"Viva!": Summers' Image Lives On

As Lawrence H. Summers’ presidency comes to a close, the market for Che Guevara-styled t-shirts bearing Summers’ visage is just heating up.

Last spring, Aaron J. Mowery ’08 and John M. Souther ’07 created the iconic t-shirts, which scream “Viva El Presidente Summers.” And they are now reaping the benefits of renewed interest in their design.

“Demand has been skyrocketing,” Mowery said. “We can’t keep up with it.”

All 250 shirts manufactured last spring have now sold out, and the recently-ordered shipment of 50 more shirts has been claimed already. Interest peaked after an e-mail advertising the shirts was sent out over some house lists on Wednesday, Mowery said.

After wearing his T-shirt to Summers’ resignation speech on Tuesday, Mowery said the shirts were featured in the Boston Herald and mentioned on instapundit.com.

Shirts are currently selling for $15 each and will be limited to Harvard students due to high demand, Mowery said.

“It’s definitely been a good investment,” Mowery said of the enterprise.

Souther and Mowery designed the t-shirt as a tribute to the University president at the time of the first Faculty no-confidence vote this past March.

The two entrepreneurs decided to base their design on the famous red and black poster of Guevara—seemingly equating the pro-free-market Summers with the Cuban communist revolutionary.

“We view Larry Summers as a revolutionary in his own right,” Mowery said. “He wanted to revolutionize the way campus operates and the way a Harvard education operates.”

Some students have expressed disapproval of the shirts.

Amanda L. Shapiro ’08 created a facebook group, “The Che-Summers Shirt Is a Desecration of Latin Revolutionaries and Humanity in General,” after the shirts were first produced last spring.

“I was particularly offended by the shirts because I think that Che Guevara is an icon for rising from inequality and justice, and I don’t see Larry Summers as even comparable,” she said.

But Mowery said the comparison was not meant to be taken literally.

“It’s more of a pop culture sort of thing. We’re not comparing him to a communist,” Mowery said.

—Staff writer John R. Macartney can be reached at jmacartn@fas.harvard.edu.