Few statements convey as universal a message as the assertion of a quick “your mom.” No, not the “your mom bakes great cookies” or even the standard vulgarity “your mom did [sexual expletive] to me last night”—instead it’s the simple, abstract musing of “your mom” that has caught on as one hot cultural commodity.
Always eager to capture the zeitgeist, an enterprising group of Harvard students have now memorialized the “your mom” trend in garment form. Omolola “Lola” Kassim ’04, who is also a Crimson editor, Fidelma “Fifi” L. Cobas ’04, Emily R. Lowther ’04, Meghan A. Weathers ’04 and Jason W. Chiang ’04 founded Your Mom Clothing last month, which features t-shirts for guys and girls with the simple quip “your mom.” written across the chest.
“I was lying in bed one night reading and realized that we need to make a statement about your mom. And also, it would be funny,” says Kassim, who designed the website. The website—www.yourmomclothing.com—was launched on April 7 and already boasts hundreds of hits. The site features heavily Photoshopped “models” sporting the sleek designs of the “your mom.” t-shirts. Kassim is quick to note, however, that the t-shirts are not meant to be insulting: “We don’t want to offend anybody—that’s why the shirts have a period at the end of the statement. We feel moms are important, especially ‘your mom’ in the abstract sense. That’s why we decided to put it on shirts,” she explains. The slogan for the company, “keeping your mom safe since 2003,” reflects Kassim’s same tongue-in-cheek sense of humor.
Despite the company’s origins as little more than a project amongst friends, Kassim claims to have received almost 50 orders in the first month of business. The future of “your mom.” is bright. “We want to expand our product line if a lot of people like the shirts. Maybe mugs or caps. We could even start a charity, like ‘donate to your mom,’ or something like that,” says Kassim. “We really feel like we’re doing a noble service, because we’re introducing your mom to the world.”
