We were on our way somewhere, and I didn’t have a clean shirt, so we stopped at the ukay‑ukay to grab one. I got a green T-shirt with black lettering that said vetemens. At first, I had no idea what it meant. I thought it might be some weird misspelling of vitamins – and that was already funny enough – but today I looked it up and discovered it literally just means “clothing” in French. Suddenly, I loved it even more – it’s like wearing a shirt that just says shirt.

A bit more digging revealed it’s actually a high-end, post‑ironic brand I didn’t even know existed and could not care less about. The shirt originally retailed for hundreds of dollars, and I got it for 20 pesos.

And that’s what makes it perfect: a luxury shirt mocking fashion, worn by someone completely clueless – designer’s joke and accidental participant collide, making it even funnier.