Conner Ives Wants You to Actually Protect the Dolls
On the eve of his fall/winter 2025 runway show, Conner Ives created a last-minute addition to the collection. The design is simple: a 100-percent cotton T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Protect the Dolls.” For those unfamiliar, “doll” is a term of endearment for trans women, which originally comes from 1980s ballroom culture; the slogan is meant to call out the increased attacks trans people are facing across the world. Stepping out wearing the shirt for the finale wave at his February show, the London-based designer could not have imagined what would come next. Since then, it’s been spotted everywhere—on mainstream celebrities, like ELLE cover girl Addison Rae, Pedro Pascal, Troye Sivan, and Lisa Rinna, and fashion superstars, including Tom Ford’s Haider Ackermann, Alex Consani, and SHOWstudio’s Nick Knight.
The collection was inspired by an overall global sense of helplessness, but Ives knew he couldn’t count on fans to hunt down his show notes and discover the hidden meaning. As a result, he created “Protect the Dolls” as an accessible, discernible slogan that could reach a wide number of people. Still, he and his team had not braced for the impact.
Conner Ives at his fall/winter 2025 runway show.
“It wasn’t really, ‘We need to create a charity T-shirt that we’re going to debut on Conner and then put up for pre-order the next day,’” Ives tells ELLE.com. “But we woke up the next morning, and our inbox was basically 200-plus people asking, ‘Where do I get this T-shirt?’” The brand immediately placed an initial factory order for around 600 T-shirts and committed to donating 100-percent of the proceeds to Trans Lifeline, a U.S.-based, trans-led peer support and crisis hotline. Priced at £75 (approximately $99), Ives and his five-person studio team hoped to raise around £60,000. The last time he checked, that number was hovering comfortably around £300,000. The brand has sold more than 6,000 additional units in the last week—perhaps due to a recent Evan Ross Katz post of Pedro Pascal re-wearing the T-shirt to the premiere of Marvel’s Thunderbolts—affording Ives the opportunity to open a warehouse to support indefinite orders.
Beyond the proceeds, the popularity of the T-shirt represents a hopeful emblem in a time when trans people are being targeted. “It’s acknowledging that we exist and that we’re never going to go away,” model and writer Ella Snyder tells ELLE.com. Ives echoed this, explaining that “there’s a labeling of ‘other’ with trans people, which I think is the most dangerous part, because while [governments are] chipping away [at trans] rights, they’re also creating this false feeling that these people are to be feared.” Both Snyder and Ives, who are American-born, also referenced the current political climate in the U.K., where the Supreme Court recently ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on one’s biological sex at birth.
A sign at a protest in London on April 19.
Combining politics and fashion can be a tricky tightrope to walk, and Ives is hyper-aware of not falling prey to slogan activism, explaining, “I think that was maybe my hesitation or my frustration around designers doing political statements prior; there was very little there that you could check if [brands] are putting the money where their mouth is.” Hence, the actionable fundraising to a trans-led organization.
Journalist, activist, and co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement Raquel Willis points out to ELLE.com, “When I think of ‘Protect the Dolls,’ I’m thinking of the high rates of murder and violence in Black and brown trans communities, and particularly to Black and brown trans women, and I’m thinking of high rates of suicidality.”
Willis is a fierce advocate for grassroots organization and action, adding, “Taglines and slogans are great, but they have to lead people to a deeper political education. Do people actually know how to protect the dolls?”