T-Shirt ponderings
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: February 2006
I came across an old ad in one of my fashion books and it made me wonder.... what is
The History of a T-Shirt and so here it goes....

The T-Shirt is comfortable, casual and always in style. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the T-Shirt quickly became an American favorite.

Most inner-wear historians place the first significant appearance of the t-shirt during World War I. This story, repeated often, is reasonable and probable.

American "Doughboys", as the soldiers were called during the Great War, arrived on the cEuropean ontinent with heavy long-john underwear worn under even heavier woolen shirts and pants. This government issued uniform was invaluable when the weather turned foul and chilly, but on a work detail or during a hot spell it was almost unbearable.

The Americans soon saw many French soldiers sporting a short sleeved undergarment made of light cotton, a fabric ideal to work or play in. This t-shirt forerunner quickly became a hot trade item and thousands of the comfortable shirts came home with new owners. The Army and the Navy (for once) caught on fairly quickly and before long the t-shirt was standard issue, changing the lives of millions of young men for the better. I read that the Navy liked the t-shirt because it covered the men's chest hairs.... eek gads.

This story explains well the arrival of the t-shirt to these shores but still begs the question of its origin. Did the French truly invent it? And, if not, who did?

One possible answer: a t-shirt-like garment was used for millennia in Europe and has even been traced back though Roman times and on to ancient Egypt. This simple, ageless garment was the tunic, the true and most credible ancestor of the modern t-shirt. Clear depictions of it have been found in scenes carved in stone dating back at least three thousand years B.C.

By the 1920's, "T-Shirt" became an official word in the American English language with it's inclusion in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary.

John Wayne, Marlon Brando and James Dean all shocked Americans by wearing their underwear on national TV. In 1951, Marlon Brando really shocked Americans in his film "A Streetcar Named Desire" when his t-shirt gets ripped off of his body revealing his naked chest. [Oh the horrors!]

By 1955, James Dean made the T-Shirt real cool in "Rebel Without A Cause". James Dean made the t-shirt a symbol of rebellious youth.

The next big move for the t-shirt came in 1959 in a move called "Breathless". Jean Seberg, wore a t-shirt on screen and for one of the first times, if not the first, a t-shirt with advertising copy on it was seen far and wide. This particular shirt had the words Herald Tribune, a popular English language paper published in Paris, blazoned across it. Evidently only a few of these were made and it quickly became very "in" among the international crowd to wear one. The t-shirt had stepped up a notch on the social ladder, and on the way, it had become a medium in its own right.

The t-shirt was inexpensive, in style, and could make any statement you cared to print. The T-shirt came into it's own during the late sixties and seventies. Rock and Roll bands began to realize that they could make significant amounts of money selling their screen printed T-Shirts. Professional Sports caught on and soon the officially licensed screen printed T-Shirt became hot merchandise.

And now what to do with all those rock concert t-shirts..... well, you could recycle them into underwear..... Look to middle left of page
and so, the t-shirt becomes full circle.


Edited to include: for those that are curious as to the upcoming fashions, check out a sewing friend's site and her take Liana's site
I really like the details and styles.