October 25, 2018
Streetwear Fashion Influencers Offer Free Swag To Millennials Who Vote
The planned T-Shirt giveaway is a collaboration between Brendan Fowler and Denim Tears by Tremaine Emory.
How do you get more Millennials and Gen Zers to vote?
How about giveaways of hip graphic T-Shirts.
That, anyway, is the idea of Brendan Fowler, a musician, artist, streetwear fashion designer and founder of the politically-charged clothing brand Election Reform! Fowler has teamed up with Denim Tears by Tremaine Emory on the initiative, which will see free streetwear tees given, while supplies last, to people who prove they voted in the upcoming November mid-term elections.
A primary distribution point for the tees will be a pop-up shop at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Still, Fowler and Emory are planning giveaways in Boston and other cities too, GQ tells us. Those who want the limited edition Election Reform! x Denim Tears tees can reportedly register for the event beforehand and then bring their “I Voted” stickers to ICA LA or other participating locations to pick up the merch.
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GQ says Fowler and Emory got the idea for the tee giveaway from realizing that younger people will wait in line for hours for streetwear swag drops, but will not put the same committed effort into voting – an anecdotal observation backed up by a Pew study that shows only 49% of eligible Millennials voted in the 2016 election. Fowler and Emory want to change that. Fowler, in particular, is deeply passionate about getting more young people to the polls and seeing what he views as a corrupt election system reformed – hence the title of his “Election Reform!” brand.
Of course, it’s unlikely that the Denim Tears x Election Reform! merch campaign is going to move masses of disenfranchised Millennials to pull the voting lever on Nov. 6. But so what. Even if the initiative encourages a few thousand – even a few hundred – extra young people to participate in the civic process, well, you could call that a start. Furthermore, the free-swag-for-voting collaboration is another sign of how central branded merchandise – apparel and T-Shirts in particular – is becoming to helping advance the goals of political and social movements. Read more about that here, and here, and here.