The origin of the T-shirt is a controversy unto itself. Some fashion historians believe it comes from seventeenth-century "tea shirts" worn by Maryland dockhands to prevent irritating tea leaves from getting under their collars as they unloaded ships. Others say the name arose from a fortuitous alignment of seams: the T-shape of the short-sleeved, straight-trunk tops.
Whichever version is true, most historians agree that the T-shirt as we know it began life as an undergarment issued to troops in World War I. Men used it for the sake of modesty, to hide unflattering chest hair. It was emblematic of the laboring man, whose muscles, rippling under the thin cotton surface, evoked the toil of a day's work.
Then Brando rode into town on his Triumph motorbike, decked out in black leather jackets, battered jeans, and a tight-fitting white T-shirt. Things were never the same. The 1953 film "The Wild One" became a sensation among the young men and women of the newly prosperous, post-World War II America, which had emerged from the travails of the Depression and into the beginnings of a consumer society. Rebellious teenagers found themselves with pocket money and used it, modeling themselves after Brando's brooding Johnny. The T-shirt quickly became associated with the discontented young punk from the wrong side of the tracks. And fashion, which had always been about dressing up to aristocratic tastes, now meant dressing down. The T-shirt was the way for the young followers of Brando and James Dean to distinguish themselves from their parents and from those "nice boys" with varsity-letter aspirations. It represented the new ideal of unkempt clothes, restless thoughts, and potent sexuality.
But the real revolution came in the sixties. Not only did women start wearing T-shirts, but thanks to the invention of plastisol, T-shirts found their voice--at a time when everyone seemed to have something to say, from "Peace" to "Keep On Truckin'." And in the decade of the sexual revolution, it was surely no coincidence that the screen-printed words reliably drew other eyes to the chest. Unlike good, obedient children, T-shirts talked back--saying, among other things, "Go ahead and stare."
"Worn with blue jeans in the sixties, the T-shirt became a perfect anti-establishment symbol for both sexes,” write the authors of The Great American T-Shirt. "It was a very public way to tell the older generation you didn’t conform to their suit-and-tie way of life."
In the seventies, T-shirts became even grittier. Punks and hipsters were dropping out of mainstream society. No longer caring to argue their causes, they instead thumbed their noses at the establishment, slashing their shirts to match their shredded blue jeans. Two decades earlier, T-shirts had been used for the sake of modesty; in the seventies, they were anti-modest, brashly proclaiming "Nuke the Whales" or "Sex Pistols" under red Mohawks. They exchanged the clean-cut earnestness of anti-war mottos for snide statements like "Only slobs wear T-shirts."
But by then, T-shirts had become so popular they did not have to make
excuses for their existence. Belonging to no one group, they were perennials
that could adapt to new needs and desires; as quickly as the slogans changed,
they would change, too. And so as the eighties unfolded, T-shirts, like
so many other things, turned corporate. The garment associated with first
the working class and then the counter culture suddenly knew silk-screened
fashion labels and insignias. The humble T-shirt danced into the limelight
of haute couture. Faster than you can say, "Give peace a chance," what
looked like your $2 Hanes was selling for $26--all because of four new
letters, "DKNY."
Wear your heart on your short-sleeve
'Only slobs wear T-shirts'