T-SEARCH, The #OutfitOfVisibility

Client: NGO Mães da Sé

Every year, over 40,000 children go missing in Brazil—116 every single day. Despite the alarming scale of this crisis, it remains largely invisible to society. Mães da Sé, an NGO founded by mothers of missing children, tirelessly works to reunite families. Yet, they struggle for visibility in a country captivated by celebrity culture—a cause without attention in a world of attention without cause.

If celebrities wield such a massive influence over many aspects of society, why not find a way to hack this system? Their faces are omnipresent—on TV, social media, cinema, advertising, and even fashion. And in fashion, we found both our symbol and our medium. In Brazil and elsewhere, there’s a booming trend of bootleg T-shirts, featuring celebrity faces in a cool, artistic aesthetic. Since T-shirts are everywhere and accessible to everyone, they presented the perfect opportunity for us. We created T-SEARCH: The #OutfitOfVisibility. This streetwear-inspired campaign recreated bootleg T-shirts as a platform for social impact. We replaced celebrity faces with age-progressed images of missing children, turning these shirts into a powerful tool to raise awareness and mobilize society to join the search. By transforming missing children into real celebrities, we finally brought the attention this cause deserves.