It's not often that a whole new piece of clothing appears, which is what happened with the T shirt. The start of the trend which has seen underwear make it's way into the public domain.

Now the bra has come out into the open, knickers are gaining position on view, but the granddaddy of this inappropriate use of underwear is the T shirt.

Formerly the basic underwear of labourers in Europe, WW1 saw the US exposed to the phenomenon of the T shirt as European soldiers dealt with the heat by stripping off to their T shirts whilst US soldiers stifled in their woolen shirts.

By World War II the T shirt was a piece of durable underwear in the US. Afterwards it came to the fore through Marlon Brando in Cat on a hot tin roof and James Dean.

Once Hollywood got its hand on the T shirt then it's popularity soared until no one questions anymore where or how it is supposed to be worn.

The T shirt has proved a fantastic medium for slogans and designs and that is what concepttshirts is continuing by painting fine art on them.

And that is the history of T shirts.

T shirt as art
Every piece of clothing says something about the wearer, but none as much as the T shirt. When did it start to become a political piece?

(to be continued)

© 2004 conceptTshirts