History of the T-Shirt
|
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first T-shirt was produced. It is documented that as early as 1913 the United States Navy adopted the crew-necked, short-sleeved, white cotton undershirt, to be worn under a jumper to cover sailor’s chest hairs.At that point, the T-shirt was definitely an undergarment. Even then, however, the T-shirt was not the undergarment for the average working man. He was still wearing a sleeveless undershirt called a “singlet”, or a single-piece “union suit” almost into the forties. It wasn’t until the late thirties that companies such as Hanes, Sears Roebuck, and Fruit of the Loom earnestly started to market the T-shirt. ( Fruit of the Loom didn’t actually start to knit shirts until 1938.) It is reported that the T-shirt (and union suit) received a major setback in 1934, when Clark Gable took off his dress shirt to reveal a bare torso in the movie It Happened One Night. Although his costar, Claudette Colbert, was not impressed, American women liked the bare-chest look and men followed Gable’s lead. A 1937 Consumer’s Union Report lists “cotton undershirts” and “cotton union suits” as separate categories and shows undershirts with names like “Skivvies” and “jimshirts.” They were only 1.5 to 2 ounces back then — a far cry from today’s heavy- weight T-shirt that can weigh as much as 8 ounces. By 1940, the Consumer’s Union Report had dropped the “cotton union suit” category. In 1938, Sears introduced a T-shirt for only 24 cents a piece. It was called a “gob” shirt (a gob is a sailor) and was proclaimed to be either an outer garment or an undershirt — “It’s practical, correct either way.” While it is widely recounted that the army had T-shirts early in the war, it was really the marines who first issued the navy T-type shirt. It didn’t take the marines long to realize that white was an easy target, however, so the early white navy T-type shirts were dyed in the field with coffee grounds! Later the men were issued sage-green shirts. The army didn’t actually get their own navy T-type shirts until late in the war and after. A 1944 study from the Quartermaster of Clothing and Equipment for the Tropics shows that the army was still field-testing T-shirts and sleeveless undershirts to see which the men preferred. In the field test, the men preferred the navy T-type shirt because it had a better appearance, was more comfortable due to greater absorption under the arms, was more comfortable when worn with backpacks, and provided greater protection from sunburn. When the servicemen returned from war, the shirts came home with them- and the Skivvies, jimshirt, and gob shirt were here to stay. During World War II, the T-shirt was more for function than fashion. The early-issue military shirts had a much wider neck and shorter sleeve than today’s full-cut shirt, and they were a much tighter fit. This tight-fitting style remained much the same from the early 1900’s through the sixties. The late forties saw the first printed T-shirts. The Smithsonian Institute’s oldest printed shirt reads Dew-it-with-Dewey from New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s 1948 presidential campaign. The T-shirt got a real boost from underwear to outerwear when Marlon Brando Showed his form in a tight-fitting T-shirt in the 1951 movie A Streetcar Named Desire. Thanks, Stanley Kowalksi, for giving the T-shirt sex appeal! Brando again set the stage with his T-shirt-and-jeans rebel in the 1954 movie The Wild One, and his cultural partner James Dean continued the look in 1955 with the classic movie Rebel without a Cause. OK, Elvis just happened along then also and showed the world how hip a T-shirt and leather jacket could be. About that time, the T-shirt style also changed a little – the neck opening became smaller. The fit was still tight though, and the sleeves were still short enough to show off a man’s physique. T-shirts were still a very male piece of clothing. That’s when clever marketers such as Walt Disney and Roy Rogers saw the possibilities of the printed T-shirt as a souvenir. Just think — it’s a useful piece of clothing, it’s inexpensive, and it has a short life span. Perfect! In the early 1950s, such innovators as Ed Roth (aka “Big Daddy Roth”) and Carl Smith (aka “Big Daddy Rat”) started to screen print and airbrush shirts with car designs. Back then, the “ink” used was house paint and spray paint. In the fifties, most college shirts and sports shirts were decorated with cloth letters or with “flocking” — a process through which thin fibers of rayon were electrostatically embedded in an adhesive printed on the shirt. This was a very slow and messy process that was just waiting to be replaced. In 1959, a new ink called “plastisol” was invented. This ink was more durable and stretchable- and brought about the birth of T-shirt printing as we know it today. The sixties provided the background for statement shirts, tie-dyed shirts, and freedom of speech. The British rock-’n’-roll invasion and Vietnam were the perfect partners for a newfound culture, and the printed T-shirt was the perfect vehicle of choice for expression. The peace symbol was the most popular T-shirt image. It was easier to wear a statement on your chest than to carry a picket sign. As free love, long hair, and drugs prevailed, tie-dyed shirts that could be custom designed in your kitchen sink — with no investment — were the thing. The Woodstock generation loved T-shirts! In the late sixties, T-shirts were sold mainly at state fairs, car shows, and special events- but the lowly T-shirt that had been a fad in the sixties suddenly grew up in the seventies. The iron-on transfer made it easy to pick a design, pick a shirt, and combine the two using a household iron. The T-shirt store, as we know it, didn’t exist until the early seventies. The iron-on transfer made it easy to mass produce thousands of different designs, and every mall and shopping center had its T-shirt store. Early T-shirt stores were not much more sophisticated than state fair displays however, and it wasn’t uncommon for upscale malls to tell merchants they didn’t want any T-shirt stores. It all came together when entrepreneur Bill Windsor started a magazine called Impressions in 1978 and followed it in 1979 with a T-shirt trade show called The Imprinted Sportswear Shows. At the same time my wife Pat and I wrote what became the bible of the industry, How to Print T-shirts for Fun and Profit. Suddenly, T-shirts had become an industry! The eighties started the great graphics craze. Artists who had shunned the T-shirt now found a new canvas! Prices of $2,000 and higher for a design became a reality, because great graphics sold shirts. Corporations also found a new vehicle for their message, and the era of using shirts to advertise started. Imagine, people will actually wear your company’s name on their chest like a walking billboard and pay for the privilege! Great concept! Rock-’n'-roll and sporting event promoters discovered that the bottom line could be much, much larger with merchandise sales, and the licensing business flourished into the billion-dollar business it is today. The eighties also liked free expression on a shirt. Hand decorated shirts, tie-dyed shirts, and even a process called “spin art” were in. Shirt sizes got bigger as everyone wanted a looser, baggier look. The consumer also wanted larger and softer designs. The rubbery and not very wash-resistant iron-on transfer practically died in the early eighties. As colored T-shirts became more popular, stores started carrying preprinted shirts, known in the industry as “preprints” or “stock designs”. Newer printing methods used new inks — puff, glitter, glow, and change color — and consumers kept coming back for more. The nineties continued with better graphics and with major corporations buying into the business. Sara Lee bought Hanes, Champion Products, and Stedman. In 1993 Fruit of the Loom paid close to $150 million for Salem Sportswear, a company that two friends had started in 1980 with a $450 investment! The early nineties also saw the resurgence of the iron-on transfer — now called a “heat transfer.” They were softer, puffier, more durable and they could duplicate the quality of a direct screen print. Today’s T-shirt business is a conglomeration of T-shirt mills, screen printers, embroiderers and airbrushers. The computer has made it possible to do outstanding photorealistic designs in quantities as small as one shirt. The Internet has spawned a whole new line of concept shirts, called “Cybershirts”, with your own personal E-mail address or “cyberspeak” emblazoned on them. The Internet has also become the T-shirt mall of the future, and you can now order any shirt imaginable, including custom printing-on-line! The T-shirt. A $30 billion industry. From undershirt to everyday piece of clothing. From plain to terrific graphics. From cute to raunchy. Buying T-shirts is like taking pictures: they tell the world where you have been and who you are. If only they lasted longer, they would be an anthropologist’s dream. |
Did it really get it’s popularity from the military in WWII? |
|||
Did the T-Shirt evolve from the famous “Union Suit”? Photo dated 1918. |
||||
1948 ad for “Suedeknit Sport Shirt.” (Photo courtesy Hanes Printables.) |
||||
1912 ad for Hanes Underwear. (Photo courtesy Hanes Printables.) |
||||
