Article - Interesting Facts about T-Shirts – Plain and Branded
10 Jan 2018
Interesting Facts about T-Shirts – Plain and Branded
When next you don your favourite T-shirt, be it a smart, understated plain white garment carrying a designer label, or one which is branded with the logo and name of the sports team which you support passionately, give another thought to the now eternally popular casual top that you’re pulling over your head.
Most people are under the impression that T-shirts were invented somewhere in the middle of the second half of the 20th century. They aren’t aware that this once humble garment has equally humble beginnings, which date back considerably further.
Branding was only invented and applied much later – screen printing being the most popular, cost-effective method of doing so, followed by embroidery and various other techniques.
Men’s Underwear
Even fewer people know of the T-shirt’s origins or how it came to be known as such. Underwear worn in the 19th century consisted of a single, one-piece cotton garment with full length legs and sleeves, known as a union suit.
The union suit was cut in half, into two separate pieces – the top and bottoms. Subsequently, the undergarments were made as two pieces, with the top being long enough to tuck into the waist band of the bottoms, although either part could be worn without the other.
The T
T-shirts were so named because the body and sleeves of the jersey-knit cotton upper garment resembled the shape of the letter T when laid out flat. Modesty and social etiquette dictated that men’s upper bodies remained covered, so miners and dockyard workers would strip down to their cotton tops (undergarments) in an attempt to stave off heat when working in exceptionally hot conditions.
At some time after 1898, American sailors were given similar garments to wear under their uniforms, the precursor to becoming a stand-alone top. T-shirts were and are inexpensive, comfortable and easily laundered, undoubtedly valid reasons for their popularity, initially among men, but now including girls and women too.
T-Shirts Today
Everyone, from the most affluent amongst us to those who are lower income earners, owns and wears several T-shirts. Virtually no wardrobe is complete without these now ubiquitous upper body garments.
Branding
Branding has numerous purposes and the T is a perfect casual garment to customise thus. In the business world, branding garments in corporate colours, inclusive of the organisation’s name and logo, ensures that employees all display their common corporate identity and the company’s image. By the same token, customers and clients are able to identify company employees with ease.
Sports teams and school groups are easily identified as being on the same side, as it were. They visibly have a shared identity, an important factor in building and engendering team spirit – essential for goal achievement and cohesion.
XCO Sport for Your T-Shirt Solution
XCO Sport and XCO Group have some 25 years of experience and expertise in almost all types of typically branded goods. With warehouse space of 2100 square metres and a large showroom which occupies 600 square metres, we are well placed, well stocked and well equipped to provide our clients with a host of top-quality merchandise plus branding solutions, all at fair prices.
We seek to supply exactly what our customers want, from T-shirts to torches, coolers to corporate wear, and virtually anything in between, customisation and branding included.