet. Misra says the bottom line for picking a slogan tee is to wear a thought you can get behind. Bhansali agrees: 'A slogan tee's shelf life is as long as you believe in what's written on it.' Patel says while slogan tees make 2% of their total T-shirt sales, the demand is coming from not just tier-1 but tier-2 and tier-3 cities as well. Indie brands like NBNW and Hate Copy work on pop culture designs that use Indian craftsmanship with messages that mirror desi lifestyle. Brands like The Right Feel pay homage to Indian art and film subculture with Hindi words like 'Pyaar' or 'Ishq' on MY LANGUAGE Patel says regional languages, pop culture and local slang play a massive role in shaping designs. He adds, 'There's a clear shift: consumers now want tees that speak their language, both literally and culturally.' He has noticed a strong demand for slogans in Hindi in tier-2 and -3 cities. 'It's all about authenticity—people want to wear what feels real to them,' he agrees and says that people want to embrace their roots—whether it's through language, identity, or hyper-local culture Bhansali is a fan of cheeky tees and ones with self-deprecating humour. She suggests a fusion look for styling. Women can pair it with salwars or a flared skirt, and men can wear it under a suit or with pleated trousers. But is it for all ages? In an online guide on on graphic tees for 'older men', stylist Peter Nguyen came up with the 'The Museum Rule'. His advice: look at the graphic and ask yourself, 'Could this image be framed and hung in a museum?' If the answer is yes, it's a more sophisticated, 'grown-up' Uniyal says, 'Slogans spark a reaction, be it a smirk, a nod, or a moment of 'That's so me.' It's less noise, more impact.' The tees are talking and we are part of the conversation.
Telegraph
16-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Labour's tax onslaught is coming for your Sunday lunch
Tucking in to roast lamb for your Sunday lunch may soon become a political statement – a cry of resistance against the progressives' onslaught on all things ovine. We are certainly a sheep sodden country – they have shaped our most loved landscapes from the Lakes to Devon, Snowdonia to the Peaks, for centuries. According to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, there were 21.2 million sheep in the UK in December 2023, a reduction of 5pc on the previous year. In 2024, the Welsh flock stood at 8.4 million, or a little over 2.6 sheep per person. Even these prodigious numbers are down from their peak – there were over 12 million in the 1990s. There remain around 70pc more ovines in the principality alone than in the entirety of the United States. If the US enjoyed the same sheep density as Wales, it would harbour over 4.1 billion of the creatures against its actual headcount of around 5 million. If wealth were still measured in terms of sheep, we would remain vastly richer than our American cousins. But all are not fans of our woolly friends. How many ovines should be allowed to reside on our island is fast turning into a faultline in the culture wars. As so often this started as a fringe issue, but the question is now being debated at the heart of government. A little over a decade ago, environmental journalist, George Monbiot, in his book Feral railed against the sheepish menace. His beef was that overgrazing ovines were denuding our hills and turning our uplands into desolate wasteland with close to zero biodiversity. Writing in The Spectator, Monbiot opined, 'The white plague has done more extensive environmental damage than all the building that has ever taken place here… Britain is being shagged by sheep.' Today, ovinophobia has gone mainstream. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) was set up under the last Labour government in 2008 when Ed Miliband was previously in charge of pushing us towards net zero. Its statutory remit is to make recommendations on how we can reach that sacred goal by 2050 – last month, it issued its seventh carbon budget. Farming is in the CCC's sights as they claim it is the fourth highest emitting sector in the UK, accounting for 11pc of all greenhouse gases. Agriculture's total emissions are down by 12pc since 1990, but its share of total emissions has gone up by more than 50pc – a consequence of the precipitous decline of British industry. Nearly half of agricultural emissions are the product of ovine and bovine flatulence, with a further 14pc emanating from livestock waste and manure. So for the green lobby, something must be done about us nasty carnivores. For the Monbiots of this world, lamb eaters are wrecking the environment both on a local and a planetary scale. The CCC's carbon budget sets out a plan to cut our meat consumption by a quarter and reduce the UK's number of cattle and sheep by 27pc by 2040. But the details are still bleaker news for ardent carnivores. By 2050, lamb and beef eating is planned to be down by 40pc. The sheep wrecked uplands, or so the thinking goes, can then over time be afforested and returned to their virginal state. How is this change going to come about? The report is a little hazy about the details. Farmers will indubitably face the brunt of this solemn mission. The imposition of inheritance tax on agricultural land will certainly not be the last rural tax raid. It is hill farmers, the custodians of our sheep, who will be hit particularly hard. It is their lower value land which will be earmarked for rewilding schemes. The report is explicit about this, as it expects lowland pastures' stock densities to go up by 10pc. Since this rise comes alongside an overall fall of over a quarter of total livestock numbers, it equates to a truly startling proposed reduction of sheep in our uplands. But consumers too can expect plenty of government-sponsored nudging. Producers of ready meals will be cajoled to substitute plant-based fakery and lab grown meat for the real thing. Calls for a levy on red meat, along the lines of the sugar tax, will become increasingly vocal. The shopper will be faced with reduced choice and higher prices. But hill farmers have a potential ace up their sleeves. Britain's Muslims eat much more meat than the national average, and specifically much more lamb and mutton. Muslims make up around 6.5pc of the population of England and Wales, according to the Office for National Statistics. But they account for 30pc or more of lamb and mutton sales – 60pc of halal consumers eat lamb each week, whilst only 6pc of the general population do. A green levy on meat sales would vastly disproportionately hit Britain's Muslims. Surely this is an argument a self-proclaimedly progressive government would find it hard to counter. A tax on lamb would be a tax on our minorities.
