
Got a favorite t-shirt? What makes it special? Did you get it at a rock concert; have it made to promote your business; select it for the graphics? All fashion tells a story, but none so explicitly as the t-shirt. From selections that express our feelings about ourselves (“I Love Me”) to those that reveal opinions about our partners (“I Love My Hubby”, “I’m With Stupid”) to ones that express our passion for life itself (“Life is a Beach”, “Life Sucks”, “Life is Good”), t-shirt choices allow us to play with alternate identities without making a serious commitment to them.
Our emotional response to the pop culture images, icons, and ideologies expressed on our t-shirts, is such that these ordinary objects of daily living—these garments that we have lived with, slept in, laundered, borrowed, loaned, traded, and handed down—mean more to us than we have realized. For many of us, this humble article of clothing that we have worn with a view to making an impact on our world; has in fact, made its greatest impression on ourselves.
T-shirts; a HIStory and HERitage of Pop Culture looks at t-shirts through the eyes of a fashion historian, giving them their due as a definitive form of dress, reflective of contemporary pop culture.