The Origin of the T-Shirt
The t-shirt as we know it today is an apparel staple. The simple garment is so deeply ingrained in world culture that it’s easy to forget that, relatively speaking, the t-shirt itself is quite young.
The origins of the t-shirt date back to the late 19th century, when laborers would cut their jumpsuits in half to keep cool in warmer months during the year.
The first manufactured t-shirt was invented between the Mexican-American War in 1898, and 1913 when the U.S. Navy began issuing them as standard undershirts.
Even then, it took until 1920 for the actual term “t-shirt” to be inducted into the English dictionary, thanks to F. Scott Fitzgerald being the first person to publish the word in his novel This Side of Paradise.
“So early in September Amory,” writes Fitzgerald, “provided with ‘six suits summer underwear, six suits winter underwear, one sweater or T-shirt, one jersey, one overcoat, winter, etc,’ set out for New England, the land of schools.”
Brando, Dean and Rebellion
Though the t-shirt was created in the early 20th century, it was rare to see it worn as anything other than an undershirt. It wasn’t uncommon to see veterans wearing a t-shirt tucked into their trousers post-World War II, but outside of that, t-shirts were almost exclusively used underneath “proper” clothes.
Then came Marlon Brando and James Dean.
In 1950, Marlon Brando famously donned a white t-shirt as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, only to be followed by James Dean in 1955's Rebel Without a Cause. Thanks to these two founding fathers, the popularity of the t-shirt as a stand-alone outerwear garment skyrocketed.
Not only was the t-shirt as an outer-garment becoming acceptable, but it was also being associated with a movement of rebellion.
“It was rebellious, because T-shirts were actually undergarments … It was a tough political statement,” says Dennis Nothdruft, curator of the exhibition titled T-shirt: Cult — Culture — Subversion, which showcased the radical history of the t-shirt at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London last year.