Real Men Wear Red Tee | Extra Large

This heavyweight red cotton tee carries the slogan "Real Men Wear Red," reading as a piece of Chicago civic identity as much as a piece of NBA fandom. Text-forward tees like this one moved through the merchandise ecosystem alongside the louder championship graphics of the era, printed for the fans who wanted to wear their allegiance in language rather than in illustration. The construction and print aesthetic place the piece firmly in the early-to-mid 1990s window, and the graphic has softened into the shirt in the way only a garment that actually got worn does.

This piece comes from Tyrrell Winston's collection, an inspirational part of his practice has long treated the unglamorous byproducts of American sports culture as source material — the everyday merchandise, the discarded objects, the fandom that lived on the block rather than inside the arena. This shirt slots firmly into this theme, treating Bulls red not simply as a team color but as a marker of where the wearer was from and who they answered to.

Read our interview with Tyrrell Winston here.