The Story behind the DADDY T-shirt

The DADDY T-shirt was inspired by a T-shirt Madonna wore on stage during the Drowned World tour that read Mother on the front and f*cker on the back.

I tried to make a gay version of my own with Daddy and sister on the back, meaning that as gay men, no matter how masculine we think we are, we’re all sisters after all. I thought it fitted very well with the brand, which (some might remember) was then called Act Straight. Once again, the idea was to take the piss of the gay community’s obsession with masculinity (I’m guilty of that myself, obviously...), but more importantly to just relax a little and accept ourselves for who we are.

Initially the T-shirt only came in army green with black stencil letters (to make it as masc as possible!). However, because the printer charged extra to print both front and back, it made the design unprofitable. I didn’t want to put the price up (either just for that particular T-shirt or for the whole range). Furthermore, one of my friends said he wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing a T-shirt that read Sister on the back. To be honest, I wouldn't either...

So I decided to compromise and put the sister in small case under the capital DADDY. Nobody got the joke, though. Act Straight’s irony also attracted its fair share of nasty comments...

The market spoke as they say... so in another iteration, I went for the ‘less is more’ approach and removed the ‘sister’ altogether and now DADDY is one of our most popular T-shirts.