Tacky Tees and ‘FOB’ Fashion
Western kitsch thrives on absurd slogans and flashy logos, transforming English into spectacle and turning bad taste into irresistible style currency.
Britney Spears was famously photographed wearing a Juicy Couture ‘Dump Him’ t-shirt in London, 2002, shortly after her highly publicised breakup with Justin Timberlake. Photographer unknown. Available via X. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
I was eight years old when my non-English-speaking uncle came to visit. I witnessed as he entered the room, wearing jeans embellished with ‘F*** YOU’ across the back pocket. A not-so-delicate fashion statement so uncalled for (out of pocket, if I may), and so far banished from my vocabulary (and his too) that I instinctively recoiled. This was one of my early encounters with the strange and fascinating allure of what has come to be known as FOB fashion, along with the broader phenomenon of Western style abroad. For the unfamiliar and non-Chinese-uncled, FOB fashion—an in-group term reclaimed from a formerly derogatory acronym—refers to a specific sensibility of dressing often seen in diasporic Asian communities and their eager adoption of Western trends and culture. Think overstated designs, tacky slogan tees, nonsensical phrases, and random logos, all colliding into a cliché of America. In South Korea, for example, a handful of random, non-fashion-related American companies have had their logos recast as popular merchandise lines. These include NASA, National Geographic, CNN, Pan Am, Jeep, Kodak, and Yale University. On TikTok, creator @trust.andy has documented this into a viral series.
A lady in Japan, who suffers a similar fate to my uncle. Photographer unknown. Available via Bored Panda. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Western Pop culture has long indulged in the absurdity of this aesthetic, the tacky and kitschy. From T-shirts graced by galaxy cats, or ‘but first, coffee,’ or ‘normal people scare me,’ to ‘need money for Porsche,’ Western kitsch thrives on the dramatic, the bizarre, and the reactions they inspire, producing slogans that range from comedic to provocative, to offensive, to downright weird. Designers and celebrities have only amplified this appetite; Loewe's ‘I Told Ya’ T-shirt went viral in 2024 after appearing in Guadagnino’s Challengers. Other canonical examples include Victoria Beckham (‘My Dad Had A Rolls-Royce’), Paris Hilton (‘That's Hot’), Hailey Bieber (‘Nepo Baby’), Britney Spears (‘Dump Him’), Rihanna (‘I’m Retired’), Gigi Hadid (‘Lol ur not Zayn Malik’), Sabrina Carpenter (‘Jesus was a Carpenter’), and Naomi Campbell (‘Naomi Hit Me… and I Loved It!’).
Now my uncle is no Paris Hilton, but his jeans reveal how the English language becomes more of a visual spectacle than a communicative tool in the context of non-English speaking communities. The adjacency of these trends across cultures underscores the universal appeal and playfulness of a flashy, tacky, ‘American’ tee. It’s proof that a good dose of ‘drip’ transcends the need for Google Translate.
So the next time you see someone sporting a tee that reads ‘Eat, Sleep, Game,’ or jeans that threaten existential annihilation, remember my uncle and Spears as icons of consequence. Consider how these innocent, joyful quirks of globalisation bridge people, fashion, and cultures across the world in unexpected ways.
