Over the weekend I saw an ad for Best and Less that really disturbed me. They were advertising thongs for $2, with a guarantee they will last 100 days.

"Only 100 days?" was my reaction.

An image from the Wardrobe.NYC launch campaign. Jackie Nickerson

In this fast-fashion world, it's a reality that clothing isn't built to last anymore. And at the centre of this phenomenon is the humble T-shirt.

My Daily Life colleague Clare Press, author of Wardrobe Crisis and host of the podcast of the same name, has written for this website about what a T-shirt should cost from a sustainability point of view. Her argument is that there has to be a floor price to ensure the workers are being fairly paid. Further, if you paid $20 for a T-shirt, you're also less likely to throw it out after a month or a season – the proverbial 100 days – than if you paid $5.

So what then of the $500 T-shirt, and when did it become a status symbol?

Part of the humble white T-shirt's rise to the top of the fashion tree clearly has to do with the dominance of athleisure and sport-luxe in the wardrobe paradigm over the past few years.

Justin Bieber has worked with his stylist, Karla Welch, to create a range of repurposed Hanes T-shirts. Supplied

We've seen Kanye West's Yeezy label build itself around the idea that a $200 tee is a totally normal thing, while Justin Bieber also got in on the act, albeit at a sightly more modest price point, with the help of his stylist, Karla Welch.

As Welch told Refinery29 about the centrality of the white T-shirt to the fashion conversation: "Everybody needs it ... Every culture and subculture has used the white T-shirt. That's where the genius is," adding that she drew inspiration from the ultimate white T-shirt wearer, James Dean, on questions of fit and functionality.

Kanye West's Yeezy fashion line also elevates the white T-shirt into high fashion. AP

In the past week, Australian uber-stylist Christine Centenera, the fashion director for Vogue Australia who has consulted to the likes to West and Kim Kardashian, and her partner, designer Josh Goot, launched their own label, Wardrobe.NYC.

For $US3000 ($4000), customers can buy an Italian-made capsule wardrobe of eight pieces that screams minimalist luxury (something Centenera has been honing for years, making her one of the world's most influential dressers).

Included in the collection, which is only available for purchase online, is a T-shirt, in white or black.

Given the pieces can't be bought individually, it's hard to ascribe an individual value to each garment. But it's fair to say the T-shirt is worth at least a couple of hundred dollars.

As Goot told the New York Times, "What we're trying to say is, this is less, and it's really well done, and it will last you a really long time, and it will never go out of style.

"One of our big goals is to give people the opportunity to wear really high-quality clothes."

And high quality doesn't have to make a statement. Unlike Gucci's $750 logo tee, Goot and Centenera have made their range unapologetically generic, free of labels.

Perhaps that's the ultimate expression of luxury. Wearing a $500 T-shirt that whispers, rather than screams, where it came from.