Exclusive: Alana Haim on Custom-Making Taylor Swift’s ‘Stevie Knicks’ Shirt for the NBA Finals
There’s always been some pretty spectacular Knicks merch out there—I can’t be the only one thinking constantly of Lindsay Lohan’s Knick-tacular jersey and matching cap in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen—but on Wednesday night, Taylor Swift, Mariska Hargitay, and the Haim sisters set a new sartorial standard for fandom at the Knicks vs. Spurs game at Madison Square Garden.
For Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Swift, in a blue and orange shirt that read “Stevie Knicks,” was flanked by her longtime friends Este and Alana Haim, in shirts printed with “Knickelback” and “Knickole Kidman,” respectively. (Hargitay, for her part, had a shirt to match Swift’s.) Repping the Knicks while simultaneously celebrating the frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac, the most iconic divorced woman of all time, and Alberta’s premier ’90s rock band? Now that’s my kind of sporty girls’ night out!
Photo: Getty Images
If their looks had you frantically googling “who made Taylor Swift Steve Knicks shirt,” well, we have your answer: none other than Alana Haim, who has something of a custom T-shirt and tote bag side hustle. (And for the record, her other sister, Danielle, was also on the ground—in a shirt that read “Knickolas Cage,” no less.)
According to a representative, Haim purchased the royal blue Gildan shirts from Michael’s for $2.99 each, applying Speedball orange screen-printing ink with puff additive in it for Wednesday’s big game.
Today, Vogue spoke to Haim about her love for screen printing, pun theory, texting with Taylor, and L.A. versus New York fandom; read the exclusive interview below.
Vogue: How long have you been making shirts, tote bags, and other custom merch?
Alana Haim: Honestly, I’ve been so obsessed with merch forever. I’m obsessed with making merch for our tours; my sisters and I love merch, and every time we go on the road, the first thing we do is go to the local thrift store in whatever city we’re in and buy vintage shirts. It’s our tour memento. I’ve wanted to make my own shirts forever, but I could never figure it out, but when I got home from our last tour, I bought a Cricut.
Did you make last night’s custom Knicks T-shirts at home?
I did. I love making shirts for my friends; I have my friends come over all the time, and I’m like, Do you want to make shirts? It’s my creative outlet. I can’t paint. I wish I could paint, but I can’t. But I figured out how to screen print, and I have like a little setup at home. I have a Cricut, which is this precision vinyl and paper-cutting printer. It’s hard to explain what a Cricut is. A lot of DIY people online love the Cricut, which is why I got it, and I cut the vinyl out, put it on a screen, and you buy some screen-printing paint, and you squeegee it on. I’ve been wanting to try out this puffy additive for a very long time, and I got to use a puff-paste effect on these shirts, which was really fun.
