white tee shirt rules

aka why they suck and why i hate them

The sun’s out and summer clothes are in, so enter this year’s must-have: the crisp white tee. Yes! Just like every other year before it!

Why is this deceptively simple item such a summer staple? Because not only does it give ‘I woke up like this’ chic - allowing you to simply toss it on/wank it off and you’re good to go - but it also works in every context and with every colour. Think about it: you can pair a crisp white tee with pretty much anything, provided it’s clothing. Wide legged trousers! Denim shorts! A long skirt! It wouldn’t work if you paired it with, for example, onions.

Ready to rock the white tee like a pro? Check out these easy-to-follow, super simple rules and you’re good to go!

[Small break writing because I’ve got a fly in my ear and it’s stuck in the sweat in my actual ear hole so keeps trying to climb out, so I just put my finger in my ear to scrape him out but I think this injured him so, and this is not an exaggeration, I am typing this substack post amid the dying throes of a - it’s stopped now. OK I’m typing this substack post with a dead fly in my ear. Makes you think. Not sure what about, but I’m certainly struggling to focus and staring into space. What if it was a pregnant fly and his fly babies explode into my brain? I’m almost sure that isn’t how flies work. This is like the time I said ‘all chickens are girls aren’t they?’ at a party and the guy I said it to, who I don’t know very well, looked at me like I was the thickest person he had ever come into contact with. I didn’t make it better by adding ‘Ohhh that’s cows isn’t it’ (no) but anyway, I don’t think dead pregnant flies’ babies explode into peoples’ ears.

Back in the room.]

Rule 1: Rock your tee after applying makeup.

Popped my new white tee shirt on this week and the collar was immediately the colour of my skin, my jutting chin having transferred the foundation as it passed o’er my face.

If you’re a long-faced girlie like me (with a massive head), simply do your makeup once the tee is in place. Heart-shaped ladies will have no trouble, nor will tiny head huns, little-faced babes and, of course, my neckhole queens (women with faces the exact shape and size of a tee shirt neckhole). I used to write for Grazia.

Rule 2: Do not eat standing up.

One wash later, I wore the white tee while boiling ramen and decided to partake in my customary forkful of kimchi out of the jar. It’s one of my joys, it’s one of my desires, no judgement, no shame. Unfortunately it led to me plopping dyed cabbage down myself which consequently introduced both judgement and shame to my joys and my desires. It was like the bit in the Bible when they realise they’re naked.

The shame is justified because this shouldn’t have been a rule I needed to learn beyond age three, but there’s something fun about eating stuff whenever and however you want, as an adult. Dessert before dinner. Packet of cherry tomatoes as a snack while walking around town. Kimchi out of the jar is careless though, and I’ve definitely taken this too far in other ways, too. For example, I bought a packet of beetroot to eat on the train last week and stained my fingers, hands, arms and face for the remainder of the afternoon. Say it with me: pickled foods aren’t finger foods - except gherkins, please allow us gherkins out of the jar, amen.

‘We don’t need to say that with you, it’s really obvious’ shut up.

Rule 3: Do not eat ramen while rocking the tee

Yeah I kept the tee on because everything was fucked anyway, so ended up pebbledashing the front of the tee with broth until it looked like my nannas house, except rather than little stones it was little spots of Clearspring and rather than a house it was my torso.

Rule 4: Don’t be tired when rocking the tee.

With a greater grasp of the food rules, and having washed the tee shirt a second time in 24 hours (this time with lots of Vanish - if anyone knows a stain remover that is environmentally friendly/doesn’t march into the sea and start strangling the cod with its bare hands please tell me), I ate lunch before I put the tee shirt on and went to a job which involved me being in a clean studio.

I refused all snacks in case of stains, and also because I wanted to wait til I was at home due to buying this really good sourdough bread, you know the stuff that doesn’t make your mouth bleed? And isn’t mainly air? Really dense, soft bouncy pillows. Anyway I got in, took the tee shirt off, and there was a weird mark on the back. Because I had leant on a wall at the station. Because I was tired. Probably because of all the fucking stress this white tee shirt is causing me.

Rule 5: ???

After yet another wash, and with the sort of determined resignation reserved only for war, I was staying over at a friend’s house and decided to try it out one last time. Observing all of the rules, I walked to the train station as though wearing a piece of gold, got onto the train, arrived at my destination, got onto and off a bus, and arrived at my friend’s house. She looked at me and said ‘oh you’ve got dirt all over your tee shirt’.

I’m not kidding, there were two sizeable red stains down my front that looked like sauce, and I hadn’t eaten any sauce.

The train was quite busy so the only way these two stains could have appeared is if I’d knocked into someone who had pasta sauce on their backpack. Or their elbows. I also hadn’t, before you start a commenting frenzy, leant breasts-first onto a wall covered in ketchup, nor had I lain face down atop two cherry tomatoes. I swear.

Rule 6: Don’t Wash It

Tried to put it on this morning and after five washes my crisp white tee is now just crispy. It feels like misshapen cardboard so I’m going to have to throw it out and start again. Or just never wear a white tee shirt again, which is a shame because they look so effortlessly cool.

In fact, there is a girl sat across the aisle from me in a white tee shirt and I am so close to leaning over and bellowing at her. Something like ‘why don’t you have phantom sauce on your torso’ or ‘is your face shaped like a neckhole’.

There you have it. The simple easy to follow rules of the white tee! GO FORTH AND ROCK IT, MY GODS AND GODDESSES!

I very quickly forgot I was meant to be writing this in the style of a fashion article, probably because I’m a) annoyed about the tee shirt and b) still concerned about the dead fly in my ear. Need to wrap this up now actually so I can take a picture of my ear with the flash on, just to see what I’m dealing with.

Worth pointing out I am wearing black linen shorts and a matching black linen shirt because I was reliably informed that linen is ‘in’. What’s great about wearing black is that I’m probably covered in kimchi and nobody can tell, unless they used a blacklight. Few people know that blacklights were created to detect kimchi. And that all cows are female chickens.

Quite an abrupt ending there but it’s very hot and I really do have to check out this fly.

God bless xx

Bristol, Brighton, Cardiff, Leeds and Norwich are all sold out for the tour and a fair few other dates are pretty close to capacity - so don’t wait til closer to the time, book yer tickets here!