In A World Where You Can Be Anything Be The Chitt Shirt

Spectratees T-shirt History 1A lifeguard from around the same time, with a one-piece “tank” bathing suit complete with belt. T-shirt history is an evolution from rudimentary sportswear and the slow separation of the shorts and the tank “vest” part of this swimsuit construction.The delicate Victorian sensibilities of this age dictated that collars should be starched, and stiff and, along with most everything else–suppressed. With this came the need to cover the body with layer upon layer of cloth to conceal any secondary sexual characteristic which might send “the wrong idea,” to the opposite sex. Ironically, it is in this early repression of the idea that men and women are sexual creatures that, this most famous undergarment starts to become both an object of fetishization as well as an immensely powerful symbol for sexuality.The T-shirt Joins the NavyWith Victorian undergarments stacking up as well as hiding out, it is tough to imagine how the grand-daddy of the modern T-shirt emerges from this laundry pile of propriety. The most likely, and most cited explanation, comes to us from the U. S. Navy, circa 1880. At the time, standard, able-bodied issue was a pair of bell-bottomed trousers, a flannel cotton undershirt and a jumper, worn on top. As an undergarment, cotton flannel was perfect for life on the ocean, as it prevented chaffing, wicked up sweat, kept its owner warm, and dried faster than anything else a sailor owned.

In A World Where You Can Be Anything Be The Chitt Shirt

American Farmer, C1930’s. The Tank-top had become a staple underwear item. French sailor C1930s, relaxing in “The Wife beater,” already the tank’s is a prominent piece of under-wear for many manual laborers. Sailors on parade 1942, the T-shirt was already a part of the fleet from 1913 onwards.Standard issue navy T-shirt, the original C1930sBut it isn’t the T-shirt that leaps out to declare itself “arrived” that is the critical point of this history. No sir, it is the development of a v-shaped neckline in the sailor’s jumper (worn above the cotton undershirt) which eventually gives the rudimentary cotton flannel undershirt its first, true peek out at the world. When the world looks back it finds a durable, cotton-flannel undergarment with two buttons astride a placket near the neck, revealing itself only when the tough tasks on deck required the crew to strip down for freedom of movement and to prevent their cleaner and smarter top-layers from grime.