The Humble T-Shirt...
Hands up if you own a T-shirt. I’m guessing nearly all of us do. Our favourite garment is an American import, fi rst issued by the U.S. Navy in the late 19th century around the time of the Spanish American War. The crew-necked, short sleeved top was meant to be worn as underwear beneath the uniform. It got its iconic name from its shape when laid fl at, resembling the letter “T”. The lightweight fabric quickly made it popular with dockworkers, farmers, miners, and men in the construction trade, who began to adopt the T-shirt, preferring its lightweight fabric in hot weather.
Cotton was at the time inexpensive, and the fact it was easy to clean meant it also became the garment of choice for mothers to buy as outerwear for their boys. By the 1920’s “T-shirt” had become an offi cial American-English word in the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.
It’s thought the fi rst T shirts printed with logos were actually made for the fi lm The Wizard of Oz! They were green T-shirts with ‘OZ’ printed on them in white, and were worn by workers in the Emerald City. I admit I’d never noticed the T shirts prior to my research and I’ve watched the fi lm dozens of times!
The credit for the fi rst printed T shirt in a photograph is attributed to the Air Corps Gunnery School T-shirt featured on the July 13th, 1942 cover of LIFE magazine. Mickey Mouse was the fi rst ‘celebrity’ to be featured a few years later. Marlon Brando played his part in making the T-shirt a seriously cool fashion item when he wore a tight white one in the fi lm, A Streetcar Named Desire.
In the late 1960’s, the printed T-shirt gradually became a means of self expression, advertising, wearable art, and political protest. At some point in our lives most of us have owned an iconic one. Think of the yellow ‘happy face’ T-shirt, the Rolling Stones ‘tongue and lips’ logo, or the CHOOSE LIFE T-shirts of the eighties.
The garment has a long history as an object of protest and political point-scoring. Green MP Caroline Lucas wore a T-shirt displaying the slogan ‘No More Page Three’ in large lettering during a Commons debate on sexism in the media. Harriet Harman sat in parliament wearing one bearing the message ‘This is what a feminist looks like.’ In some parts of the world such messages can have serious consequences for the wearer. Last year an LGBT protester and entrepreneur in Burma printed T-shirts with “Gay is OK” on them (in a country where it is still most decidedly not) and a 20-year-old Egyptian man marked his second year in detention, without charge or trial, for wearing a T-shirt which bore a ‘Nation without torture’ message.
The humble T-shirt may not be so humble after all. The next time you grab one from the wash basket you might want to consider what your tee says about you!
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