Fashion That Says “F*$# Off!” … Literally

Are you tired of seeing light pink, cap-sleeved t-shirts that say random positive words like "hope," "peace," "love," or my personal favorite, "joy," in consistently disgusting typography and design? Do you ever/often feel the urge to tell people that you hate them, you don’t want to talk to them, you don’t want to look at them and/or you don’t want to be near them, even if they are complete strangers? Do you like to make a statement with what you wear? Like, literally, an actual, written statement? Then reader, this is your lucky day! Because just for you, I have scoured Google Image Search far and wide for the clothes, shoes, bags and accessories that say, “fuck off!” in the best, most explicit, most fashionable ways possible, simply so that you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

First, let’s recapitulate a little bit of the history behind the idea of using fashion to tell people to fuck off. It all started in the 1960s, as did most good things in our great nation’s history… Violent youth riots, drug overdoses, brainwashing cults, you name it! Teens had been using denim to symbolically tell their parents to fuck off since the 1950s, but it was not until those God-damned dirty hippies started spreading their anti-war propaganda like hallucinogenic wildfire that saddle shoes and poodle skirts truly gave way to less cookie-cutter, family-friendly styles. By 1971, the Supreme Court had reversed a decision that convicted a man of disturbing the peace for wearing a jacket with the phrase “Fuck the Draft” on it (Cohen v. California), and pissed-off, punk-ass kids everywhere have been wreaking havoc with the four-letter expletive ever since… Or trying to, at least.

In the early 1970s, designer Vivienne Westwood and Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren opened a store in London called Let it Rock that they closed, rebranded and reopened under different names (Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die; Sex; Seditionaires; Worlds End) several times after being prosecuted under obscenity law for their products. Westwood went on to found an eponymous high-fashion brand, effectively bringing the F-word and all the bad attitude that goes along with it to a luxury market driven by the same consumers she had been revolting against for decades.

In the 1990s, French Connection United Kingdom capitalized on the acronym "fcuk" to create a brand identity characterized by irreverence and anti-fashion. Their ads exploited the sexually and socio-linguistically explicit nature of the word "fuck," but without ever actually using it. They started with campaign slogans like “fcuk fashion” and “f.c.u.k. advertising,” expanded with brand-recognition to using “french connection yourself” and “what the french connection,” and finally switched out their own acronym with provocative acrostics like “feline chick unzips kev” and “frumpy caroline’s unexpected kerfuffle” [all sic]. Even though FCUK never actually used that particular profanity, the branding strategy packed some serious punch and was always considered extremely controversial. I can specifically remember my mother rolling her eyes at me as I covetously clutched a black f.c.u.k. T-shirt and tried to sound convincing while explaining that it simply stood for the company’s real name and that there was really nothing different about it from an A&F or AE T-shirt, except that it was way cooler—but for no particular reason.

In recent years, however, Westwood’s collections have been criticized as too kitsch, like caricatures of the real subversion they used to signify; and comparably, by 2005, the abbreviation f.c.u.k. was long-gone from French Connection collections and had been replaced by more polished, product-centered tactics in advertisement. Why, you may ask, would any internationally established brand abandon the identity that popularized it in the first place? Because it was no longer effective. The almighty World Wide Web had taken over the planet and as a result, the whole wide world had become practically numb to the effects of obscenity. People who wore F-word T-shirts became practically, well, lame.I’ve even heard my eye-rolling mother drop the F-bomb once or twice since that unsuccessful childhood shopping trip. (Which, side note: Not buying the cheeky middle school version of myself a shirt that basically screamed “suspend me!” might have been a good parental decision.)

This, friends, is where the partial-history lesson ends and the real fun begins… SHOPPING! YAY!

Enter Obesity and Speed, and this:

For the bravest of the pissed-off, punk-ass kids, Obesity and Speed offers up this $65 tank (or $75 for the guy’s version), which is pretty much just a cut-off T-shirt screen-printed with the words FUCK OFF in unmistakably bold, black, capital letters. It seems to say, “So you think you’re desensitized to crudity, nudity, violence and filth? Then rock this.” I must admit, besides the fact that I would rather use $65 to fill up my SUV with overpriced gasoline than to buy a T-shirt I could easily make at home with a pair of scissors and iron-on paper, I am also just way not tough enough to ever actually wear something like this in public. Would I throw it on and take vainglorious pictures of myself for a street-style blog community post? Maybe… So what? But, would I throw it on and go walk around Carytown in it? On a Saturday? With, like, people around? Yeeeah, no thanks.

How about something a little more subtle? Like this:

This $48 rib cotton dress/$38 tee from DimePiece is definitely more my speed. It’s more sarcasm than pure hatred and the words are significantly less gigantic. If I didn’t still live at home (*sigh*), or I wasn’t terrified of disappointing my parents any more than I already have (*double sigh*), then I might actually wear this… With a boyfriend sweater or an oversized blazer to cover it up when made necessary by my lack of badass-ness, of course.

For those of you bursting to bark, but just too afraid to bite, there is jewelry. A bracelet, perchance. Or a ring.

Just layer the bangle, or buy the clear version of the ring, and the world may never realize how much you despise it!

For the Chinese food restaurant delivery workers:

I don’t know where to purchase these, but I sure do wish my Chinese food came in one…

And lastly, for the DIY-ers, just steal something off Tumblr or WeHeartIt and screen-print that shit! If you’re reading this, then let’s be honest, you probably are friends with an artsy VCU student who knows how to do it (or are one yourself). You could go for the classic-rebel middle finger (think Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain), the ironic-pop-cultural-figure middle finger (Justin Bieber, Ke$ha), the 90s-rapper-who-is-cool-to-listen-to-now-even-though-you-didn’t-listen-to-him-as-a-white-scrawny-12-year-old middle finger (Biggie, NWA), or the emaciated-fashion-crowd middle finger (check Terry Richardson’s blog for an endless supply of models and generally skinny famous people flipping the bird). Or, you could change it up a bit and use a different, but equally offensive, statement. Here are a few that I think would make fantastic F-off shirts (or bags, or hats, or greeting cards).

Choose from any number of Jared-Leto-flicking-off-the-camera pictures available now on the Web.

What happened to my sweet, innocent, little Mary Kate? Or is that Ashley?

Biggie, Pac, and Redman all in one picture? Yes, please.

Who doesn’t love Liza Minnelli in thigh-high boots and a letterman’s jacket? No one, that’s who.

Make a fuck off shirt of Charlotte Free modeling a fuck off shirt! #meta

I thought I was a genius for coming up with the idea to screen-print this incredible shot of Kate Moss. And then I found about a billion versions of it for sale on Etsy. Buy one for $10 here.