The Great American T-Shirt

Like that other American fashion staple, blue jeans, the T-shirt has modest origins for an item that has climbed the ranks all the way to the elite runways of Paris. Once relegated to underwear status, the tee evolved into a statement piece as recently as the 1950s, when rebels like James Dean and Marlon Brando shocked audiences by wearing them sans overshirts. In the ’60s, casual dressing began to flourish and tie-dying became trendy. Later, California's famous Monster Company started slapping marijuana leaves and the like on T-shirts, and the materialism of the ’80s ushered in must-have designer-logo-shirt mania. During the ’90s, you couldn’t walk through a mall without bumping into a baby tee (thanks, Alicia Silverstone). Nowadays, mass-market shirt hawkers like Urban Outfitters and American Apparel are nearly as ubiquitous as Starbucks. For all of Dov Charney’s sexual shenanigans, you can’t deny the impact his high-quality fabric and slender cuts have made on our society. Gone are the days of Beefy T's: Anything less than a soft, pre-broken-in cotton blend is unacceptable by today’s standards.

If handbag design is the fashion vocation du jour of celebrity socialites, T-shirt designing now stands as a noble profession for the hipster. Veraldi, a downtown kind of stylist, turned her hobby of making shirts for her friends into a profitable business. Dave Denis also started by making a shirt for a friend, and now collaborates with artists like DFA and photographer Glynnis McDaris to create a glamorous urban-lifestyle brand out of his subversive designs. Even some outside the fashion industry are getting in on the action: Photographers like Mark the Cobrasnake and Todd Selby (who partners with Urban Outfitters designer Obesity and Speed) sell T-shirts online to promote their businesses. 

Online social networking also provides the perfect forum for independent T-shirt designers. Websites like Threadless and Shirt.Woot!’s The Derby make it a democratic art form with open calls for submissions that are subject to popular vote. A truly successful shirt design or slogan, no matter how simple in nature, can alter lives. Just ask Barnaby Harris, the dude who created the whole “fuck yoga” tee craze. Even though he’s admitted he made it as a joke for his yoga-devoted ex-wife, after Carrie sported it on Sex and the City, Harris parlayed his 15 minutes of fame into a line that now includes snowboards emblazoned with the provocative mantra. 
   

Despite the glut of T-shirt entrepreneurs, Veraldi insists there's plenty of room for fledgling designers. Her advice for them? “Create what feels right and don’t be overly concerned with the response,” she says. “If it’s meant to take off, it will.” Denis disagrees (“it’s overtly saturated”), but he does acknowledge that the recession will help weed out the “crap.” One thing’s for certain: Whether you fly on the couture high end or keep it bargain-basement style, it’s easy to upgrade from your tattered old Johnny Cash shirt.