T-shirts are often decorated with text and/or pictures. T-shirt fashions
include styles for men and women, and for all age groups, including baby,
youth and adult sizes.
T-shirts were originally worn as undershirts. This still occurs, but T-shirts
are now also frequently worn as the only piece of clothing on the top half
of the body (other than possibly a bra). T-shirts have also become a
medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable
combination of words, art and even photographs on display.
A T-shirt typically extends to the waist, although one fashion is for
"oversized" T-shirts, namely in modern hip hop fashion (a perfect
example of this can be clearly seen in the song, White Tee, by Dem
Franchize Boyz). A more recent trend in women's clothing involves tight-
fitting "cropped" T-shirts that are short enough to reveal the midriff.
Another popular trend is wearing a long sleeved shirt, then putting a
short sleeved shirt of a different color over the long sleeved shirt.
Since the late 1980s and especially the 1990s, T-shirts with prominent
designer-name logos have been popular, especially with teenagers and
young adults. These garments allowed consumers to flaunt their taste in
designer brands in an inexpensive way, in addition to being decorative.
Examples of designer T-shirt branding include Calvin Klein, FUBU, Ralph
Lauren, and The Gap.
Screen printed T-shirts have been a standard form of product advertising
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.
The early 2000's 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 story of the message tee embraces the modern phenomenon of
“personal branding” (indicating, in this case, the wearer’s sense of
humor), as well as a climate in which statements—political or personal—
are generally preferred to be catchy than true . Notable was the
popularity of political slogans and messages on T-shirts coinciding with
the presidential election.
The political and social statements that T-shirts often display have
become, since the 2000's, one of the reasons that they have so deeply
permeated different levels of culture and society. 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.
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