A T-shirt (T shirt or tee) is a style of shirt. A T-shirt's defining characteristic is the T shape made with the body and sleeves. It is normally associated with short sleeves, a round neck line, and no collar. However, it may also include long sleeves, buttons, collars, or v-necks.

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. The majority of modern T-shirts have a body that is made from a continuously woven tube, so the torso has no side seams. This is accomplished with special weaving machines called circular looms, which produce seamless fabric for tube tops, stockings, and the like. Conventional stitching is used for the waist band, neck band, sleeves and to close the shoulders. The manufacture of T-shirts has become highly automated, and may include fabric cutting by laser or water jet.

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. US Merchant Marine sailor in 1944

T-shirts, as a slip-on garment without buttons, originally became popular in tthe 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, it 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.

World War II to 1950s:- Following World War II, 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.

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US Engineers and medics wearing T-shirts in 1951, during the Korean War

Trends:

T-shirts were originally worn as undershirts. Now T-shirts are worn frequently as the only piece of clothing 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 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". T-shirts that are tight to the body are called fitted, tailored or "baby doll" t-shirts.

Example of novelty printed t-shirt circa 1975

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A T-shirt with a protest art message on it in the mid-2000s

Decoration:

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 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-dyeing and screen-printing on the basic T-shirt and the T-shirt became a medium for wearable art, commercial advertising, souvenir messages and protest art messages. 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. 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.[4] 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.[5]

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"[6] logo, and Milton Glaser's iconic "I ♥ N Y” design. In the mid-1980s, the white T-shirt became fashionable after the actor Don Johnson wore it with an Armani suit in Miami Vice.

Expressive messages:

Since the 1980s, T-shirts have flourished as a form of personal expression.[3]

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, American Apparel 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.[citation needed] 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.

T-shirts with bold slogans were popular in the UK in the 1980s

Teenagers at a Los Angeles high school, 1974. All are wearing T-shirts; the one on the far left has a hand- written slogan.

Screen printing:

The most common form of commercial T-shirt decoration is screen-printing. In screen-printing, a design is separated into individual colors. Plastisol or water based inks 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. In 1959, plastisol, a more durable and stretchable ink, was invented, allowing much more variety in T-shirt designs.

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 printers 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, thermo chromatic 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.

There are various trend of t shirt, some types are given below:

Printed T-shirt: A 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 creating and selling or giving away T-shirts at their shows, tours, and events. A concert T-shirt typically contains silk screened graphics of the name, logo, or image of a musical performer. One popular graphic on the rear of the T-shirts is a listing of information about the band's current tour, including tour cities (sometimes specifying venues) and corresponding dates.[1]

One of the most popular colors for concert T-shirts is a flat black. Fans purchase or obtain these shirts to wear to future concerts, often with jeans, dark colored trousers or skirts. Fans may wear the shirt of one band to a concert of another to show their taste in a particular type of music or loyalty to another band or type of music.

Tourist T-Shirt: A tourist T-shirt (or souvenir T-shirt) is a shirt associated with travel or a holiday. In recent years T-shirts have become a popular gift or souvenir no matter which country or city the person has gone to. Tourist T-shirt designs are typically screen printed with pictures and words directly associated with a particular city, country or culture. The T-shirts express or show something about the place or places a person has been. Tourist T-shirts are usually an inexpensive souvenir or piece of clothing thus the reason for becoming a popular shopping item during overseas travel.

Course T-Shirt: A Course T-shirt is a printed T-shirt with a military unit's insignia on it, printed up as a souvenir of attending and/or graduating a course of instruction.[4] Printed shirts bearing unit insignia (only) date back to at least the Second World War. [5] Course t-shirts were in the news internationally after Israeli soldiers were discovered to be wearing t-shirts with anti-Palestinian cartoons on them. In particular, one version showed a pregnant woman in the sights of a sniper

rifle, with the slogan "one shot, two kills."[6] "The T-shirts, ordered by troops to mark the end of basic training and other military courses, were worn by a number of enlisted men in different units, the daily Haaretz newspaper reported. They were not made or sanctioned by the military." Another design depicted a Palestinian child and had the slogan "The smaller they are, the harder it is.

Art T-Shirt: Several contemporary artists use T-shirt as a canvas for their work. Art T-shirts can also be mass-produced with screen printing. Famous artists to have released T-shirts are Keith Haring, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst, and KAWS.

Merchandise T-Shirt: A merchandise t-shirt is a shirt associated with a brand or trademark. It is common to see famous bands, musicians, sports teams and TV characters being printed on t-shirts for the retail clothing trade in order drive additional revenue. Proprietors of brands and trademarks can licences to distributors to distribute t-shirts that bear their brand or trademark for retail purposes as well.

Long-sleeved T-shirt: A long-sleeved T-shirt also known as an M-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. A long-sleeved t-shirt is sometimes worn underneath a short-sleeved shirt for warmth, typically in the fall and winter.

Although technically it could be considered a contradiction in terms, the term "long-sleeved t-shirt" has fallen into common usage.

Polo shirt: A polo shirt, also known as a golf shirt and tennis shirt, is a T-shaped shirt with a collar, a placket with typically two or three buttons, and an optional pocket. Polo shirts are usually made of knitted cloth (rather than woven cloth), usually piqué cotton or, less commonly, silk, merino wool, or synthetic fibers.

History of the tennis shirt: In the 19th and early 20th centuries, tennis players ordinarily wore "tennis whites" consisting of long-sleeved white button-up shirts (worn with the sleeves rolled up), flannel trousers, and ties.[1][2][3] This attire presented problems for ease of play and comfort.[2]

René Lacoste, the French seven-time Grand Slam tennis champion, decided that the stiff tennis attire was too cumbersome and uncomfortable.[2] He designed a white, short-sleeved, loosely-knit piqué cotton (he called the cotton weave jersey petit piqué) shirt with an unstarched, flat, protruding collar, a buttoned placket, and a longer shirt-tail in back than in front (known today as a "tennis tail"; see below), which he first wore at the 1926 U.S. Open championship. Beginning in 1927, Lacoste placed a crocodile emblem on the left breast of his shirts, as the American press had begun to refer to him as "The Crocodile", a nickname which he embraced.

Lacoste's design mitigated the problems that traditional tennis attire created:

the short, cuffed sleeves solved the tendency of long sleeves to roll down the soft collar could be loosened easily by unbuttoning the placket the piqué collar could be worn upturned to block the sun from the neck the jersey knit piqué cotton breathed and was more durable. the "tennis tail" prevented the shirt from pulling out of the wearer's trousers

or shorts

In 1933, after retiring from professional tennis, Lacoste teamed up with André Gillier, a friend who was a clothing merchandiser, to market that shirt in Europe and North America.[1][2][4] Together, they formed the company Chemise Lacoste, and began selling their shirts, which included the small embroidered crocodile logo on the left breast.

Other uses: Since 1933, the tennis shirt has become so popular that it has become one of the standard categories of clothing. Virtually every major clothier makes some version or variation of Lacoste's tennis shirt. It is today worn by both men and women in numerous non-athletic contexts.

Notably, tennis shirts are worn by many semi-professional and retail workers in settings where T-shirts are not acceptable, but formal business attire is not required. In contemporary Western fashion, tennis shirts are considered more casual than woven button-front shirts while still being slightly dressy.

It is also a favored shirt for those working outside, such as groundskeepers and maintenance workers, due to its ruggedness and style. During the 1990s, the tennis shirt became the standard informal business attire for the high-tech industry and then spread to other industries (see business casual). A form of tennis shirt (often

prominently branded with the company name and logo) is a common element of a uniform for retail companies.

In many schools that require students to wear uniforms, especially junior schools, tennis shirts are part of a compulsory uniform for both boys and girls.

The tennis shirt continues to have wide use in athletics, including non-athletes associated with sports in their employment, such as caddies and sports announcers.

Over the years the polo shirt has become a favorite giveaway in many corporate events, and is a fashion style that can be worn with jeans, shorts and slacks.

design Verietion on sleeves and neck:

Raglan sleeve: A 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 have worn this style of coat after the loss of his arm in the Battle of Waterloo.