The white T-shirt with the phrase “Protect the Dolls” printed in large serif lettering across the chest was worn by designer Conner Ives in the finale of his runway show in 2025. From that moment, the T-shirt went viral — largely due to the slogan, which carries a much longer history.

The phrase originates in the ballroom culture of 1980s New York, where “dolls” was used as an affectionate term for trans women, particularly within Black and Latinx communities. The slogan calls for the protection of those individuals, who are often affected by intersecting forms of marginalisation (race, class, gender) and are therefore disproportionately exposed to structural violence.

Following the show, the T-shirt was worn by a range of figures, from celebrities to activists, functioning both as a personal statement and as a collective call for protection and recognition. Proceeds from the official T-shirts are donated to organisations supporting trans communities, extending the work’s impact beyond symbolic visibility into tangible material support. At the same time, the market has become saturated with low-cost imitations.

The work raises the question of how visibility and language can operate as forms of resistance — and how clothing can become a means of expressing solidarity and demanding safety within contexts of exclusion. The object also points to questions of capitalist appropriation.

The “Protect the Dolls” T-shirt forms part of a broader cultural movement shaped by queer and trans communities, in which fashion (design) and language converge as forms of political agency.