Balenciaga Is in the Business of Making Memes | GQ

There are infinite ways to get people riled up on the internet, but one surefire tactic is to sell a weird thing for a ludicrous amount of money. That’s precisely what Balenciaga designer Demna Gvasalia has done with this “T-Shirt Shirt”: literally a blue check button-up sewn onto a T-shirt. The shirt takes the idea of boardroom-to-the-bar seriously to a fault, and Balenciaga even touts “two wearing options:” wearing the button-up with the tee draped across the back like a cape, or as T-shirt with the button-up in the front. That sort of unparalleled versatility will set you back a cool $1,290.

Naturally, this unnerved fellow internet users. “Balenciaga sewed a button-down shirt onto a T-shirt and people aren’t having it,” wrote USA Today. “Holy shirt: Balenciaga is selling a ‘T-shirt shirt’ for $1,290,” The Guardian’s headline read. Fortune cut right to the chase: “Balenciaga’s ’T-Shirt Shirt’ Is Breaking the Internet.”

This T-Shirt Shirt is the ready butt of any joke: it tees up anyone on the internet to create some good content out of it and Twitter users immediately obliged. There are the obvious jokes about the ridiculous price but also people just riffing: “When yer da gets divorced and can’t figure out laundry,” “Balenciaga’s Steve Bannon collection.” Others scattered phrases like “help me” and “this sh— ugly as f—” around the dour-looking model’s head. Even Michael Rappaport got involved with one of his trademark obnoxious rants.

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This was a full-on internet moment that just happened to involve high fashion—bringing Balenciaga the type of fervent internet chatter (and press) largely reserved for goofiness like the RompHim or “The Dress.”

The internet wasn’t just upset that Gvasalia made a strange shirt—or at least not entirely. What really is unsettling about this shirt is that it’s not really a piece of clothing in any traditional sense—you wouldn’t just throw this on with jeans and a jacket. That’s because the T-Shirt Shirt is something else: it’s a meme.

And this isn’t an accident—it’s strategy.