DOTM Sep 2026: More than 108

Our Design of the Month for September 2026, made of 100% organic cotton, and supporting grassroots labour unions in South Asia. 

This design commemorates events in Paraguay in September, 1959, when radio announcer and dancer Bernardo Aranda died in a fire in his room in the Barrio Obrero neighbourhood of Asunción. His death is never solved. Even so, Alfredo Stroessner's military dictatorship, backed by the US, draws its own conclusion: since gay men had visited Aranda's home, one of them must be responsible. Over the following days, police arrest and torture men identified as homosexual. The progovernment newspaper El País eventually publishes the number of those detained: 108. No one is ever charged, not for Aranda's death, and not for what was done to those arrested.

To this day, "108" is used in Paraguay as a derogatory term for queer people. But this history also gave rise to resistance: by late September 1959, an anonymous protest letter appeared in the same newspaper, now recognised as the first documented act of queer resistance in the country. Its anniversary, 30 September, is now marked as a day of queer remembrance in Paraguay. And the number itself has been taken up by parts of the community as a mark of belonging and pride.

This month's design by Helena Lopes from Rio de Janeiro honours this history and is dedicated to everyone who turns persecution into selfempowerment and resistance. At its centre she placed Bernardo Aranda with his radio microphone, marking his profession and the fact that his death became the starting point of a smear campaign carried through newspapers and airwaves. In the background, several cards are suggested, standing for the 108 men arrested, loosely recalling mugshots. A rainbow, the worldwide symbol of the queer community and the LGBTQ+ movement, runs through them like a flag, as each card carries a different colour. Right beside the microphone, as though it were a message carried over the radio, reads: "Somos más de 108 y estamos orgullosos de ellos" ("we are more than 108, and we are proud of them"). This truly exceptional and thoughtful design is completed by a sentence running across the mugshots: "Día 9 de septiembre del año 1959 en Paraguay, en medio de una dictadura" ("9 September 1959 in Paraguay, in the midst of a dictatorship").

• 100% organic combed ring-spun cotton
• Fabric weight: 5.3 oz./yd.² (180 g/m²)
• Regular unisex fit
• Set-in sleeves
• 1 × 1 rib at collar
• Double-needle topstitch on the sleeves and bottom hems
• Self-fabric neck tape on the inside of the back
• The fabric of this product holds certifications for its organic cotton content under GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) and OCS (Organic Content Standard). Stanley and Stella Fair Wair Foundation-made
• Supports grassroots labour unions in South Asia through ExChains and social enterprise dna merch
• Printed in the US individually just for you, with no overproduction or waste
• Global shipping from the US
  

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