‘Pretty girls love Jesus’: From Hakuna to Generation God, Christian fashion brands for young people are on the rise

Generation God, Forty Six Ten, God Motive… typing the hashtag #christianfashion into TikTok, which has generated no fewer than 40 million videos on the topic, brings up dozens of young entrepreneurs who have recently created fashion brands bearing Christian slogans. Almost all of them have had videos go viral, and they all look alike: they are urban fashion brands, with sports designs similar to Supreme or Palm Angels, except that instead of logos they carry phrases like “God’s got this,” “Seek first his Kingdom,” “God is good,” “Pretty girls love Jesus,” or even NBA jersey with the name and number of the players swapped put for biblical verses. Most of these brands donate part of their income to local Christian organizations or to the church to which their founders belong, and almost all of them ship internationally.

“Streetwear has always been associated with the narrative of personal ambition, community building, and hard work. Thanks to brands like Cross Colours and FUBU, streetwear has been tied to messages, providing a space for people who want to make their opinions heard,” Refinery 21 magazine said in a report on the rise of the relationship between fashion and religion. Cross Colours and FUBU were, in fact, the first brands created by African Americans for African Americans at the height of the popularization of hip hop. Now that this urban style is a macro trend, boosted by the global influence of the genre’s stars, those cotton sweatshirts are today for some the perfect canvas to spread the biblical message. It is not clear whether members of Generation Z are more spiritual than their elders (there are contradictory studies on the subject), but it is a fact that, as digital natives, they have been educated to give their opinion publicly on social media, whether it is about the latest television series or about the (aesthetic) way in which they live their faith. But this boom in urban fashion that “preaches” through its designs (#Christianstreetwear has accumulated more than 10 million videos on TikTok) is not spontaneous: on the contrary, several global influencers have been spreading this same message for years.

The documentary The Secrets of Hillsong, the hipster church attended by the Kardashians and Justin Bieber among other celebrities, features a young Christian named Benjamin Kirby who became a minor internet celebrity thanks to his Instagram account “Preachers and sneakers,” today on hold after the wave of criticism he received from some of the preachers who appeared on his profile. Kirby went so far as to write a book in 2021 titled PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and (Wannabe) Celebrities, which detailed how pastors at megachurches wore signature sneakers and clothing from streetwear brands that could fetch more than $1,000 per item.

Carl Lentz, former spokesperson for the Hillsong church, known as ‘the Instagram pastor’ and now out of the public eye after several scandals involving corruption and infidelity, preached wearing the collection that Louis Vuitton launched with Supreme, one of the most expensive and exclusive collaborations ever seen as only a few dozen pieces were sold. But Kirby, who asked “Should pastors get rich? Why do we get angry when they do?” in the synopsis of his book, also saw the opportunity to do so. Contrary to what he “preached,” he launched his own Christian urban fashion brand: “The Lord works with mysterious color combinations,” read his slogan.

Jerry Lorenzo, Kanye West and mass as a catwalk

One of the favourite brands among urban fashion fans (believers or not) is Fear of God, a company founded in 2013 that, like the rest of its competitors in the sector, works with out-of-season runs of a few units that despite their price (a T-shirt costs over $200) sell out instantly and are resold on websites for up to three times their original value. Up to that point, it is not very different from Palace or from what Supreme was a decade ago, but the name is literal: “Growing up in a Christian household, so much of my perspective on life was informed by my belief system. The name comes from a Bible verse that talks about clouds, peace and darkness around the Kingdom of God.,” said its founder, Jerry Lorenzo, in an interview for the website of the British department store Selfridges.

If Fear of God’s profile has more than two million followers, it is thanks, in part, to people like Bieber and Kanye West, who have mentioned it on their respective profiles on a recurring basis. Bieber, who found his own redemption in Hillsong, separated from the church after the accusations of infidelity and abuse of power by Lentz and joined Churchome, an evangelical congregation led by two other preachers with the appearance of influencers: Judah and Chelsea Smith. West’s case is much more complex.

While religion’s relationship with hip hop is long and complicated and stars of the genre have made reference to God in multiple songs (a quick search on the so-called ‘5% Nation’ clarifies quite a few things), the artist now known as Ye knew how to take it to the mainstream and, along the way, capitalize on it. In 2013, he broke the mold with Yeezus, an experimental album whose lyrics spoke of themes such as the conflict between divinity and ego or redemption. Two years later, he launched his successful Yeezy brand, whose name comes from the wordplay between Jesus and Kanye. And in 2019, he began to orchestrate the so-called Sunday Services, that amalgamation between mass and music that mixed traditional gospel hymns with his own songs and where fashion played a leading role.

Kanye’s services (which took place until 2022, when they were cancelled after that ‘White Lives Matter’ T-shirt) received all the media attention in the world, but perhaps his lucrative peak came at Coachella in 2019, when he offered one such liturgy within the festival and, incidentally, created Christian merchandise for the occasion: socks with the phrase ‘Jesus walks’ for $50 and ‘Holy Spirit’ sweatshirts for $165. When he released the album Jesus is King that same year, dedicated directly to the Bible, some fashion magazines wondered how to dress to preach in the desert, as he did in the videos that accompanied the release. Ye reinforced his commitment to the fashion-religion combo when, in March 2020, he orchestrated one of his Sunday Services during Paris fashion week. The catwalk turned into a mass to present the new Yeezy collection hours after Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Miu Miu had presented collections on the same day. When his racist and anti-Semitic delusions led to his cancellation two years ago, it was revealed that Yeezy was bringing in over $300 million a year for Adidas. Videos on TikTok about how to dress to attend a Sunday Service (in monochrome and preferably wearing urban fashion brands) exceed two million.

It is not just an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon

In recent years, the Catholic Church has been rejuvenating its message to new generations: Portuguese priest Guillherme Peixoto went viral last year for his role as a DJ at the last edition of World Youth Day (WYD). There has also been a rise in macro-churches outside the United States. Hillsong has been operating in Spain for 11 years, as detailed on its Instagram account (with 28,000 followers). And movements such as Hakuna, born at the WYD in 2013, demonstrate how religion, and in this case Catholicism, has attracted new generations, generating a whole lifestyle adapted to social networks. Created by the priest José Pedro Manglano after his departure from Opus Dei, Hakuna defines itself as “a private association of the faithful, approved by the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, D. Carlos Osoro” that spreads its message mainly through music. Hakuna Group Music has sold out venues such as Madrid’s Wizink, with a capacity of up to 17,000, and, like any musical phenomenon worth its salt, it has its own fashion brand, called Arte Cero: sweatshirts and t-shirts, also urban in style but in pastel colours, printed with motivational phrases and key words (Knocked Out, Hopefully…) that are only initially recognized by those initiated in the religious group. Their price ranges from €20 to €60 ($21.7 to $65.3) and sales serve to finance the entity itself, although streaming and concert tickets continue to be its main source of income.

There are also Spanish brands such as Alma (their sweatshirts read ‘He Heals’ or ‘Jesus Satisfies’ in psychedelic letters) or The Heaven Lift: “We are not an NGO, but we allocate 100% of our profits to evangelization and social action projects that make our world a better place,” the latter states on its website. Both exemplify how a business is being imported that, although it comes from North America and the United Kingdom, is gradually gaining a greater global presence given the influence of its prescribers and the daily use of social networks among young people. There is a market. There are more and more influencers who not only are not hiding their beliefs, but spreading them online. Neither they nor the clients of these brands seek that modest aesthetic that we associate with the pious, nor do they wear traditional symbols (which fashion and luxury brands have used for purely aesthetic purposes for decades) but rather they seek to modernize their message through urban garments popular among Gen Z, with the exception that if previously the message was about a favorite band, or social vindication, now it is a kind of digital evangelization.

The phenomenon has reached such a level that it is no longer just fashion retailer Shein trying to capitalize on it by selling t-shirts bearing religious messages, or the fact there are hundreds of Christian fashion brands; there are also more and more firms that play with religion explicitly without knowing whether their founders profess it, or whether it is an iconoclastic game. These are “sacrilegious” brands, as the urban fashion magazine Highsnobiety calls them. A good example of this is the viral phenomenon called Praying, an ensign created by two young British entrepreneurs who sold out of the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” bikini or the “God’s Favorite” shirt after causing a stir on social networks (they also have a sweatshirt dedicated to Melania Trump). The holy slippers blessed with holy water created by the art collective MSCHF four years ago (which cost $2,000) also sold out among devotees with bulging pockets. Many must have been shocked when, a year later, they released the “Satan Shoes” Air Max’s worn by Lil’ Nas X that earned them a lawsuit from Nike. But perhaps the most controversial brand is Rose in Good Faith, a project that has achieved success in the last four years thanks to curious collaborations, such as the recycled plastic sneaker made from unused sex toys, or a “virginity buddy” locket created with the BYU Virginity Club, an association dedicated to promoting celibacy in universities.

When the MET dedicated its annual exhibition to the relationship between fashion and religion in 2018, the idea was of a dialogue between tradition, society, representation, and art. Six years later such a relationship has little to do with the virgins of Gaultier and Lacroix, or the Christian imagery of Dolce & Gabbana. Maybe today, given the circumstances, those designs would be labeled blasphemous, because now it’s all about spreading the message and making your beliefs clear, preferably on expensive sweatshirts.

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