You Can Now Preorder a Limited-Edition T-Shirt to Benefit LGBTQ+ Youth in NYC

Reported by Harper's Bazaar.

When a limited-edition T-shirt can fund a full-time social worker, fashion stops being a bystander. Last Wednesday, ethically produced label Everybody.World and New York nonprofit New Alternatives launched their first artist T-shirt fundraiser at Participant Inc., the Elizabeth Street art space, with sculptor Carol Bove as the inaugural collaborator. Downtown New Yorkers lined up, the mood was celebratory, and the cause was urgent.

The backdrop isn't abstract: LGBTQ+ youth homelessness is rising while the Trump administration rolls back protections and slashes public funding for the social services that keep queer and trans young people alive, according to Harper's Bazaar. New Alternatives — founded 17 years ago with a harm-reduction, youth-empowerment model — fills those gaps directly, helping clients exit the shelter system and access housing, healthcare, legal aid, and employment. Founding director Kate Barnhart was blunt about what this fundraiser could unlock: "This fundraiser could enable us to hire a full-time social worker — something our clients consistently tell us they need. It will be a game-changer."

Art With an Argument

Bove's contribution is anything but decorative. The T-shirt's front image is pulled from "NO" (2025) — a monumental silk curtain piece drawn from Giovanni Pastrone's 1914 silent film Cabiria — depicting children being sacrificed to the deity Moloch. The work anchored Bove's recent Gagosian Beverly Hills solo show and arrives alongside her mid-career survey currently on view at the Guggenheim. Her practice has always navigated the tension between historical weight and aesthetic form, from 1970s radical intellectual references rendered in found objects to large-scale metal sculpture. Putting that visual language on a T-shirt is a deliberate provocation. In her statement, Bove was direct: "As human beings, we protect and nurture children. This is not a political position; this is a moral imperative based on love and reason."

Everybody.World — an independent, woman- and minority-owned brand founded in 2016 — manufactures from 100 percent reclaimed waste cotton, meaning the infrastructure behind this shirt is as considered as its imagery. Brand director Ari Katz framed the project as more than a drop: an ongoing ethical framework that uses the T-shirt as a canvas to mobilize artists around queer and trans youth, with 100 percent of proceeds flowing to New Alternatives. More artist collaborations are planned.

The T-shirt is available for preorder now at everybody.world — and at this point, adding it to your cart is the least complicated thing you can do.

Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.