Food and fashion have never had a great relationship. Until now

Bristol is well known for its food, and food was everywhere, but food was absolutely all over people’s T-shirts. I’ve noticed a lot of food T-shirts lately, so it’s not specific to the south west, though the one I spotted with heritage tomatoes on the back did seem rather Bristol (please don’t write in, I say this with fondness). There were T-shirts with limoncello on the front, T-shirts with just lemons, one with a spidery pen and ink drawing of a bottle of cider, and one showing off an elegant cartoon of a tin of sardines.

Ever the millennial bang on time to a social-media trend, by which I mean I’m two years late and it has been filtered through several layers of online platforms before making its way to me, I thought these T-shirts may represent the ongoing high-street trickle-down of “tomato girl summer”, which had a moment on TikTok in the summer of 2023. This was the Amalfi coast in sartorial form, a daydream of la dolce vita expressed in drawings of bottles of digestif.

Yet high fashion’s ongoing love of food shows no sign of waning. In April, Loewe released its much-hyped tomato clutch, the high-concept result of a meme about just how “Loewe” a real-life tomato looked. It is not an outlier, as it turns out you can already buy ludicrously pricey handbags in the shape of a bunch of celery, a slice of pizza or a baguette (all Moschino), or a slice of victoria sponge (also Loewe).

For a few years now, our appetite for restaurant merch has been growing. In many places, you can purchase a tote or a T-shirt alongside your meal. I’ve never taken the leap, though I have been sorely tempted, especially when the food is outrageously good. I almost came home from one of my favourite restaurants, Eat Vietnam in Birmingham, with a sharply designed tote bag, though I think I was still just dazzled by the lingering deliciousness of its Marmite and peanut cauliflower.

To me, a restaurant T-shirt feels like more traditional territory. It’s similar to wearing music merch, and having your favourite band emblazoned across your chest. It is a signifier of identity and taste to be broadcast to the world. Food and music have many similarities, not least all those venue closures, job losses and prohibitive costs, so buying restaurant merch may help to prop up a smaller business, too. It makes sense.

I wonder why, though, there seems to have been a shift away from specific restaurant merch, and more towards just “food”, unbranded, and mostly fruit, vegetables and fish. What does it say about us, other than that we think food is nice? Sure, it’s a fair point. Food is nice. But why are we wearing it?

Digging around, I found a great discussion on an Australian culture website called Broadsheet, which suggested various interpretations of this trend, including the popularity of TV drama The Bear, fashion’s inherent fatphobia (the food depicted is natural, healthy, “clean”, etc), the fetishisation of homesteading, and trends meandering across traditional boundaries, meaning that food and fashion intersect more than ever.

In the interests of fairness, I did an inventory of my own wardrobe. I don’t have any food-is-nice stuff (though when I started to look more carefully, I noticed that my young nieces, aged seven and five, are covered in fruit), but I do have some branded sports socks that came free with a coffee order and an oversized T-shirt from a friend’s now-closed restaurant, which has a bagel on the front, that I sleep in, because it’s been washed into a lovely, soft state.

Though if anyone can draw the world’s best pot of ice-cream, and knows the details of a good printer, then I know someone who could be interested.