Angela Davis paid homage with Prada t-shirt, but it comes with a Prada pricetag

Artist Trina Robbins' work is likely to be valuable, but the cost of a t-shirt put out by the fashion company with the human rights icon's image is causing a few side eyes

If you’re looking to buy the Angela Davis Prada t-shirt, start saving now.

Jay Scott Smith

Apr 25, 2018

Prada has introduced an Angela Davis t-shirt as part of its spring 2018 comic books-inspired collection. The shirts, which are now available at a number of online outlets, feature a graphic designed on the Civil Rights icon that was drawn by Trina Robbins, the first woman to draw Wonder Woman for DC Comics.

Robbins, who is white, told Dazed that the origin of the Davis illustration came from a 1970 all-female comic book called “It Ain’t Me Babe.” The image was on the back cover of the magazine.

If you’re looking to buy the Angela Davis Prada t-shirt, start saving now as it is priced at an eye-popping $500. If that sounds crazy to you, you would not be alone.

Angela Davis wouldn’t even approve of Prada’s existence, let alone a Prada t-shirt w/ her on it priced at $500.. people really turning whole revolutionaries & their lives to overpriced, fashionable aesthetics for the sake of profit. wild https://t.co/0eKH1zGIYr

— Rebeka (@bekalectus) April 25, 2018

go home @prada you’re drunk

RT @BBOYGREGORY: Angela Davis cotton T-shirt $500: pic.twitter.com/HPSSOwQk9F

— unpforgettable pfire (@firefire100) April 25, 2018

You crazy if you think PRADA gon make a shirt, call it the “Angela Davis cotton t-shirt,” sell it for $500, and give her nothing or don’t let her approve of it first.

— Chad Conquering Lion (@chadconQlion) April 25, 2018

Robbins, however, says that the graphic was created out of her admiration for Davis.

“The idea was you’d put this in your window to announce that if Angela Davis just happened to be passing by on the lam from the FBI she could knock on your door and you could give her refuge,” Robbins said. “I mean, I absolutely idolized Angela Davis. Running from the FBI, my God! She was such a comic-book character.”

The collection also includes additional illustrations by an all-female crew including artists Joëlle Jones, Fiona Staples, Emma Rios, Stellar Leuna, Giuliana Maldini, Natsume Ono, Brigid Elva and Tarpé Mills.