Rihanna's Ratty Beach Tee? It's Vintage Designer, Of Course

Considering the sheer size of Rihanna’s fashion archive, it’s no wonder that even her beach day t-shirts are vintage designer. For a trip to her native Barbados earlier this month, the beauty mogul slipped into a graphic shirt from Maison Margiela’s controversial spring 2010 collection.

Rihanna’s Margiela find featured a digitized print of palm trees backdropped by a crystal-clear ocean. She sourced the piece (which she wore while yachting, naturally) from the London-based store One Of A Kind Archive. And like the bum-less skirt she wore recently in Los Angeles, Rihanna’s shirt was almost completely open at the back aside from a few knotted straps.

In a further nod to her island roots, Rihanna paired her archival top with an asymmetrical white skirt (that featured a giant leg slit, of course) and neon green Fenty x Puma sandals. Diamond anklets added some flash to her yacht look.

Rihanna’s shirt appears to be a rack ready riff on a string of outfits that debuted during Margiela’s 2010 show. At the time, selling clothing that took inspiration from what was shown on the runway was a much more common practice. The collection featured a bodysuit and a layered mini dress that were printed with the same motif. Surely, it wouldn’t be a shock if Rihanna also got her hands on the collection’s thigh-length palm tree boots.

Rihanna is no stranger to Margiela (she’s worn plenty of the brand when it was designed by John Galliano), but this specific collection came at an important time in the brand’s history.

It was presented in Paris just a few months after the extremely secretive Martin Margiela announced that he would be departing his eponymous label in 2009. There was not much insight into the brand’s inspiration for the collection, other than the vague description that it was an exploration of “volume and texture.”

The presentation and its printed bathing suits, layered suit coats, and tattered shirt dresses were met with a largely negative reaction among the fashion press. (“What on earth is happening to the Maison Martin Margiela?” decried critic Sarah Mower at the time).

Leave it to Rihanna to bring this controversial collection, and something as simple as a tourist t-shirt, into a whole new light.