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Branding yourself... via a message on your shirt

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While at the UT gym yesterday afternoon, and while thinking that that gym is always packed, a girl caugh my attention. No no, please no dirty thoughts, I am happily married. As I was saying, this girl was wearing a t-shirt that said "all the people who I love are vegetarian." Immediately after that, I had to see how she looked. Needless to say, and in your mind, please picture what an Austin vegetarian looks like... ok, now that you have, well let me tell you that if you pictured the following: 5'5", about 100lbs, White, very petite (not really toned), short hair (some Austin-like blue highlights), yellow teeth (from tea and coffee most likely) well then you did a great job!

Anyhow, while moving to the next machine the thought of the statement on her shirt made me ponder on the following question: how on purpose did she wear that shirt? After all, and at the gym, its impossible not to stare at people while you are seating down at a certain machine. While thinking of that, I started looking around and how branded we all really are. While the majority of the shirts at the gym had some sort of UT Longhorn logo, there were a couple with certain statements.

Still pondering about the evolution of branding oneself I came to the following conclusion (though it is really not a trend anymore). We, people in general, but particularly girls, have moved from wearing a brand and leveraging from it equities in our brain to wearing a shirt (most likely brandless, but message strong) to really inform what we are all about. The shirt trend is a form of attitude... its moving from Passive Association > Proactive Association, its not about letting people think they know who we are, but telling them.

So, I came up with the following sort of movement chart:
And to close... what began (I am guessing) as a way to sell a brand, evolved to expressing oneself... proactively that is.

Thoughts?!

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