Mark Zuckerberg tries his hand at fashion

And however is helium telling america this? Through a T-shirt, of course.

“I’ve benignant of started moving connected this bid of shirts with immoderate of my favourite classical sayings connected them,” Zuckerberg said successful mid-September during a taping of the “Acquired” podcast astatine San Francisco’s Chase Center.

He was wearing a boxy, achromatic tee printed successful plump achromatic letters with the Greek operation “pathei mathos.” Loose translation? “Learning done suffering.” It was, according to Zuckerberg, “a small household saying.”

Another humanities pearl was imparted done the T-shirt helium wore astatine a Meta keynote presumption weeks later. This time, Greek was swapped for Latin. Kinda. His tee (again boxy, again black) work “aut Zuck, aut nihil,” an English-ified contortion of the Latin “aut Caesar, aut nihil” or, roughly, “either a Caesar oregon nothing.”

It took much than a Zuck to make these wide-as-they-are-long tees. As helium explained successful the podcast, they were made successful concern with Mike Amiri, a Los Angeles-based manner designer.

Yes, betwixt moving Meta, making AI-enhanced spectacles, raising 3 children and each that MMA training, the 40-year-old Facebook laminitis has recovered clip to tack yet different rubric onto his CV: covering designer.

(Before minting his ain ancient-slogan shirts, Zuckerberg wore a tee splayed with the Latin “Carthago delenda est (Carthage indispensable beryllium destroyed),” to his 40th day successful May. Similar shirts tin beryllium bought for $20 connected Amazon.)

That Zuckerberg adjacent cares capable to dial up his ain deliberately oversize tees shows that the CEO’s ongoing utmost manner makeover Meta variation isn’t slowing anytime soon.

In caller months, Zuckerberg has swapped his wet-newspaper grey hoodies for $250 Bode shirts with embroidered flowers. He’s grown retired his hair, bulked up and piled connected a golden chain. Now, similar wannabe Virgil Ablohs earlier him, he’s making his ain tees.

But what’s with each the Greek and Latin? Through a representative, Zuckerberg declined an interrogation petition for this article. But Zuckerberg does look to acceptable the measure of an Ovid reading, “Gladiator” streaming, millennial antheral preoccupied with Roman might.

He took Latin arsenic acold backmost arsenic precocious school. He honeymooned successful Rome and named 1 of his daughters August (get it? Like Augustus). He commissioned creator Daniel Arsham to marque an imposing statue of his wife, Priscilla Chan, proclaiming connected Instagram that helium was “bringing backmost the Roman contented of making sculptures of your wife.”

“If you measurement backmost and look astatine the reasons wherefore radical — particularly young men — look to punctuation the classics, it’s a tendency for power,” said Marcus Folch, subordinate prof of classics astatine Columbia University. “It articulates a tendency for power.”

It doesn’t instrumentality overmuch imaginativeness to spot however Zuckerberg, guiding a millions-strong nation-state of app users, could fancy himself arsenic a tech-age Tiberius. After all, helium isn’t conscionable quoting a Caesar successful these shirts, he’s likening himself to him.

Between moving Meta, making artificial intelligence-enhanced spectacles, raising 3 children and each that MMA training, Facebook laminitis Zuckerberg has recovered clip to tack yet different rubric onto his CV: covering designer.(Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Zuckerberg whitethorn person entered the imperialist signifier of his glow-up, but the meaning of the quotes mightiness beryllium getting mislaid betwixt substance and the T-shirt. John Noël Dillon, a elder lector successful Yale University’s classics department, pointed retired that “aut Caesar, aut nihil” is commonly ascribed to Italian cardinal Cesare Borgia, the inspiration for Niccolo Machiavelli’s publication “The Prince.” In the end, enduring powerfulness eluded him, and helium was stabbed to decease astatine 31.

According to scholars, “pathei mathos” is, astatine least, little straight egotistical. It’s a “very deep, benignant of profound” punctuation stemming from Aeschylus’ mythological play connected Agamemnon, said Folch. That substance isn’t precisely obscure — if you’ve taken a Greek lit people successful college, you apt work it — but it flashes a richer humanities expertise than wearing a tee splayed with “veni vedi vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”).

But what to marque of the Amiri-Zuck accumulation tees? Are these oversized shirts objects of precocious design?

Andrew Groves, prof of manner plan astatine University of Westminster, said they are.

“Where it differs from your modular $10 tee is successful the materiality, cut, operation and silhouette, each of which are acold much thoughtful and deliberate,” helium said, describing however their driblet shoulders, baggier acceptable and longer sleeves nudge the customized shirts into “statement-piece” territory.

For now, similar an app successful aboriginal development, the shirts aren’t disposable for nationalist consumption, though Zuckerberg has hinted successful Instagram comments that a “limited drop” mightiness beryllium incoming. No clues were shared connected pricing, but akin Amiri tees merchantability for $750. A princely sum, indeed.