Katharine E. Hamnett CBE (born 16 August 1947, in Gravesend, Kent) is an English fashion designer best known for her political t-shirts and her ethical business philosophy.
Media exposure
In the early to mid-1980s Hamnett's oversized t-shirts with large block letter slogans, launched in 1983, were adopted by pop bands including Wham!, with her "CHOOSE LIFE" slogan prominently displayed in the music video for "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" and somewhat less prominently in Queen's video for "Hammer To Fall" (worn by Roger Taylor). Taylor also wore a "WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR BAN NOW" shirt during Queen's historical appearance at the first edition of Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In 1984, ZTT's Paul Morley designed a series of "FRANKIE SAY..." T-shirts to promote the record label's chart act Frankie Goes to Hollywood (FGTH). Morley has stated that these designs were consciously based on Hamnett's slogan T-shirts: "What persuaded me was reading Katharine Hamnett saying she wanted the T-shirts ripped off, which reminded me of Mark P, saying he wanted Sniffin' Glue to be ripped off. And I mean, I did a fanzine, so when I read that I thought, great, fanzine T-shirts!"The official FGTH designs were particularly successful, and spawned many imitations of their own.
More recently, models such as Naomi Campbell have appeared in Hamnett shirts bearing the slogans "USE A CONDOM" and "PEACE".
Hamnett has since expressed scepticism that t-shirt slogans accomplish anything concrete, and suspects that for some, the slogans are a substitute for action. The "CHOOSE LIFE" slogan in the context of the day was directed at drug abuse and suicide. Because it is found in the Bible ("Now choose life, so that you and your children may live" - Deuteronomy 30:19) it has been used by the pro-life movement to encourage a choice against abortion, even appearing on license plates in 27 states.
Katharine Hamnett Not all influential designers are couturiers. Hamnett's slogan t-shirts may seem run-of-the-mill now, but at the time they were revolutionary--and, as Minniti points out, their design "continues to be copied [by countless companies and designers today.]"
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