prêt-à-porter

Considering that at this juncture concerts and other venues make more money off of t-shirts than album sales and merchandising more than supplements a lot of media properties as well as the messaging and statement that individuals are eager and willing to present, we appreciated and enjoyed indulging in this history of what was originally called the “crew-neck” from its first literary citation to the advent of mass-produced screen-printing that really propelled the shirt has a vehicle for label and personal branding.
That first literary mention was in 1920 with the debut novel of F Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise with a mention of the article of clothing among his equipage for university—not that that moment in a book about traumatic emotions cushioned by alcohol and love twisted by status-seeking particularly launched or informs the career of the t-shirt as a mode of expression. Notably, one of the earliest examples of the garment—perhaps some might consider it a uniform and not brandishing a logo—in film comes nineteen years later with the release of The Wizard of Oz, where the attendants of the Wash & Brushup Company of Emerald City sport identical green t-shirts with “Oz” printed on them.