T-shirt
Encyclopedia
A T-shirt is a style of shirt
. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line.
T-shirts are typically made of cotton fibers (sometimes others), knitted together in a jersey stitch
that gives a T-shirt its distinctive soft texture. T-shirts can be decorated with text and/or pictures, and are sometimes used to advertise (see human billboard
).
T-shirt fashions include many styles for both men and women, and for all age groups, including baby, youth, teen, adult and elderly sizes.
The T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century, through cutting the one-piece "union suit
" underwear into separate top and bottom garments, with the top long enough to tuck under the waistband of the bottoms. T-shirts, with and without buttons, were adopted by miners and stevedores during the late 19th century as a convenient covering for hot environments.
T-shirts, as a slip-on garment without buttons, originally became popular in the United States when they were issued by the U.S. Navy during or following the Spanish American War. These were a crew-necked, short-sleeved, white cotton undershirt to be worn under a uniform. It became common for sailors and Marines in work parties, the early submarines, and tropical climates to remove their uniform "jacket", wearing (and soiling) only the undershirt.
Named the T-shirt due to the shape of the garment's outline, they soon became popular as a bottom layer of clothing for workers in various industries, including agriculture. The T-shirt was easily fitted, easily cleaned, and inexpensive, and for this reason it became the shirt of choice for young boys. Boys' shirts were made in various colors and patterns. By the Great Depression
, the T-shirt was often the default garment to be worn when doing farm or ranch chores, as well as other times when modesty called for a torso covering but conditions called for lightweight fabrics.
, it became common to see veterans wearing their uniform trousers with their T-shirts as casual clothing, and they became even more popular in the 1950s after Marlon Brando
wore one in A Streetcar Named Desire, finally achieving status as fashionable, stand-alone, outer-wear garments.
In the mid-1980s, the white T-shirt became fashionable after the actor Don Johnson
wore it with an Armani suit in Miami Vice
.
They can also be used to carry commercial advertising
, souvenir
messages and protest art
messages. Beginning in the late 1960s, the T-shirt became a medium for wearable art. Psychedelic art poster designer Warren Dayton
pioneered several political, protest, and pop-culture art T-shirts featuring images of Cesar Chavez, political cartoons, and other cultural icons in an article in the Los Angeles Times
magazine in late 1969.
Today, many notable and memorable T-shirts produced in the 1970s have now become ensconced in pop culture. Examples include the bright yellow happy face
T-shirts, The Rolling Stones
tops with their "tongue and lips" logo, and Milton Glaser
's iconic "I ♥ N Y
” design.
on the top half of the body, other than possibly a bra
or an undershirt (vest
). T-shirts have also become a medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable combination of words, art, and even photographs on display.
A T-shirt typically extends to the waist. Variants of the T-shirt, like the tank top, crew neck
, A-shirt (with the nickname "wife beater"), muscle shirt, scoop neck
, and V-neck have been developed. Hip hop fashion
calls for "tall-T" T-shirts which may extend down to the knees. A 1990s trend in women's clothing involved tight-fitting "cropped
" T-shirts short enough to reveal the midriff
. Another popular trend is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt of a contrasting color over a long-sleeved T-shirt
. This is known as "layering".
In the early 1950s several companies based in Miami, Florida
, started to decorate T-shirts with different resort names and various characters. The first company was Tropix Togs, under founder Sam Kantor, in Miami. They were the original license for Walt Disney characters that included Mickey Mouse and Davy Crockett. Later, other companies expanded into the T-shirt printing
business, including Sherry Manufacturing Company, also based in Miami. Sherry started in 1948 by its owner and founder Quinton Sandler as a screen print scarf business and evolved into one of the largest screen printed resort and licensed apparel companies in the United States
.
In 1959, plastisol
, a more durable and stretchable ink, was invented, allowing much more variety in T-shirt designs.
In the 1960s, the ringer T-shirt
appeared and became a staple fashion for youth and rock-n-rollers. The decade also saw the emergence of tie-dye
ing and screen-printing
on the basic T-shirt. In the late 1960s Richard Ellman, Robert Tree, Bill Kelly, and Stanley Mouse
set up the Monster Company in Mill Valley, California, to produce fine art designs expressly for T-shirts. Monster T-shirts often feature emblems and motifs associated with the Grateful Dead
and marijuana culture. Additionally, one of the most popular symbols to emerge out of the political turmoil of 1960s were T-shirts bearing the face of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara
.
. In screen-printing, a design is separated into individual colors. Plastisol
or water based ink
s are applied to the shirt through mesh screens which limits the areas where ink is deposited. In most commercial T-shirt printing, the specific colors in the design are used. To achieve a wider color spectrum with a limited number of colors, process printing (using only cyan
, magenta
, yellow
and black
ink) or simulated process (using only white, black, red, green, blue, and gold ink) is effective. Process printing is best suited for light colored shirts. Simulated process is best suited for dark colored shirts. Very few companies continue to use water-based inks on their shirts. The majority of other companies that create shirts prefer to use plastisol due to the ability to print on varying colors without the need for color adjustment at the art level.
Specialty inks trend in and out of fashion and include shimmer, puff, discharge, and chino based inks. A metallic foil can be heat pressed and stamped onto any plastisol ink. When combined with shimmer ink, metallics give a mirror like effect wherever the previously screened plastisol ink was applied. Specialty inks are more expensive to purchase as well as screen and tend to appear on garments in boutiques.
Other methods of decoration used on T-shirts include airbrush
, applique
, embroidery
, impressing or embossing, and the ironing
on of either flock lettering, heat transfers, or dye-sublimation transfers. Laser printer
s are capable of printing on plain paper using a special toner
containing sublimation dyes which can then be permanently heat-transferred to T-shirts.
In the 1980s, thermochromatic dyes were used to produce T-shirts that changed color when subjected to heat. The Global Hypercolour
brand of these was a common sight on the streets of the UK
for a few years, but has since mostly disappeared. These were also very popular in the United States among teenagers in the late 1980s. A downside of color-change garments is that the dyes can easily be damaged, especially by washing
in warm water, or dye other clothes during washing.
At the turn of the 21st century, designing custom T-shirts online became more popular. Popular websites began to use digital printing (such as Direct to Garment or DTG printing) to allow customers to design their own T-shirts online with no minimum orders. In the beginning, DTG could not print well on dark garments; however, with the help of some online T-Shirt retailers, printer manufacturers such as T-Jet have all but perfected the process, providing consumers with many more printing options.
.
Screen printed T-shirts have been a standard form of marketing
for major consumer products, such as Coca-Cola
and Mickey Mouse
, since the 1970s. However, since the 1990s, it has become common practice for companies of all sizes to produce T-shirts with their corporate logos or messages as part of their overall advertising
campaigns. Since the late 1980s and especially the 1990s, T-shirts with prominent designer-name logos have become popular, especially with teenagers and young adults. These garments allow consumers to flaunt their taste for designer brands in an inexpensive way, in addition to being decorative. Examples of designer T-shirt branding include Calvin Klein
, FUBU
, Ralph Lauren
and The Gap. These examples also include representations of rock bands, among other obscure pop-culture references. Licensed T-shirts are also extremely popular. Movie and TV T-shirts can have images of the actors, logos, and funny quotes from the movie or TV show. Often, the most popular T-shirts are those that characters wore in the film itself (e.g., Bubba Gump from Forrest Gump
and Vote For Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite
).
Designer Katharine Hamnett
, in the early 1980s, pioneered outsize T-shirts with large-print slogans. The early first decade of the 21st century saw the renewed popularity of T-shirts with slogans and designs with a strong inclination to the humorous and/or ironic. The trend has only increased later in this decade, embraced by celebrities, such as Britney Spears
and Paris Hilton
, and reflected back on them, too ('Team Aniston'). The political and social statements that T-shirts often display have become, since the first decade of the 21st century, one of the reasons that they have so deeply permeated different levels of culture and society. The statements also may be found to be offensive, shocking, or pornographic to some. Many different organizations have caught on to the statement-making trend, including chain and independent stores, websites, and schools.
A popular phrase on the front of T-shirts demonstrating T-shirts' popularity among tourists is the humorous phrase "I did _____ and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." Examples include "My parents went to Las Vegas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."
T-shirt exchange is an activity where people trade their T-shirts they are wearing.
Artists like Bill Beckley
, Glen Baldridge and Peter Klashorst
use T-shirts for their artistic expression.
. With the rise of advertising
in the mid 20th century, sponsor
s' logos began to appear on the shirts, and replica strips were made available for fans to purchase, generating significant amounts of revenue for clubs.
Since the mid-1970s, Football shirts have been made of lightweight polyester
, although prior to this they were typically of a heavyweight cotton
design.
In the United Kingdom
, several clubs
have been accused of price fixing
, and Manchester United
were in fact fined in 2003. The high prices, and the fact that new designs are brought out each season for many clubs, mean that shirts are often the subject of satire among football fans, but many still consider it an obligation to wear them. Many Newcastle United
and Manchester United
fans buy their clubs' black and white striped and red and white shirts, respectively. The prices have also led to fans buying fake
shirts which are imported into the UK from Thailand
, Malaysia, and Far East Asia; many sellers on eBay
now indicate that their shirt are genuine.
Shirt
A shirt is a cloth garment for the upper body. Originally an undergarment worn exclusively by men, it has become, in American English, a catch-all term for almost any garment other than outerwear such as sweaters, coats, jackets, or undergarments such as bras, vests or base layers...
. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line.
T-shirts are typically made of cotton fibers (sometimes others), knitted together in a jersey stitch
Jersey (fabric)
Jersey is a knit fabric used predominantly for clothing manufacture. It was originally made of wool, but is now made of wool, cotton, and synthetic fibres. Since medieval times Jersey, Channel Islands, where the material was first produced, had been an important exporter of knitted goods and the...
that gives a T-shirt its distinctive soft texture. T-shirts can be decorated with text and/or pictures, and are sometimes used to advertise (see human billboard
Human billboard
A human billboard is someone who applies an advertisement on his or her person. Most commonly, this means holding or wearing a sign of some sort, but also may include wearing advertising as clothing or in extreme cases, having advertising tattooed on the body...
).
T-shirt fashions include many styles for both men and women, and for all age groups, including baby, youth, teen, adult and elderly sizes.
The T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century, through cutting the one-piece "union suit
Union suit
A union suit is a type of one-piece long underwear. Created in Utica, New York, United States, it originated as women's wear during the 19th-century United States clothing reform efforts, as an alternative to constricting garments, and soon gained popularity among men as well...
" underwear into separate top and bottom garments, with the top long enough to tuck under the waistband of the bottoms. T-shirts, with and without buttons, were adopted by miners and stevedores during the late 19th century as a convenient covering for hot environments.
T-shirts, as a slip-on garment without buttons, originally became popular in the United States when they were issued by the U.S. Navy during or following the Spanish American War. These were a crew-necked, short-sleeved, white cotton undershirt to be worn under a uniform. It became common for sailors and Marines in work parties, the early submarines, and tropical climates to remove their uniform "jacket", wearing (and soiling) only the undershirt.
Named the T-shirt due to the shape of the garment's outline, they soon became popular as a bottom layer of clothing for workers in various industries, including agriculture. The T-shirt was easily fitted, easily cleaned, and inexpensive, and for this reason it became the shirt of choice for young boys. Boys' shirts were made in various colors and patterns. By the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, the T-shirt was often the default garment to be worn when doing farm or ranch chores, as well as other times when modesty called for a torso covering but conditions called for lightweight fabrics.
World War II
Following World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it became common to see veterans wearing their uniform trousers with their T-shirts as casual clothing, and they became even more popular in the 1950s after Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
wore one in A Streetcar Named Desire, finally achieving status as fashionable, stand-alone, outer-wear garments.
In the mid-1980s, the white T-shirt became fashionable after the actor Don Johnson
Don Johnson
Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson is an American actor known for his work in television and film. He played the lead role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges...
wore it with an Armani suit in Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
.
They can also be used to carry commercial advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
, souvenir
Souvenir
A souvenir , memento, keepsake or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. The term souvenir brings to mind the mass-produced kitsch that is the main commodity of souvenir and gift shops in many tourist traps around the world...
messages and protest art
Protest art
Protest art is a broad term that refers to creative works that concern or are produced by activists and social movements. There are also contemporary and historical works and currents of thought that can be characterized in this way....
messages. Beginning in the late 1960s, the T-shirt became a medium for wearable art. Psychedelic art poster designer Warren Dayton
Warren Dayton
Warren Dayton is an American illustrator, artist and graphic designer best known for his posters from psychedelic art era, a pioneer of the use of T-shirts as an art medium, creator of corporate branding & logos such as Thomas Kinkade’s Lightpost Publishing, and internationally award-winning book,...
pioneered several political, protest, and pop-culture art T-shirts featuring images of Cesar Chavez, political cartoons, and other cultural icons in an article in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
magazine in late 1969.
Today, many notable and memorable T-shirts produced in the 1970s have now become ensconced in pop culture. Examples include the bright yellow happy face
Harvey Ball
Harvey Ross Ball was an American commercial artist. He is recognized as the earliest known designer of the smiley, which became an enduring and notable international icon. Ball was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts...
T-shirts, The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
tops with their "tongue and lips" logo, and Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...
's iconic "I ♥ N Y
I Love New York
I Love New York is both a logo and a song that are the basis of an advertising campaign and have been used since the mid-1970s to promote tourism in New York City, and later to promote New York State as well. The trademarked logo appears in souvenir shops and brochures throughout the state, some...
” design.
Trends
T-shirts were originally worn as undershirts. Now T-shirts are worn frequently as the only piece of clothingClothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
on the top half of the body, other than possibly a bra
Brassiere
A brassiere is an undergarment that covers, supports, and elevates the breasts. Since the late 19th century, it has replaced the corset as the most widely accepted method for supporting breasts....
or an undershirt (vest
Vest
A vest is a garment covering the upper body. The term has different meanings around the world:Waistcoat :. This is called a waistcoat in the UK and many Commonwealth countries, or a vest in the US and Canada. It is often worn as part of formal attire, or as the third piece of a lounge...
). T-shirts have also become a medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable combination of words, art, and even photographs on display.
A T-shirt typically extends to the waist. Variants of the T-shirt, like the tank top, crew neck
Crew neck
A crew neck is a type of shirt or sweater that has a round neckline and no collar, often worn with other layers. The T-shirt crew neck was developed in 1932 as an undergarment that would absorb sweat and prevent shoulder pads of American football players from causing chafing. The U.S. Navy was...
, A-shirt (with the nickname "wife beater"), muscle shirt, scoop neck
Scoop neck
A scoop neck shirt is one in which the scoop-shape neckline is dropped significantly below normal limits. However, some scoop neck shirts, when worn by women, are cut low enough to display significant amounts of cleavage. These shirts come in a variety of forms, including those with and without...
, and V-neck have been developed. Hip hop fashion
Hip hop fashion
Hip hop fashion is a distinctive style of dress originating with African American youth on the scene of New York City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Chicago, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Detroit, Memphis, Atlanta, St. Louis, Jersey City, Miami, Toronto and Vancouver among others. Each city...
calls for "tall-T" T-shirts which may extend down to the knees. A 1990s trend in women's clothing involved tight-fitting "cropped
Crop top
A crop top is a T-shirt or blouse with the lower part cut off, showing of some of the abdomen. The half shirt is a kind of shirt that is cut off from the bottom of the chest....
" T-shirts short enough to reveal the midriff
Midriff
Midriff is a particular term to denominate the section of the human body between the thorax/chest and the pelvis/hips. It is used as a genteel avoidance of synonymous belly ; as a synonym for waist; and as a name for the area around the diaphragm Midriff is a particular term to denominate the...
. Another popular trend is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt of a contrasting color over a long-sleeved T-shirt
Long-sleeved T-shirt
A long-sleeved shirt is a type of shirt, of a style and fabric similar to a T-shirt, although, of course, with long sleeves. Long-sleeved T-shirts first became popular in the 1970s as a thinner, more lightweight alternative to a sweatshirt...
. This is known as "layering".
Decoration
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
, started to decorate T-shirts with different resort names and various characters. The first company was Tropix Togs, under founder Sam Kantor, in Miami. They were the original license for Walt Disney characters that included Mickey Mouse and Davy Crockett. Later, other companies expanded into the T-shirt printing
Textile printing
Textile printing is the process of applying colour to fabric in definite patterns or designs. In properly printed fabrics the colour is bonded with the fiber, so as to resist washing and friction...
business, including Sherry Manufacturing Company, also based in Miami. Sherry started in 1948 by its owner and founder Quinton Sandler as a screen print scarf business and evolved into one of the largest screen printed resort and licensed apparel companies in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
In 1959, plastisol
Plastisol
Plastisol is a suspension of PVC particles in a plasticizer; it flows as a liquid and can be poured into a heated mold. When heated to around 177 degrees Celsius, the plastic and plasticizer mutually dissolve each other. On cooling the mold below 60 degrees C, a flexible, permanently plasticized...
, a more durable and stretchable ink, was invented, allowing much more variety in T-shirt designs.
In the 1960s, the ringer T-shirt
Ringer T-shirt
A ringer T-shirt is a T-shirt in which the jersey shirt fabric is one color, but the ribbing used for the collar and the sleeve bands are of a contrasting color.Traditionally, the most common ringer colors were white with black ribbing...
appeared and became a staple fashion for youth and rock-n-rollers. The decade also saw the emergence of tie-dye
Tie-dye
Tie-dye is a process of resist dyeing textiles or clothing which is made from knit or woven fabric, usually cotton; typically using bright colors. It is a modern version of traditional dyeing methods used in many cultures throughout the world. "Tie-dye" can also describe the resulting pattern or an...
ing and screen-printing
Screen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
on the basic T-shirt. In the late 1960s Richard Ellman, Robert Tree, Bill Kelly, and Stanley Mouse
Stanley Mouse
Stanley George Miller , better known as Mouse and Stanley Mouse, is an American artist, notable for his 1960s psychedelic rock concert poster designs and Grateful Dead album cover art.-Early life:...
set up the Monster Company in Mill Valley, California, to produce fine art designs expressly for T-shirts. Monster T-shirts often feature emblems and motifs associated with the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
and marijuana culture. Additionally, one of the most popular symbols to emerge out of the political turmoil of 1960s were T-shirts bearing the face of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
.
Screen printing
The most common form of commercial T-shirt decoration is screen-printingScreen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
. In screen-printing, a design is separated into individual colors. Plastisol
Plastisol
Plastisol is a suspension of PVC particles in a plasticizer; it flows as a liquid and can be poured into a heated mold. When heated to around 177 degrees Celsius, the plastic and plasticizer mutually dissolve each other. On cooling the mold below 60 degrees C, a flexible, permanently plasticized...
or water based ink
Ink
Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...
s are applied to the shirt through mesh screens which limits the areas where ink is deposited. In most commercial T-shirt printing, the specific colors in the design are used. To achieve a wider color spectrum with a limited number of colors, process printing (using only cyan
Cyan
Cyan from , transliterated: kýanos, meaning "dark blue substance") may be used as the name of any of a number of colors in the blue/green range of the spectrum. In reference to the visible spectrum cyan is used to refer to the color obtained by mixing equal amounts of green and blue light or the...
, magenta
Magenta
Magenta is a color evoked by light stronger in blue and red wavelengths than in yellowish-green wavelengths . In light experiments, magenta can be produced by removing the lime-green wavelengths from white light...
, yellow
Yellow
Yellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–590 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of red and green...
and black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
ink) or simulated process (using only white, black, red, green, blue, and gold ink) is effective. Process printing is best suited for light colored shirts. Simulated process is best suited for dark colored shirts. Very few companies continue to use water-based inks on their shirts. The majority of other companies that create shirts prefer to use plastisol due to the ability to print on varying colors without the need for color adjustment at the art level.
Specialty inks trend in and out of fashion and include shimmer, puff, discharge, and chino based inks. A metallic foil can be heat pressed and stamped onto any plastisol ink. When combined with shimmer ink, metallics give a mirror like effect wherever the previously screened plastisol ink was applied. Specialty inks are more expensive to purchase as well as screen and tend to appear on garments in boutiques.
Other methods of decoration used on T-shirts include airbrush
Airbrush
An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush.-History:...
, applique
Applique
In its broadest sense, an appliqué is a smaller ornament or device applied to another surface. In the context of ceramics, for example, an appliqué is a separate piece of clay added to the primary work, generally for the purpose of decoration...
, embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
, impressing or embossing, and the ironing
Ironing
Ironing is the use of a heated tool to remove wrinkles from fabric. The heating is commonly done to a temperature of 180-220 °Celsius, depending on the fabric. Ironing works by loosening the bonds between the long-chain polymer molecules in the fibers of the material...
on of either flock lettering, heat transfers, or dye-sublimation transfers. Laser printer
Laser printer
A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a xerographic printing process, but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced...
s are capable of printing on plain paper using a special toner
Toner
Toner is a powder used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the printed text and images on the paper. In its early form it was simply carbon powder. Then, to improve the quality of the printout, the carbon was melt-mixed with a polymer...
containing sublimation dyes which can then be permanently heat-transferred to T-shirts.
In the 1980s, thermochromatic dyes were used to produce T-shirts that changed color when subjected to heat. The Global Hypercolour
Hypercolor
Hypercolor was a line of clothing, mainly T-shirts and shorts, that changed color with heat.They were manufactured by Generra Sportswear Company of Seattle and marketed in the United States as Generra Hypercolor or Generra Hypergrafix and outside the US as Global Hypercolor...
brand of these was a common sight on the streets of the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
for a few years, but has since mostly disappeared. These were also very popular in the United States among teenagers in the late 1980s. A downside of color-change garments is that the dyes can easily be damaged, especially by washing
Laundry
Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
in warm water, or dye other clothes during washing.
At the turn of the 21st century, designing custom T-shirts online became more popular. Popular websites began to use digital printing (such as Direct to Garment or DTG printing) to allow customers to design their own T-shirts online with no minimum orders. In the beginning, DTG could not print well on dark garments; however, with the help of some online T-Shirt retailers, printer manufacturers such as T-Jet have all but perfected the process, providing consumers with many more printing options.
Expressive messages
Since the 1980s, T-shirts have flourished as a form of personal expressionEmotional expression
In psychology, emotional expression is observable verbal and nonverbal behaviour that communicates emotion. Emotional expression can occur with or without self-awareness...
.
Screen printed T-shirts have been a standard form of marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
for major consumer products, such as Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
and Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
, since the 1970s. However, since the 1990s, it has become common practice for companies of all sizes to produce T-shirts with their corporate logos or messages as part of their overall advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
campaigns. Since the late 1980s and especially the 1990s, T-shirts with prominent designer-name logos have become popular, especially with teenagers and young adults. These garments allow consumers to flaunt their taste for designer brands in an inexpensive way, in addition to being decorative. Examples of designer T-shirt branding include Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein
Calvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....
, FUBU
FUBU
FUBU is a clothing company. It includes casual wear, sports wear, a suit collection, eyewear, belts, and shoes for the African-American community in the sense of economic investment but not to be exclusively worn by African Americans...
, Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren is an American fashion designer and business executive; best known for his Polo Ralph Lauren clothing brand.-Early life:...
and The Gap. These examples also include representations of rock bands, among other obscure pop-culture references. Licensed T-shirts are also extremely popular. Movie and TV T-shirts can have images of the actors, logos, and funny quotes from the movie or TV show. Often, the most popular T-shirts are those that characters wore in the film itself (e.g., Bubba Gump from Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic comedy-drama romance film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Gary Sinise...
and Vote For Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite
Napoleon Dynamite
Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 comedy film co-written and directed by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess and stars Jon Heder as Napoleon Dynamite. The film was Jared Hess' first full-length feature and is partially adapted from his earlier short film, Peluca....
).
Designer Katharine Hamnett
Katharine Hamnett
Katharine E. Hamnett CBE is an English fashion designer best known for her political t-shirts and her ethical business philosophy. She graduated from the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design....
, in the early 1980s, pioneered outsize T-shirts with large-print slogans. The early first decade of the 21st century saw the renewed popularity of T-shirts with slogans and designs with a strong inclination to the humorous and/or ironic. The trend has only increased later in this decade, embraced by celebrities, such as Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
and Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton
Paris Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...
, and reflected back on them, too ('Team Aniston'). The political and social statements that T-shirts often display have become, since the first decade of the 21st century, one of the reasons that they have so deeply permeated different levels of culture and society. The statements also may be found to be offensive, shocking, or pornographic to some. Many different organizations have caught on to the statement-making trend, including chain and independent stores, websites, and schools.
A popular phrase on the front of T-shirts demonstrating T-shirts' popularity among tourists is the humorous phrase "I did _____ and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." Examples include "My parents went to Las Vegas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."
T-shirt exchange is an activity where people trade their T-shirts they are wearing.
Artists like Bill Beckley
Bill Beckley
Bill Beckley , an American narrative/conceptual artist.-Biography:Born in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, a small farming town in the Amish countryside, Bill Beckley attended college at Kutztown University from 1964 to 1968 and in 1970 received a Master of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art, Temple University...
, Glen Baldridge and Peter Klashorst
Peter Klashorst
Peter Klashorst is a Dutch painter, sculptor, and photographer.-Biography:Klashorst specializes in painting and photographing women. He also has a wife and children in Africa...
use T-shirts for their artistic expression.
Football shirts
Whilst not properly described as T shirts, Replica Football shirts, normally replicas of the sports shirts worn by athletes, are commonly found in the Football market, with increased popularity after the commercialization of football in the 1990s1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
. With the rise of advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
in the mid 20th century, sponsor
Sponsor
To sponsor something is to support an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. A sponsor is the individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor.-Definition:...
s' logos began to appear on the shirts, and replica strips were made available for fans to purchase, generating significant amounts of revenue for clubs.
Since the mid-1970s, Football shirts have been made of lightweight polyester
Polyester
Polyester is a category of polymers which contain the ester functional group in their main chain. Although there are many polyesters, the term "polyester" as a specific material most commonly refers to polyethylene terephthalate...
, although prior to this they were typically of a heavyweight cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
design.
In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, several clubs
Football team
A football team is the collective name given to a group of players selected together in the various team sports known as football.Such teams could be selected to play in an against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-star team or even selected as a...
have been accused of price fixing
Price fixing
Price fixing is an agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand...
, and Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
were in fact fined in 2003. The high prices, and the fact that new designs are brought out each season for many clubs, mean that shirts are often the subject of satire among football fans, but many still consider it an obligation to wear them. Many Newcastle United
Newcastle United F.C.
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, and has played at its current home ground, St James' Park, since the merger...
and Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
fans buy their clubs' black and white striped and red and white shirts, respectively. The prices have also led to fans buying fake
Fake
Fake means not real.Fake may also refer to:In music:* Fake , a Swedish synthpop band active in the 1980s*Fake?, a Japanese rock band* Fake , 2010 song by Ai featuring Namie Amuro...
shirts which are imported into the UK from Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Malaysia, and Far East Asia; many sellers on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
now indicate that their shirt are genuine.
World record
The current holder of the owner of the Guinness World Record for "Most T-shirts Worn at Once" with 247 t-shirts is T-shirt business owner Tom Rauen. The record was set in 1 hour and 45 minutes on November 11, 2011See also
- Concert T-shirt
- Football kit
- Inkjet transferInkjet transferInkjet transfer or Inkjet photo transfer is a technique to transfer a photograph or graphic, printed with an inkjet printer onto textiles, cups, CDs, glass and other surfaces....
- Long-sleeved T-shirtLong-sleeved T-shirtA long-sleeved shirt is a type of shirt, of a style and fabric similar to a T-shirt, although, of course, with long sleeves. Long-sleeved T-shirts first became popular in the 1970s as a thinner, more lightweight alternative to a sweatshirt...
- Polo shirt
- Printed T-shirtPrinted T-shirtA Printed T-shirt is a T-shirt bearing a design, image or lettering on it. Various types of printed T-shirts exist.-Concert T-shirt:A concert T-shirt is a T-shirt that is associated with a concert or a concert tour, usually rock or metal. Bands and musical groups often promote themselves by...
- Protest artProtest artProtest art is a broad term that refers to creative works that concern or are produced by activists and social movements. There are also contemporary and historical works and currents of thought that can be characterized in this way....
- Raglan sleeveRaglan sleeveA raglan sleeve is a type of sleeve whose distinguishing characteristic is to extend in one piece fully to the collar, leaving a diagonal seam from underarm to collarbone. It is popular in sports- and exercise wear, and named after FitzRoy James Henry Somerset, the 1st Baron Raglan, who is said to...
- ReplicaReplicaA replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance. An inverted replica complements the original by filling its gaps. It can be a copy used for historical purposes, such as being placed in a museum. Sometimes the original never existed. For example, Difference...
- Wet T-shirt contestWet T-shirt contestA wet T-shirt contest is an exhibitionistic beauty contest that typically features young women performing at a nightclub, bar, or resort. They have traditionally been a staple of college spring break celebrations at locations such as Daytona Beach and Cancún.Contest participants generally wear...