Imagine a world where humans are not only vessels for advertising multibillion-dollar global fast food chains, but where we’re expected to pay for that privilege. If that sounds good to you, then Taco Bell and Forever21 have some clothes they want you to buy.
Starting Oct. 11, anyone who ever dreamed of giving over their personal identity to prance around in a top that looks like a Taco Bell hot sauce packet, can do so, thanks to the Forever21 x Taco Bell collection.
The advertising apparel (adverpparel?) features all various Taco Bell items splashed across sweatshirts, bodysuits, and T-shirts.
For example, you could score a pink pullover sweatshirt with the “Live Mas” logo on the chest, because you apparently don’t like yourself very much and want the world to know it.
If you feel compelled to dress up like a condiment package on days that aren’t Halloween, there’s the Fire Sauce tank top.
Taco Bell, which for some reason refers to itself as “the fast fashion of food,” says it used its knowledge of creating limited edition products to influence the clothing line.
While it remains to be seen if Taco Bell fans who love Doritos Locos tacos will actually want to wear that love on their sleeves, the fast food chain and Forever21 seem to think the clothing line will be a hit.
Some Taco Bell executive who gets paid so much more money than most of us could possibly ever imagine actually said the following: “We’ve seen our fans get individually creative in expressing their love for Taco Bell through fashion, and we believe this collection with Forever 21 is going to be everything they would expect from us in extending the Taco Bell lifestyle to fashion: original, affordable, creative a little quirky and definitely fun,” Marisa Thalberg, Chief Marketing Officer at Taco Bell Corp., said in a statement.
Heaven forbid this clothing line does take off, pushing ever closer to the future envisioned in Idiocracy:
Not The First
While we might not be sold on wearing around what is essentially a billboard for Taco Bell, the company certainly isn’t the first to mesh food and fashion.
Back in the ‘80s Coca-Cola tried its hand at the whole clothing thing, giving soda customers the chance to plaster their bodies with Coke T-shirts, button0downs, and other apparel.
According to InThe80s (and to the lone Consumerist staffer old enough to remember his sister crying because she didn’t get one for Christmas), the long-sleeved Coca-Cola shirts in red and off-white were the most popular.
Later in the decade, Sears teamed up with McDonald’s on a slew of “McKids” stores that sold children’s apparel. The offerings featured McDonald’s characters and ranged from clothing to shoes and toys.
Those stores — 47 in all — closed in 1991, but the brand lived on when Walmart became the exclusive carrier in the mid-1990s, according to Chiefmarketer.
More recently, McDonald’s rolled out its own clothing line to coincide with its delivery service, the New York Post reports. The McDelivery Collection featured french fry-themed sweatsuits and sandals, hamburger pillowcases, and blankets littered with McDonald’s items.
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist