Within a year, t-shirt sales had reached $180m in America alone and a fashion phenomenon was born. Originally designed to be worn under military uniforms, the t-shirt stepped out and entered the mainstream as outerwear following Marlon Brando’s performance in A Streetcar Named Desire, smouldering in a white tee. The t-shirt has become our personal billboard, a means of expression we can slip on and an essential part of our wardrobes. These problems - nuclear weapons, world poverty and famine - are still around".With a new shop dedicated to band t-shirts opening in Liverpool, Getintothis’ Paul Evangelista takes a look at the history of the t-shirt and interviews the new owner.įor something so unassuming, the humble t-shirt, more than any other item of clothing, has become a cultural signifier, a chance to announce to the world which tribe you belong to, what you are into and even something of your life history and personal views. "What's tragic is that most of these messages are still relevant today. "A successful T-shirt has to make you think but then, crucially, you have to act," she says. So if you plan to get something off your chest, what's the best way to go about it? The last word must surely go to Hamnett. Mine are much more a bit of fun, a bit tongue-in-cheek and a way for the fashion industry to have a laugh at itself." "Hamnett's T-shirts were very much about an ethical message or a political message. Whereas Hamnett's had been in black and white, Holland's were in acid brights - "in your face, bright, quite brash, loud and attention-seeking", as he put it. High-street stores from Topshop to New Look rushed to produce copy-cat versions. They were modelled by his friend Agyness Deyn and worn by fellow designers Gareth Pugh and Deacon when they took their catwalk bows.
#Story behind frankie says relax shirt series
In 2006, he produced a series of tongue-in-cheek T-shirts aimed at the fashion industry: "Do Me Daily Christopher Bailey", "Cause Me Pain Hedi Slimane" and "Get Your Freak On Giles Deacon". The slogan's most recent catwalk incarnation came via Henry Holland. I'd been invited to No 10 and didn't want to go, but I realised it was a photo opportunity and I should grab it. Her Pershing T-shirt was "a bit of a practical joke, really. They're also a way of people aligning themselves to a cause. "Slogans work on so many different levels they're almost subliminal. "I wanted to put a really large message on T-shirts that could be read from 20 or 30ft away," she says now. Hamnett's T-shirts became cultural signposts to the times we lived in. Wham! wore a T-shirt with the slogan "Number One" - and later "Choose Life" Frankie Goes to Hollywood had "Frankie Says Relax". Hamnett's designs were copied all over the world. (The slogan referred to public opposition to the basing of US Pershing missiles in the UK at the tail end of the cold war.) Dressed in a "58% Don't Want Pershing" T-shirt, she was photographed shaking hands with the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher at a Downing Street reception for London fashion week designers in 1984. In the 80s, slogan T-shirts reached saturation point because of one woman: Katharine Hamnett. "The DIY ethos meant that many people made them at home." "Westwood made the aesthetic available to a lot of people in the 70s," says Sonnet Stanfill, fashion curator of the V&A. McLaren called it "the ultimate punk-rock T-shirt". In the 70s, shock tactics prevailed: Vivienne Westwood and her partner Malcolm McLaren made political T-shirts to sell in their shop, SEX, and the most popular design featured a swastika and an inverted crucifix under the word "Destroy". Its Disney designs, which included images of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, were quickly snapped up. The first slogan T-shirts were sold by Mr Freedom in the 60s, a shop on London's Kings Road set up by Tommy Roberts and Trevor Myles. Of course, the T-shirt has long been a means of telling the world what we care about.
Witness Katie Price last week in a T-shirt that read: "Save a horse, ride a cowboy." One can only hazard a guess at what Peter Andre might have got from that. But trends in T-shirts do change, and right now, it's all about the message. Like jeans and the little black dress, the T-shirt is a fashion item that has gone beyond fashion.
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