There is probably no piece of clothing we own in greater numbers than the white T-shirt. It is the thing we reach for without thinking, the one that somehow works when nothing else does. But it was not always meant to be seen.
The Victoria and Albert Museum traces the T-shirt back to the undershirts worn by workers and sailors in the nineteenth century. It was practical, washable, and comfortable. The U.S. Navy later adopted the white T-shirt as part of its uniform, helping move it from underwear into everyday clothing.
Its next transformation happened on screen. Gene Kelly wore one in Anchors Aweigh in 1945, but it was Marlon Brando’s appearance in A Streetcar Named Desire six years later that really changed how the garment was perceived. His tight, sweat-dampened T-shirt had little to do with the modest undershirt it had once been. James Dean would soon give it another meaning in Rebel Without a Cause: suddenly the white T-shirt looked cool.
The V&A considers its transition from underwear to outerwear one of the garment’s defining moments. It kept changing as the people wearing it did. It became associated with artists, musicians, punks, skaters and political movements, while designers eventually began treating it as something worthy of the runway. What makes the T-shirt interesting is that it never stopped being basic while accumulating all of these meanings around it.
Maybe that is exactly why it has lasted. There isn’t a particular attitude required to wear one. It can be careless or polished, masculine or feminine, worn with jeans or underneath a suit. It changes depending on who puts it on.
The white T-shirt became a cultural symbol without trying to become one. And after all these years, it might still be the closest thing we have to a universal uniform.
Image credit: Photographer unknown; ‘James Dean BTS, Rebel Without a Cause‘, 1955