Laura Craik on slogan fatigue, Brad Pitt’s brilliant new squeeze and Mark Zuckerberg sans hoodie

The first one I remember noticing was ‘My Mum Went To London And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt’.

That was in the late Seventies. It’s fair to say that in the intervening years slogan T-shirts haven’t got any funnier. Sometimes I yearn to wake up to a world of plain white ones, a calmer place devoid of dumb-assed messages in ugly fonts, where everyone dresses like James Dean. Or Niall Horan, if you’re a millennial.

While ‘Only 2% Of The World Has Red Hair So Basically I’m A Majestic Unicorn’ (yes, this tee actually exists) may not be funny, at least it’s only offensive to that two per cent of the population who has red hair and hates even well-intentioned jokes about gingers. Alas, not all T-shirts are as harmless. Hot on the heels of the political message T-shirt comes another trend, one best described as For God’s Sake Think Before You Print. Recently, a pic (since deleted) of footballer Steven Gerrard’s 14-year-old daughter surfaced on Instagram, in which she’s wearing a hoodie saying ‘The Diet Starts Monday’ — because why not use your child as a billboard to encourage eating disorders? Then there’s fashion brand Big Uncle, which has produced a ‘Colonialism’ sweatshirt modelled (obvs) by a fair-haired white boy whose Aryan youth-style side parting may or may not be accidental. Claudie Pierlot, meanwhile, is selling a T-shirt saying, ‘Don’t Trust Boys’. Which may be true of Tristan Thompson, but all boys? Really? That’s an inclusive message for 2018.

With so many dodgy slogans around a guide is needed to help us decide which sloganistas to avoid. Cities, à la Barcelona and Tokyo? Boring, but harmless. Girl Power/Supermama? Likely to drone on about their work/life balance, but harmless. ‘You Read My T-shirt?’ Meta, but harmless. Sorry I’m late I Didn’t Want To Come? Antisocial, but harmless. Most slogan T-shirts are harmless. Except the ones that aren’t. Think before you print before you wear, people.

Suit dispute

Much is being made, inevitably, of Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘I’m sorry’ suit, worn to testify in front of US congress. It struck the right note, they said. Really? If the right note is ‘used car salesman’, then sure. While Facebook refuses to comment on the provenance of the suit

and on-brand blue tie, surely its ‘borrowed from dad’ connotations were deliberate. Zuckerberg prides himself on being above the tedium of deciding what to wear, calling it a ‘frivolous’ waste of time. That the suit he chose for such a grave occasion was so ‘meh’ is his way of reiterating this. Or maybe Boris Johnson is his sartorial role model. Stick to the hoodies in future, Mark.

Bright and beautiful

Usually it’s the eyes, the smile, the personality or, if you’re dating a Neanderthal, the tits. But when Brad Pitt met new girlfriend Neri Oxman, something else captured his attention. ‘They got involved almost right away when her work — 3D-printed chaise lounges — caught his eye,’ claims an insider. Scoff if you like, but there are worse things to base your relationship on than a love of decent furniture.

I’m also relishing the shock attached to the fact that Oxman is ‘an architect and MIT professor’, as though no Hollywood actor has ever not dated another Hollywood actor, and George and Amal/Jude and Phillipa never happened. Um, it is possible for a woman to be clever and beautiful.