I have never bought anything by Alexander McQueen and now that he has shuffled off this mortal coil I am even less likely to.  I believe the brand will continue though. I have nothing against this type of fashion (by this type I mean way out of my price range) and if I were younger and richer I no doubt would spend some of my silver spoon money on it. At this stage in my life though I am pretty sure that I will never spend $150 on a t-shirt which is what I hear an Alexander McQueen tee goes for. I am not likely to spend $65 on a t-shirt bearing his image either even if 30% of the proceeds go to charity which is what this tee would cost cost you.

Let’s break this down a little though. How much of this t-shirt price is actually going to charity. It says 30% of proceeds on tonic.com although when I asked hintmag.com they didn’t reply. We’ll take it that tonic.com know what they are talking about. That could be 30% of the profit or 30% of the sale price. Let’s say they are generous and base it on the sale price, that means that for every shirt sold they will donate $19.50 to charity. It’s a one color print on white American Apparel t-shirts so lets say they print 1000 of them that could cost as little as $5 per shirt but again lets say it costs $10 per shirt. So that leaves them with $35.50 profit. If my calculations are correct that means they are making more profit from these t-shirts than they give to charity. That doesn’t seem right does it.

I know there are a  few other factors here. They have to pay the designers I guess. But that means the designers are profiting from this charity tee. I know that they don’t have to give any money to charity and you could see them as being very generous but you have to admit that many people will buy this tee because of the charity side of it. So basically their sales are piggybacking their charity efforts. The charity is driving their sales. If they were really generous they would give all profits to the charity not just 30%.

This is what I think in this case. If you want the t-shirt, buy it. If you want the t-shirt and want to contribute to this charity, buy it. If you just want to contribute to this charity, do it directly it will be much more appreciated. Although you won’t have the t-shirt to demonstrate what a charitable person you are.

The proceeds go to the Terrence Higgins Trust, the largest HIV/AIDS organization in the UK. You can buy the t-shirt online at hintmag.com.