Price Tag

So this Berlin clothing brand made t-shirts where the price tag is the entire design. Plain white shirt, price printed on the chest in yellow—20 euros, 600 euros, whatever you paid. They call the collection Statussymbol and they’re selling it.

On the surface it’s absurd, but the longer you look at it the less funny it gets. We buy expensive clothes so other people will know we spent money. That’s not controversial, that’s just how it works. Brands hide the price signal inside the fabric quality or the logo size or some detail only the right people recognize. This one decided to make it explicit. Why hide what everyone already knows?

The brand even thought through the mechanics. Sale prices for people who need discounts, special endorsed versions for the people who matter in the scene, the whole infrastructure of fashion hierarchy working overtime. And the idea is you wear this thing and other people examine it, assess your net worth from the number on your chest. You see someone in this shirt, you check the tag. That’s what’s supposed to happen.

I’m still not sure if they were being ironic or just honest. Maybe there’s no difference. You’re buying a shirt critical of status symbols by paying to display its price. The whole thing eats itself—it’s stupid but I can’t stop thinking about it, which probably means it worked.