The T-Shirt

T-SHIRT I-D

#1 : HISTORY OF ITS ORIGINS

“T-shirts were first issued by the U.S Navy as undergarments sometime between the 1898 Spanish-American War and 1913. »

Fashionpedia, Fashionary, Feb 2017

#2 : PRODUCT DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS

“A T-shirt, or tee shirt, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a crew neck, which lacks a collar. T-shirts are generally made of a stretchy, light and inexpensive fabric and are easy to clean.Typically made of cotton textile in a stockinette or jersey knit, it has a distinctively pliable texture compared to shirts made of woven cloth.”

Wikipedia

#3 : HISTORY OF ITS NAME

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.”

Real Thread, https://www.realthread.com/blog/

#4 : WHAT MADE IT POPULAR

« By the time that Hollywood’s rising method actors began donning white T-shirts to signal their character’s rebelliousness — Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951), Marlon Brando in A Streetcar named Desire (1951) and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) — the T-shirt officially entered the man’s wardrobe as a garment that could be worn on its own outside of the workplace. It would take another 60 years or so for the T-shirt to be accepted as office attire, though. »

Vogue, ‘Everything to know about the history of the T-shirt’ by Maud Bass-Krueger, 24/05/19

From a blank canvas to a powerful messaging platform

« By the early 60s in America, improvements and innovations in printing technology, such as the proliferation of the silkscreen method popularised by Andy Warhol, as well as an overall surge in popularity, had firmly entrenched the graphic T-shirt in not only the fashion world, but also popular culture as a whole. »

BBC, ‘The T-shirt: A rebel with a cause’ by Joobin Bekhrad, 02/02/18

#5 : A CLASSIC : “I ♥ NY” T-SHIRT

There is an interesting fact behind the iconic “I ♥ NY” t-shirts. They were designed to promote tourism in 1977. It’s one of the most worn tees of all time. This famous design was created on a napkin by Milton Glaser. However, it appeared on a tee and made it famous all over the world.

DESIGN HILL, ’90 Most iconic T-Shirts ever made’ by Alice Jackson, 01/10/18

The Hoodie

The hoodie is a particularly interesting contemporary icon.

Born (in its modern shape) to keep workers warm and protected from the elements, it has permeated many (street) subcultures, been sported by Silicon Valley billionaires in early 2010s, and became a wardrobe staple, resisting to fashion taste changes over time. While becoming a mainstream fashion item, hoodies’ history is interwoven with a culture of defiance.

It now evokes strong social, economic and political sentiments, beyond mere style.

Kanye once said it best : « sweatshirts are fucking important. »

HOODIE I-D

#1 : HISTORY OF ITS (MODERN) ORIGINS

The hooded sweatshirt appeared in the 1930s. This utilitarian garment was originally designed for US workers to keep warm in cold upstate New York warehouses. It was produced in its modern style -with drawstring and kangaroo pocket- by a US company, called Knickerbocker Knitting Company (founded in 1919), which would later become Champion. They created the reverse weave hoodie. Besides laborers, it was then used in sports kits for  physical education classes, and notably for the US military training.

#2 : PRODUCT DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS

Hood·ie- noun.

A hoodie (also called a hooded sweatshirt or hoody) is a sweatshirt with a hood. They often include a muff sewn onto the lower front, a hood, and (usually) a drawstring to adjust the hood opening, and may have a vertical zipper down the center similar to a windbreaker style jacket.

Source : Vêtements SS/16’s Definition Hoodie

#3 : HISTORY OF ITS NAME

Hoodie means « Hooded Sweatshirt ».  The term was first used during the 1990s.  

The word “hood” derives from the Anglo-Saxon word “höd” which has the same root as the word “hat.” (source : Etymonline)

#4 : WHAT MADE IT POPULAR

« The hoodie made the leap from practicality to personal style when athletes started to give their track gear to their girlfriends to wear. Just as they are today, high schools were a breeding ground for popular fashion, and soon sportswear caught on as a fashionable style. » (source Rollingstone)

Becoming a street culture attire : from sport to hip-hop culture

« It was in the 1970s when the hoodie began its heyday. Hip-hop was taking off in the urban centres of the United States, while American universities began plastering their logos and crests on sweatshirts, and the 1976 film Rocky famously saw the titular working-class hero jogging up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in his iconic grey hooded jumper. » (source Frank § Oak)

« Eric “Deal” Felisbret, one of the early graffiti writers, recalls the hoodie popping up on the scene around 1974 or 1975. “The people that wore them were all people who were sort of looked up to, in the context of the street,” recalls Deal, who says graffiti writers used the hoodie to keep a low profile, and break-dancers wore it “to keep their bodies warm before they hit the floor.” » (source Rollingstone)

The modern anti establishment fashion standard : from skateparks to Silicon Valley

« In the early Eighties, the dearth of skateparks forced skaters to adapt and skate wherever they could, legal or not. “By being a skater, you were sneaking around and trying to get into parking garages and the hood up was this way of masking your identity,” says author and skateboarder Jocko Weyland.

« This outlaw attitude grew into a source of pride, and the skate magazine Thrasher (founded in 1981) reinforced it, printing tales of rebellion and writing in a subversive tone. Skaters rejected the mainstream culture that had rejected them. They were outsiders, and they liked it. » (source Rollingstone)

« In the 2010s, “hoodies called to mind Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg. In this context, the hoodie came across as irreverent and cool. It symbolized the nerds winning; it represented the power of intelligence over flash. Substance over surface.” » (source Observing Leslie)

#5 : A SYMBOL OF RACIAL JUSTICE

In March 2016, Troy Patterson wrote those lines in the New York Times :

“On the street, a black guy in a hoodie is just another of the many millions of men and boys dressed in the practical gear of an easygoing era. Or he should be. This is less an analysis than a wish. »

Troy Patterson, ‘The politics of the hoodie’ in The New York Times

4 years before, on the night of February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American high school student was shot dead. The teenage boy was paying a visit to his relatives who were living in a gated community. The young man was murdered by the neighbourhood watch coordinator, who had called the police that night, arguing that “he spotted Mr. Martin walking in the rain with his sweatshirt’s hood up and grew suspicious.” (source The New York Times)

Trayvon Martin’s slaying triggered strong reactions and Million Hoodie Marches and other protests took place throughout the country. 

“In calling these associations to mind, the hoodie becomes infused with racial conflict, injustice, and tragedy. It gets tangled into cultural impressions of black masculinity—prejudiced, unfair attitudes that go back for centuries, the recalling of which make us rightly uncomfortable”. (source : Observing Leslie)

This apparent uncontrollable fear as a result of being unable to read facial expressions of people with hoods up, and therefore not being able to assess these people’s intentions is interesting to be reconsidered today that we are all wearing masks covering our faces.