I have a half-hearted love affair with teen fashion magazines. I check them out semi-regularly, partly for the innocent relationship and health advice, but mostly for the fashion and beauty spreads. As a rule of thumb, teen magazines stick to lower-end fashion - clothes and make up that mimic what’s going on upstairs with the fashion industry big guns, but ususally a far more casual version and at a much lower price. It’s a practical move that reflects the not only the maturity but also the financial realities of their readership (teenagers, duh).

My latest infidelity with teen magazines involves the most recent issue of ElleGirl. Labeled “Too Hot to Handle” on this month's “Hot Potato List” are a set of “vintage” McDonald tee shirts available online from Shop Intuition.

The caption reads: “We’re not just likin' it…we’re lovin’ it!”

Now, we’ve all seen these before. Long the bane of the true fashionista, faux vintage shirts are a quick fix for the long sought after retro tee shirt. They can be found at many a mall retailer. They’re faux worn, faux soft, and their slogans are faux funny, usually consisting of some warping of an old slogan, catch phrase or product cartoon character. Their authentic counterparts, well the good authentic ones at least, have all long since been swiped up from small town thrift stores and swap meets.

The shirts are also making their rounds on the LA boutique circuit. An article from the March 9th edition of WWD reported:

“As part of a collaboration with Los Angeles apparel brand Mighty Fine, two human-sized versions of the iconic clown are perched in the windows of the Robertson Boulevard Boutique, surrounded by mannequins wearing limited-edition cotton Ts emblazoned with classic McDonald’s characters- including Grimace and the Hamburgler – made by Mighty Fine’s specialty label, Doe.”

The article is accompanied by a photograph of the Lisa Kline store’s window, on which is written, “Billions and billions styled” under the oh-so-familiar golden arches.

Justin Watson, a marketing manager for Mighty Fine told WWD that “McDonald’s is an American Icon. Everyone has an emotional reaction to it.”

The article also noted that the store is selling the shirts in “Happy Meal-like boxes, then carted away in shipping bags shaped like giant French fry cartons," and at a price tag of $52 dollars.

It’s one thing to sell faux vintage shirts at a premium far higher than any original ever could have hoped to fetch. I actually don’t see any problem in that, since fashion always comes at some sort of price, and I’m guilty of owning at least one or two myself (and I’m thinking specifically of one in my closet advertising diet Dr. Pepper). As intended, most faux-vintage shirts are soft, cute and comfy.

But advertising McDonald’s, even retro advertising, well, I don’t get that. The first thought that comes to my mind is the stomach gurgling flatulence of Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, the much talked about documentary about one journalist’s month-long fast food binge on McDonald's grub, or Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation,” the book that brought every dark side of the fast food industry into light, with McDonald's as the major player in the drama.

Is the image of what some see as one of America's worst gifts to the modern world really what anyone needs to make a fashion statement?

I just don’t think it’s cute. I think it stinks of French fries, oily suburban strip mall parking lots, and minimum wage. Who wants to smell like that?