Saturday Night Live cast and crew members are celebrating the legendary sketch show’s 50th season with a throwback to one of the show’s earliest staff gifts, but fans can also get a taste of the nostalgia.
Longtime SNL costume designer Tom Broecker collaborated with clothing company Tombolo to design a faithful recreation of a shirt that the show gifted its staff back in 1976.
Broecker, who joined SNL’s costume department in 1986 and has served as its costume designer since 1994, based his vision for the shirt on photos of the 1976 giveaways.
The new shirts feature the show’s original title, Saturday Night, stitched onto the back with metallic thread, with the “S” a treble clef musical note (similar to the decals on the show’s Chapman Electra crane, still in use today).
“This unique iteration of the logo was hand-drawn by the show’s then-costume designer and isn’t found in any official SNL branding,” Tombolo explains on its website. The original shirts also featured each person’s role (i.e. “writer,” “cast,” “designer”) stitched on the back.
Franne Lee was the show’s original costume designer and was photographed wearing one of the original shirts in a 2021 profile written by Joe Capozzi:
Lee, who died in 2023, created the looks of some of the show’s most iconic early characters, including the Nerds, The Killer Bees and The Blues Brothers. Before joining SNL alongside her then-partner Eugene Lee, she won three Tony Awards for her work on Broadway.
Although the new throwback shirts are only available to the select few who make up Saturday Night Live’s cast and crew, Tombolo says they may be made available to the general public at some point, and urge interested customers to sign up for an email alert on the shirt’s product page on their site.
Broecker and Tomobolo also collaborated on three other pieces that are available to the general public now.
Those items include the “TomPolo,” a nostalgic polo shirt featuring a chain-stitched version of the show’s musical note logo and embossed SNL50 buttons. The item “looks like something that could have credibly been worn in Season 1,” a product description reads. Also up for grabs is a Cabana Shirt with the same logo and buttons, plus a music-themed graphic on the back.
The centerpiece of the trio, however, is arguably the Souvenir Jacket: a bomber jacket featuring chain-stitching of the musical SNL logo and a custom “Live from New York” graphic on the back, complete with an antique brass treble clef zipper. “This garment is based on a souvenir jacket worn by a crew member until his retirement in his nineties,” Tombolo’s description of the piece reads. “SNL costume designer, Tom Broecker, described it to us as the inspiration for this very special keepsake produced in limited numbers.”
SNL‘s clothing line with Tombolo is one of several boutique collaborations the show has taken part in this year to mark its 50th season. It has also teamed up with brands like New York or Nowhere, No Rivals, Jill Martin, and Aviator Nation.
The Saturday Night Live x Tombolo capsule is on sale today via Tombolo’s website.
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