History Of T-Shirts - Why,When & How They Were Made
Have you ever wondered how the t-shirt came to be such an iconic staple in American fashion and culture? Are you curious to know how garment decorating, such as screen-printing, became a multi-billion dollar industry?
The history of t-shirts is a rather short and simple story, but one that has to lead to such massive change that it should be told and embraced more often than it currently is.
Read all about the history of t-shirts and who invented them. Trace its origins and reasons for invention, who invented T-shirts, etc. with some interesting facts and trivia.
The word t-shirt has been part of dictionaries for almost a century now, and the first t-shirts were produced and worn more than a hundred years ago. But there is no warning of the popularity of this garment in all these years. Forget the tuxedo or the evening gown – the humble t-shirt can make you look so good it will be difficult to stop people from staring at you.
A few years ago, t-shirts were only worn as undershirts. To this day, many blue-collar and white-collar individuals still wear them solely for that purpose. The earliest t-shirts date back to sometime between the Spanish American War and the year 1913 when the U.S. Navy began issuing them as undershirts. After World War II, it became a common sighting to see war veterans wearing their trousers with a t-shirt as casual wear. By 1920, Merriam-Webster had welcomed the term “t-shirt” as an official word in the English dictionary. In 1950, the popularity of the t-shirt as a stand-alone outerwear garment started skyrocketing after the actor Marlon Brando wore one in a film entitled A Streetcar Named Desire.
By the time the 1950s rolled around, a number of companies in Miami, Florida began experimenting with garment decoration. One method that would later turn into a multi-billion dollar industry was that of screen-printing. These companies in Miami started to screen-print t-shirts with various resort names and illustrated characters. One of the first companies to dabble in this field was known, at the time, as Tropix Togs, under the founder Sam Kantor. Tropix Togs held the original license for screen-printing Walt Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse and Davy Crockett. It wouldn’t be until 1960 that screen-printed t-shirts would be seen as an accepted means for self-expression, commercial advertisements, political views, and souvenir messages.
As of 1994, the U.S. Domestic Printing Industry was a significantly larger business than the automotive industry. Employing over 1 million people and grossing over $83+ billion in annual revenue stands to prove that t-shirts have become an iconic fashion statement in a world that is constantly seeking to express itself in new ways.
It’s amazing that a story as simple and short as this has cultivated such massive, drastic change.
T-shirt history and evolution.
The first official use of t-shirts was in the US Navy, and we will detail it shortly. The Navy saw the first widespread use of t-shirts. The Long Johns were a type of underwear worn by workers in the 19th century, consisting of two parts – a top and a bottom. These Long Johns had, in turn, evolved from the Union Suit which was a single piece of underwear with an open flap to cover the backside! But the interesting thing is that Union Suits and Long Johns were both designed to keep the body warm in cold temperatures, whereas the t-shirt keeps the body cool (although some say it makes temperatures soar!). To know who invented t-shirts, one needs to go further back in history.
When an underwear producing company started to advertise their products as bachelor undershirts, the establishment sat up and took note, and the US Navy modified its uniform regulations to allow (and later on, mandate) the use of t-shirts by their sailors and officers. But only after the t-shirt began to be used by movie stars in their bicep hugging avatars did the serious-sounding industrial and martial landscape of t-shirt background begin to get converted into popular art and usage. Today the t-shirt is a ubiquitous part of both male and female wardrobes.
T-shirt origin - Why Was It Made?
It did happen as a garment to ward off the cold, and it was not a standalone garment but part of the overall full body innerwear. But the people who mostly wore it as an undershirt were the industrial workers who had to toil in hot and humid conditions. The need for comfort and the ability to look good pushed the t-shirt from below other clothes to being a complete item of clothing on its own. The short answer to ‘when was the t-shirt invented’ is the first decade of the 20th century, but in real terms, the widespread of t-shirts began only when people saw movie stars wearing them.
Who Invented T-Shirts?
The first recorded instance of mass production and advertisement of t-shirts was by the Cooper Underwear Company. This is so ironic because as a garment to cover the upper part of the body, men only knew what is a shirt, whereas the company making these t-shirts was not even a shirt company but an underwear company. Apart from the fact that t-shirts are buttonless and can be pulled over the head, another difference with shirts is that t-shirts can have designs and slogans printed across their front. We do not have any record of who invented shirts but we do know that Tropix Togs was one of the first companies to attempt to print designs on the front of t-shirts.
First T-shirt Fabric
The go-to fabric for all t-shirts today is cotton, to make them as comfortable as possible. When one mentions the word t-shirt, the first association that comes to our mind is the name and the second one is the material. The t-shirt, first so named by F. Scott Fitzgerald in a novel, is a simple representation of the shape of a regular t-shirt. So what does the tin t-shirt stands for? Just look at a t-shirt from the front, recognize the shape of the letter ‘t’, and you will have your answer. The second thing is the material. The origins of the t-shirt were more to ward off cold than to keep the wearer cool on hot days. Therefore cotton was a big no-no, and the first garments were made of wool and linen. It is only when t-shirts began to be used as a way to feel comfortable with clothes on in the heat that the material changed to cotton. Cotton has become the default material for making t-shirts today. A strange thing is that everything in the world has changed and evolved over the years, but the t-shirt has still detained its t-shape and its cotton raw material.
Be sure to visit our Instagram to see how Oldtown Funk’s clients are contributing to such an iconic moment in the world of fashion.
Resources:Wikipedia, Bewakoof.com
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This is awesome, I never thought this would be the history of a t-shirt. Simple and precise content. Thank you!