Hey kids, it's that time again..
oh yes..the one time out of the month where i actually update this thing.
I'm sorry it's been so long..i know how much you all miss my retarded entries.
but before i start with a story..i just had to share this with you all.
Maybe it's just me, but i thought this was so fucking funny. I started clapping to myself as I was laughing.
Moving on...
My story comes out of a thought i had whilst doing laundry.
I threw my clothes in the dryer..came back 70 minutes later to realize i had severely shrunk one of my t-shirts to the size of a children's extra small. This was a great thing with the exception that i could never wear this ever again to church or in the presence of my dad or grandparents.
When i think of one item of clothing that is by far the most comfortable but still cute enough to wear in public..it has to be a t-shirt in it's smallest form. probably the most in-depth perspective i've ever had on a t-shirt at the time.
I sat there for like 10 minutes before asking my roommate if she had any thoughts on how the t-shirt came to be. She had none.
In each decade, there's a distinct, or at least stereotypical style in which people dressed. Throughout them, the style of the t-shirt was still heavily fashioned. I wondered what made this item of clothing in particular so special that it never had an expiration date as far as when it was no longer cool to wear.
Which brings me to my newly acquired knowledge on the whole deal...
(Turns out the story behind my tiny t-shirt has a more interesting history than i had imagined..)
the original origin of the t-shirt is mixed..some say it came from the term 'tea shirt' which were shirts worn under other shirts to prevent dock hands from getting their skin irritated by the tea leaves that they removed from the ships...another story was that it's name came from the T shape pf the shirt.
either way...facts can at least prove that T-shirts started off as mere undergarments issued to troops in World War I for modesty sake.
taken from an article from inthefray.com:
"Most historians agree that the T-shirt as we know it began life as an undergarment issued to troops in World War I. Men used it for the sake of modesty.It was emblematic of the laboring man.
Then Brando rode into town on his Triumph motorbike, decked out in black leather jackets, battered jeans, and a tight-fitting white T-shirt. Things were never the same. The 1953 film "The Wild One" became a sensation among the young men and women of the newly prosperous, post-World War II America, which had emerged from the travails of the Depression and into the beginnings of a consumer society.
Rebellious teenagers found themselves modeling after Brando's style. The T-shirt quickly became associated with the discontented young punk from the wrong side of the tracks. And fashion, which had always been about dressing up to aristocratic tastes, now meant dressing down. The T-shirt was the way for the young followers of Brando and James Dean to distinguish themselves from their parents and from those "nice boys" with varsity-letter aspirations. It represented the new ideal of unkempt clothes, restless thoughts, and potent sexuality.
But the real revolution came in the sixties. Not only did women start wearing T-shirts, but thanks to the invention of plastisol, T-shirts found their voice--at a time when everyone seemed to have something to say, from "Peace" to "Keep On Truckin'." And in the decade of the sexual revolution, it was surely no coincidence that the screen-printed words reliably drew other eyes to the chest. Unlike good, obedient children, T-shirts talked back--saying, among other things, "Go ahead and stare."
The authors of The Great American T-Shirt write, "It was a very public way to tell the older generation that you didn’t conform to their suit-and-tie way of life."
In the seventies, T-shirts became even grittier. Punks and hipsters were dropping out of mainstream society. No longer caring to argue their causes, they instead thumbed their noses at the establishment, slashing their shirts to match their shredded blue jeans. Two decades earlier, T-shirts had been used for the sake of modesty; in the seventies, they were anti-modest, brashly proclaiming "Nuke the Whales" or "Sex Pistols" under red Mohawks. They exchanged the clean-cut earnestness of anti-war mottos for snide statements like "Only slobs wear T-shirts."
But by then, T-shirts had become so popular they did not have to make excuses for their existence. Belonging to no one group, they were perennials that could adapt to new needs and desires; as quickly as the slogans changed, they would change, too. And so as the eighties unfolded, T-shirts, like so many other things, turned corporate. The garment associated with first the working class and then the counter culture suddenly knew silk-screened fashion labels and insignias. The humble T-shirt danced into the limelight of haute couture. Faster than you can say, "Give peace a chance," what looked like your $2 Hanes was selling for $26--all because of four new letters, "DKNY."
crazyyy baby.
This tid bit of information probably won't get you much further in life..but i thought it was interesting how my shallow thought about a skimpy t-shirt could lead to a semi educational look on fashion and it's role in society throughout different movements and decades.
ps. if you're ever on Jeopardy and the million dollar question is in regards to this...you owe me big time ;)
I'm sorry it's been so long..i know how much you all miss my retarded entries.
but before i start with a story..i just had to share this with you all.
Maybe it's just me, but i thought this was so fucking funny. I started clapping to myself as I was laughing.
Moving on...
My story comes out of a thought i had whilst doing laundry.
I threw my clothes in the dryer..came back 70 minutes later to realize i had severely shrunk one of my t-shirts to the size of a children's extra small. This was a great thing with the exception that i could never wear this ever again to church or in the presence of my dad or grandparents.
When i think of one item of clothing that is by far the most comfortable but still cute enough to wear in public..it has to be a t-shirt in it's smallest form. probably the most in-depth perspective i've ever had on a t-shirt at the time.
I sat there for like 10 minutes before asking my roommate if she had any thoughts on how the t-shirt came to be. She had none.
In each decade, there's a distinct, or at least stereotypical style in which people dressed. Throughout them, the style of the t-shirt was still heavily fashioned. I wondered what made this item of clothing in particular so special that it never had an expiration date as far as when it was no longer cool to wear.
Which brings me to my newly acquired knowledge on the whole deal...
(Turns out the story behind my tiny t-shirt has a more interesting history than i had imagined..)
the original origin of the t-shirt is mixed..some say it came from the term 'tea shirt' which were shirts worn under other shirts to prevent dock hands from getting their skin irritated by the tea leaves that they removed from the ships...another story was that it's name came from the T shape pf the shirt.
either way...facts can at least prove that T-shirts started off as mere undergarments issued to troops in World War I for modesty sake.
taken from an article from inthefray.com:
"Most historians agree that the T-shirt as we know it began life as an undergarment issued to troops in World War I. Men used it for the sake of modesty.It was emblematic of the laboring man.
Then Brando rode into town on his Triumph motorbike, decked out in black leather jackets, battered jeans, and a tight-fitting white T-shirt. Things were never the same. The 1953 film "The Wild One" became a sensation among the young men and women of the newly prosperous, post-World War II America, which had emerged from the travails of the Depression and into the beginnings of a consumer society.
Rebellious teenagers found themselves modeling after Brando's style. The T-shirt quickly became associated with the discontented young punk from the wrong side of the tracks. And fashion, which had always been about dressing up to aristocratic tastes, now meant dressing down. The T-shirt was the way for the young followers of Brando and James Dean to distinguish themselves from their parents and from those "nice boys" with varsity-letter aspirations. It represented the new ideal of unkempt clothes, restless thoughts, and potent sexuality.
But the real revolution came in the sixties. Not only did women start wearing T-shirts, but thanks to the invention of plastisol, T-shirts found their voice--at a time when everyone seemed to have something to say, from "Peace" to "Keep On Truckin'." And in the decade of the sexual revolution, it was surely no coincidence that the screen-printed words reliably drew other eyes to the chest. Unlike good, obedient children, T-shirts talked back--saying, among other things, "Go ahead and stare."
The authors of The Great American T-Shirt write, "It was a very public way to tell the older generation that you didn’t conform to their suit-and-tie way of life."
In the seventies, T-shirts became even grittier. Punks and hipsters were dropping out of mainstream society. No longer caring to argue their causes, they instead thumbed their noses at the establishment, slashing their shirts to match their shredded blue jeans. Two decades earlier, T-shirts had been used for the sake of modesty; in the seventies, they were anti-modest, brashly proclaiming "Nuke the Whales" or "Sex Pistols" under red Mohawks. They exchanged the clean-cut earnestness of anti-war mottos for snide statements like "Only slobs wear T-shirts."
But by then, T-shirts had become so popular they did not have to make excuses for their existence. Belonging to no one group, they were perennials that could adapt to new needs and desires; as quickly as the slogans changed, they would change, too. And so as the eighties unfolded, T-shirts, like so many other things, turned corporate. The garment associated with first the working class and then the counter culture suddenly knew silk-screened fashion labels and insignias. The humble T-shirt danced into the limelight of haute couture. Faster than you can say, "Give peace a chance," what looked like your $2 Hanes was selling for $26--all because of four new letters, "DKNY."
crazyyy baby.
This tid bit of information probably won't get you much further in life..but i thought it was interesting how my shallow thought about a skimpy t-shirt could lead to a semi educational look on fashion and it's role in society throughout different movements and decades.
ps. if you're ever on Jeopardy and the million dollar question is in regards to this...you owe me big time ;)