Taylor Swift, HAIM and Mariska Hargitay showed off a little of their Knicks love when they attended the NBA Finals game four on Wednesday (June 10), sporting homemade Knicks-themed T-shirts, and now, their creator — Alana Haim herself — is revealing how the tees came about.
“I love making shirts for my friends,” the musician told Vogue in an interview published Thursday (June 11), confirming that she made them with the use of a Cricut, which she bought after HAIM’s last tour. “I figured out how to screen print, and I have like a little setup at home. … A lot of DIY people online love the Cricut, which is why I got it, and I cut the vinyl out, put it on a screen, and you buy some screen-printing paint, and you squeegee it on. I’ve been wanting to try out this puffy additive for a very long time, and I got to use a puff-paste effect on these shirts.”
The garments — which the Grammy-nominated musician revealed are $3 Gildan tees from crafts supplies store Michael’s with a shade of orange called Speedball — featured punny names printed on them with a Knicks twist: “Stevie Knicks,” “Knickleback” and “Knicole Kimdan.” While she came up with the idea for the shirts and made them (she showed off part of the process in an Instagram Stories video Thursday), Haim revealed that she didn’t think of the puns all on her own.
“I got a text from Taylor that was really the text that you want to get as an amateur screen printer. She said, ‘I want to wear this shirt to the game. Can you make it for me?’ and I was like, ‘I thought you would never ask; this is my dream,’” she told the iconic fashion magazine. “[Swift] came up with Stevie Knicks. We were kind of going back and forth with these puns; we really just wanted to have fun, because we were so excited that we were going to the game, and I thought it would make people laugh.”
As for how Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Hargitay — whose character on the long-running NBC procedural drama, Olivia Benson, is the namesake of one of Swift’s beloved cats — ended up sporting one alongside sisters Alana and Este Haim and the pop superstar courtside at the Madison Square Garden game in NYC? “I always bring extras, and Taylor really wanted to bring extras so we could give them to friends,” explained Alana. “And Mariska was so down; she’s such an amazing human being, and I’m such a big fan of her, so the fact that she also wanted to wear one of my shirts was insane. It really bonded us all together. I’ve never hugged someone more than at that game.”
With Taylor Swift cheering on courtside June 10, the New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 107-106. Game five will take place Saturday (June 13) at San Antonio’s Frost Bank Center. If the Knicks win, they’ll take the championship, the team’s first since 1973.
