‘Queer Eye’: Every One of Antoni’s T-Shirts, Ranked

Antoni does what we all do when we get ready to go to Target: throw on the shirt from the top of the clothes pile and head out the door. In this case, it’s a faded black tee, which would be entirely unremarkable if the sleeves weren’t zhuzhed a little.

When Antoni has something big to do, like prepare a small-town mayor for a dinner with international ambassadors, he doesn’t need to dazzle them with a #lewk. He just needs a basic gray tee–and sure, top it off with a jaunty neckerchief just to remind everyone you’re one of the Fab Five and not the Bland Five.

Of Antoni’s basic color tees, this hunter green one is the most stylish–as stylish as a plain color tee can be. But this is Antoni being a bit more reserved, and possibly the result of some choice coordination with Jonathan Van Ness who’s in a muted maroon. Together, they look ready for a chic, casual yet classy Christmas  in July get together.

If you love Antoni’s tees for obscurity, well, it doesn’t get less obscure than just the letters “LA” in big white block letters on a black tee. But those block letters are made up of outlines of… pills and buttons? Or coins? Or… listen, I’m NYC by way of Nashville. I don’t know what kind of button and pill parties y’all are having out west.

Could I read Antoni for rocking a basic Fruit of the Loom in multiple episodes (5!)? Yes. Should I? No. Antoni knows what looks work for him, and a basic white tee plays up his James Dean But A Little Gayer aesthetic.

Over the past decade, Nashville has gone from the home of Shotgun Red (a hillbilly puppet) and Amy Grant (a squeaky clean Christian pop star) to a haven for honky tonk hipsters, vinyl vampire Jack White, and also Hollywood royalty like Nicole Kidman. Nashville’s trendy y’all, and that’s why it’s on Antoni’s shirt. But it’s backwards because, as I’ve learned from my decade in NYC, just saying “Nashville” ain’t impressive on its own.

And thus begins our journey through Antoni’s pride and joy: his collection of Strokes tees. As someone who has also, at one point, owned a dozen Strokes t-shirts, I adore this aspect of the avocado king’s style. This one’s a little basic, a stylized Strokes logo between layers of grids. But at least the grids are quasi-rainbow colored, a smart choice for the series’ most queer-celebratory episode.

Antoni’s other favorite band, The National, got repped hard throughout rural Georgia last summer. This tee is definitely the most moody of all of Antoni’s band merch, which subtly lets the makeover subject know that he’s the most sensitive of the Fab Five. Don’t say anything bad about Antoni’s fixation on Greek yogurt or he’ll write a droning rock ballad about you!

Whether or not Antoni can handle French cuisine is debatable, but this high-class tee proves he can at least look the part! Antoni serves up French realness in the kitchen while imparting some basic-ass food knowledge to his student-of-the-week.

The most obscure shirt on this list so far, and the first of many variations on what is basically the exact same shirt. Y’all may harp on Antoni for loving avocados too much, but Antoni loves the novel A Little Life way more. If Antoni was in charge of fashion, the Atlanta suburbs would be dotted with people wearing t-shirts bearing the names of the four main characters from Hanya Yanagihara’s acclaimed novel. A Little Life tracks the lives of four friends in NYC and deals with sexual abuse, self harm, and lots of other heavy material. TBH, this tee broadcasts Antoni’s inner seriousness way more than any goth National tee–it’s just that no one knows WTF this shirt means.

The second Strokes t-shirt on this list is basic AF, but you gotta love its directness. It’s white and it screams “The Strokes”–which is probably how you could describe Antoni when the Fab Five are trying to decide on a playlist in their truck.

The more obscure the tee the better, and that other LA shirt was just too obvious! We’re now in the top 10, which means indecipherability is a major plus. This shirt references three Los Angeles parks. That might get a “duh” from people in the LA area, but I could also see this being another reference to an emotionally dark novel that I will never read. It’s not hard to imagine!

“Elysian MacArthur Griffith gazed at the blood caked under his fingernails as the sound of his mother’s voice echoed in his mind…”

Forget French fashion, this dramatically stylish tee feels like it came right out of an ’80s West German talk show. And Antoni leaned right in, pairing this high neck, two-tone tee with a severe side-part that screams “Now is the time on Sprockets when we make a mixed drink!” Obviously this is a top ten look.

The next National tee is a little less moody and instead feels a lot more “come see our beautiful state park.” The National’s merch aesthetic can either be dreary or dreamy–get you a band whose shirts can do both!

Here’s Antoni, living that A Little Life life in a supermarket. I want to point out how obscure this shirt is: Google searches for this phrase went absolutely through the roof when Queer Eye debuted in February, and they’re picking up again right now because Antoni keeps wearing these shirts!

This National t-shirt incorporates two things gay men love: color and white tigers! Antoni is serving some indie rock Siegfried & Roy realness while sprinkling salt, and I am here for it.

Antoni’s top 5 tees are going to serve you the most real realness in this food expert’s suitcase. First up is this dazzling and divine Strokes tee, modified to show off Antoni’s two best cooking utensils. I’m talking about his arms. Calling them “utensils” isn’t sexy, is it? Whatever, this shirt is peak retro-cool, and I love it.

How in the world do I rank any of the A Little Life shirts over the other ones? It’s all about color and expectations! Black on white? Seen it! White on black? Done! But this one, just making the names a slate gray/lavender (who knows in this cursed firehouse lighting) makes the shirt pop even more. It’s a chic twist on Antoni’s most Googleable shirt!

How do you make a National shirt that’s better than one starring a tiger? You lean into the obscurity, honey, and put the band’s name in teeeeny tiny font and let the album title “Trouble Will Find Me” dominate! You have to be familiar with Pitchfork’s list of top 2013 albums to clock this as a band tee, and the album title is a truly badass phrase to wear. Can Antoni pull off that level of ‘tude? Look at him leaning on that fridge. He can.

You can’t go wrong with the classics, which is maybe why Antoni kept coming back to the first–and still the best–Strokes logo tee. I owned this shirt and you probably owned this shirt too (if you went to college between 2001 and 2003). This logo, inspired by the logo for the forgotten ’80s cigarette brand Magna, is now a piece of rock and roll history. It takes you back to a time and a place, and it says something about the person wearing it: namely that they were born around 1984 (which Antoni was, and I was).

Style, design, obscurity–this one gets 10s across the board! A head-scratching phrase scrawled in black all over a classic white tee, this is the definitive Antoni tee. The shirt was part of a limited run from designer James Concannon, which means people will have to settle for imitations if they want to get this #lewk. What does it all mean? Is it a reference to James Dean’s bisexuality and love of fast cars? Is it a tongue-in-cheek nod to how he died? Is it just a super fun phrase to say? All of the above?! A great Antoni tee is one that keeps us guessing, and this fashionable shirt is truly unknowable.

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