Down to a T

Karen Walker in her iconic pearl necklace t-shirt. Picture / Mark Smith

Just as Paris Hilton is the new Marilyn Monroe and white is next summer's black, so T-shirts are the new designer jeans.

Jeans were once a humble piece of work-wear for labours in the field, hard-riding cowboys and tough-talking convicts. Then fashion got hold of them and after a stint as symbols of the anti-establishment they became a wardrobe staple. Pretty soon the average follower of fashion couldn't wear just any old pair of jeans, they had to have the latest, priciest pair of the most interesting or flattering design.

The same thing has happened to the lowly T-shirt, which started out as underwear. Naval underwear.

Probably the first T-shirt came along when traditional men's underwear - as in those old fashioned all-in-one romper suits that buttoned up the front - were split in half by the Hanes Knitting Company in 1901 (this is Hanes, the T-shirt and knicker manufacturer as we know it today).

But the real thing turned up 12 years later when the US Navy decided their sailors V-neck underwear was exposing too much masculine booty, including sailor's chest hair. So they made the collars round - hence the term crew neck - and, for comfort's sake, put sleeves on - giving them a T-shape.

A few decades later movie audiences would be scandalised when actors like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause and musicians such as Elvis Presley began to expose their muscular silhouettes, strutting around in what was then considered boy's lingerie.

World War II saw the first slogans arrive on T-shirts as well as the public growing accustomed to T-shirts worn as outerwear. The Smithsonian Institution in the United States claims to have the oldest printed custom T-shirt. It says Dew-It with Dewey, and dates back to New York Governor's Thomas Dewey's presidential campaign in 1948.

By the 1950s the working-man's underwear was becoming a symbol of teenage rebellion. The combination of 60s-era nonconformity and the fact you could print slogans like Make Love, Not War and peace symbols on your top cemented that. Women were also wearing them and music promoters began to put their bands on T-shirts.

This once unassuming former-piece-of-underwear has reflected the attitudes and cultural obsessions of every decade since.

This century the T-shirt has become increasingly design and fashion-conscious and the cut and quality more important.

You can spend anything from $40 to $100 on well-made T-shirts in deliciously rich, soft cottons from brands like Petit Bateau or Three Dots.

Is there a difference that's worth paying for? Absolutely, says Chris Cherry, designer at Workshop clothing, who makes a pricier, higher quality T-shirt.

Just as there's a big difference between a bed-sheet made from polycotton and one made of high yarn-count Egyptian cotton, so there is a big difference between the cotton used to make a designer T and an average mass-produced shirt.

Then there's fit. Every season, high-fashion designers revisit the design of their T-shirts because it's not as simple as it looks.

Anyone who's ever tried on your average mass-produced T-shirt and then compared that to the fit of a pricier top knows what a difference design can make in terms of fit, drape and comfort. "We have basic blocks to cut from but we review them all the time," Cherry says. "We might get one of the models to try them on and then say the shoulders need to come in, the neckline should be slightly different, and so on." He points out that designer T-shirts may go through a variety of different manufacturing processes.

"For instance, our T-shirts go through six or seven processes so that they feel like your favourite old T-shirt when you put it on."

Then there are the finishing touches. Workshop makes sure that whatever is printed on their T-shirts is unique to them. This has meant collaborations with local artists, such as like John Reynolds.

Designers including Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester, Little Brother and Zambesi, do similar things when they're producing T-shirts to be sold at premium prices.

"T-shirts are big business," Cherry says. "I think that might be because you can make an artful statement by wearing one, but it's not too expensive."

Which brings us to the other direction in which the T-shirt has gone - the message T-shirt.

Just before the turn of the century, the top with the slogan - particularly humorous ones - started making a comeback.

It's a trend that's been embraced by celebrities and the public alike, with varying degrees of success - that is, some are funny, others are just silly. Think of the "Free Winona" T-shirts as worn by convicted shoplifting actress Winona Ryder, Desperate Housewife star Eva Longoria in an "I'll Have Your Baby Brad" top, or Tori Spelling's "My Dog Can Beat Up Paris Hilton's Dog".

Or pop down to your local teen fashion store - the mallrat's favourite shop Supre has a whole wall of slogan T-shirts.