page_title: Che Guevara in popular culture
section_title: In fashion
hierarchical_section_title: Che Guevara in popular culture / In fashion
caption_attribution_description: GM Rauf Mammadov (Azerbaijan) wearing Che Guevara t-shirt, Heraklion 2007.
context_page_description: Appearances of Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in popular culture are common throughout the world. Although during his lifetime he was a highly politicized and controversial figure, in death his stylized image has been transformed into a worldwide emblem for an array of causes, representing a complex mesh of sometimes conflicting narratives. Che Guevara's image is viewed as everything from an inspirational icon of revolution, to a retro and vintage logo. Most commonly he is represented by a facial caricature originally by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick and based on Alberto Korda's famous 1960 photograph titled Guerrillero Heroico. The evocative simulacra abbreviation of the photographic portrait allowed for easy reproduction and instant recognizability across various uses. For many around the world, Che has become a generic symbol of the underdog, the idealist, the iconoclast, or the martyr. He has become, as author Michael Casey notes in Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image, "the quintessential postmodern icon signifying anything to anyone and everything to everyone."
context_section_description: "I don't want people to use my father's face unthinkingly. I don't like to see him stitched on the backside of a pair of mass-produced jeans. But look at the people who wear Che T-shirts. They tend to be those who don't conform, who want more from society, who are wondering if they can be better human beings. That, I think he would have liked."
  — Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che Guevara
caption: Rauf Mammadov, the Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster, in a Che t-shirt.
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