How these Biden-Harris tie-dye shirts became must-have merch of the election

In a politically fraught landscape, Biden-Harris-branded tie-dyed t-shirts might be the feel-good merchandise voters are craving. Six weeks ago in late August, TieDyen4Biden popped up on Instagram offering a custom tie-dyed Biden-Harris shirt in exchange for a political donation of $25 or more to the Biden campaign. Since then, the effort has blown up in popularity; the account boasts more than 8,200 followers and recent posts have garnered hundreds of comments and over 1,000 likes for its currently sold-out items. TieDyen4Biden is the brainchild of Emily Simoness, who runs an artist residency program and organic farm called Space on Ryder Farm in Brewster, N.Y., her husband Michael Chernus, an actor, and their friend Hannah Myers, an actor and director who also works with Simoness. When a socially-distanced tie-dye party celebrating the workers at Simoness’ farm left the group with a surplus of dyeing supplies, they conceived of the idea for t-shirts in support of the Biden campaign. “What went from a backyard party joke turned into a thing overnight,” says Chernus. “Tie-dye is by nature inherently optimistic—it’s inherently goofy and positive. Anybody can do it and it’s brought a lot of enthusiasm, joy and hope to what has been a very bleak and depressing year.”

How these Biden-Harris tie-dye shirts became must-have merch of the election

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