The £5000 T-Shirt (a.k.a. The 5kTS)

Fabric markers on cotton

Inspired by The Million Dollar Homepage (Alex Tew, 2005), this t-shirt consists of 500 squares which were made available to sponsor for £10 each. Every 35mm x 35mm square was filled in by hand based on requests from 236 sponsors. The whole piece took 144 days (and 4 packs of fabric markers) to complete. The £5000 raised was donated to WaterAid. The t-shirt has only been worn twice – once on Jonathan Ross’ Comedy Club and once for the WaterAid@Home streamed event.

In an effort to transform it into The £10,000 T-Shirt (or more), the starting bid for the piece in the silent auction is £5000. The amount raised will go to WaterAid. It is hoped that the value (and therefore, title) of the piece will increase exponentially each time it’s sold on and encourage further charitable donations.