I Wore a T-Shirt Dress Like Justin Bieber, and It Was Everything

Justin Bieber’s dress is longer than Gigi Hadid’s. (Photo: Getty Images)

A recent trend among popping fashion-forward celebrities is the long tee, or T-shirt dress. Everyone from Kanye West to Justin Bieber to Young Thug to our generation’s Jesus/Socrates — Jaden Smith — has been seen wearing one, usually layered over skinny jeans, with bold sneakers. Prior to October 2015, I had never worn a T-shirt dress in my life. But anything good enough for my lord and savior Jaden Smith is good enough for me. I was sent a couple of T-shirt dresses by Yahoo Style, naturally, as I’m basically the Jaden Smith of comedians/freelance writers, with 10,000 Twitter followers of my own. I also made a shirt once, so I’m essentially a fashion icon.

Of the two T-shirt dresses, both by Topman, one was a divine blue, and its breathable fabric gave me a new lease on life. The other, a white zippered T-shirt dress, ruined my life. One box held the best- and worst-case scenarios for T-shirt dresses.

The day I received the shirts, I immediately put on the blue one and felt euphoric. It was — no exaggeration — the most comfortable thing I had ever worn. It was impossible to find a jacket to wear over it because everything else felt like sandpaper compared with this insane miracle shirt. Everything I thought was classic in my wardrobe suddenly looked like trash; I felt like a changed man. I’m not a gross monster, so I don’t normally wear the same shirt on consecutive days, but I definitely kept wearing it over and over again. I really can’t stress it enough: This shirt changed me. Like, typing about this shirt is making me actively nostalgic to the point where it hurts. It’s sitting in my laundry right now, and the fact that I don’t have enough dirty laundry to justify washing it immediately is painful.

The author in the t-shirt dress that change his life. (It might not look like majestic blue, but behind the bad lighting/no filter, it is.)

Comfort aside, it also looks amazing. When I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror, I was Kanye West, even though my checking account is sitting at about $10,000 (my net worth and Twitter-follower count are approximately the same number). It’s also subtle in a way the term “T-shirt dress” might not imply. Like, people who care about fashion will care, but swagless normie randos won’t even notice you’re wearing a T-shirt dress. You can still live within your prison of masculinity and not feel uncomfortable.

The white zipper shirt, on the other hand, was a nightmare. Never again. I gave it a pre-wear zipper test and it immediately got caught in this dumbass side tag. Basically, one thing that shouldn’t exist got caught in a different thing that shouldn’t exist, so I cut off the tag and fixed the zipper and put it on. At the time, I was wearing the godly majestic blue shirt but had been wearing it for about 48 hours and was late to a girl’s house. The Uber had already been ordered, so I changed into my other T-shirt dress at the last minute, gave it another zip test, and this time it caught on my skin. These zippers are evil.

The author in the worst t-shirt dress that ever happened to him.

The girl at the end of the Uber ride immediately made fun of my zippered shirt and said my nipples were super visible. I might be proud of my nips, but you should see them only if my shirt is off. I don’t want visible nips while I’m wearing a shirt. (The cold zippers were also hitting my torso, which was ruining my life.) Before we went out, I had to go through her closet to find a jacket to cover up my nips.

So T-shirt dresses without zippers? Classic. I don’t want to wear anything else for the rest of my life. T-shirt dresses with zippers? Never again.