René Magritte The Son of Man 1964 T-Shirt

A man in a bowler hat and a red tie, in front of a low wall and a grey sea, with a green apple hovering exactly where his face should be.

Magritte painted it in 1964 and described it plainly: everything we see hides something else, and we always want to see what is hidden. The apple does not obscure the face by accident — it is the picture’s whole argument, and it is why the image has been stolen for a thousand book covers and never worn out. He also said the bowler hat was chosen because it is entirely unremarkable, which is the most Magritte sentence available.

Daddy considers this the correct shirt for any occasion where he does not intend to explain himself.

The shirt itself is the good kind of basic: combed ring-spun cotton, preshrunk, side-seamed so it hangs straight, taped shoulders so the collar doesn’t twist after the fortieth wash. It fits like the tee you’ve had for ten years, on day one.

How to wear it

Black or white tee, dark denim, and a jacket you can keep on. It photographs well, which is not nothing.