The T-shirt was easily fitted, easily cleaned, and inexpensive; for these reasons, it became the shirt of choice for young boys. Boys' shirts were made in various colors and patterns. The word T-shirt became part of American English by the 1920s, and appeared in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.[4]
By the Great Depression, the T-shirt was often the default garment to be worn when doing farm or ranch chores, as well as other times when modesty called for a torso covering but conditions called for lightweight fabrics.[5][page needed] Following World War II, it was worn by Navy men as undergarments; gradually, veterans could be seen wearing their uniform trousers with their T-shirts as casual clothing. The shirts became even more popular in the 1950s after Marlon Brando wore one in A Streetcar Named Desire, and they finally achieved status as fashionable, stand-alone, outerwear garments.[6] Often boys wore them while doing chores and playing outside, eventually opening up the idea of wearing them as general-purpose casual clothing.
Printed T-shirts were in limited use by 1942 when an Air Corps Gunnery School T-shirt appeared on the cover of Life magazine.[7] In the 1960s, printed T-shirts gained popularity for self-expression as well as for advertisements, protests, and souvenirs.
Current versions are available in many different designs and fabrics, and styles include crew-neck and V-neck shirts. T-shirts are among the most worn garments of clothing used today. T-shirts are especially popular with branding for companies or merchandise, as they are inexpensive to make and purchase.
Trends
T-shirts were originally worn as undershirts, but are now worn frequently as the only piece of clothing on the top half of the body, other than possibly a brassiere or, rarely, a waistcoat (vest). T-shirts have also become a medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable combination of words, art and photographs on display.[8]
A T-shirt typically extends to the waist. Variants of the T-shirt, such as the V-neck, have been developed. Hip hop fashion calls for tall-T shirts which may extend down to the knees. A similar item is the T-shirt dress or T-dress, a dress-length T-shirt that can be worn without pants.[9] Long T-shirts are also sometimes worn by women as nightgowns. A 1990s trend in women's clothing involved tight-fitting cropped T-shirts, called crop tops, short enough to reveal the midriff. Another less popular trend is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt of a contrasting color over a long-sleeved T-shirt, which is known as layering. Tight-fitting T-shirts are called fitted, tailored or baby doll T-shirts.
The rise of social media and video sharing sites led to the growth of tutorials on DIY T-shirt projects. These videos typically provide instructions on how to modify an old shirt into a new, more fashionable form....
In the 1960s, the ringer T-shirt appeared and became a staple fashion for youth and rock-n-rollers. Ringer T-shirts are a solid-color shirt with bands of a second color around the collar and the lower edges of the sleeves, with or without an additional front decoration.
The 1960s also saw the emergence of tie-dyeing and screen printing on the basic T-shirt, which became a medium for wearable art, commercial advertising, souvenir messages, and protest art messages....
Screen printing
The most common form of commercial T-shirt decoration is screen printing, in which a design is separated into individual colors. Plastisol or water-based inks are applied to the shirt through mesh screens partially coated with an emulsion, which limits the areas where ink is deposited. In most commercial T-shirt printing, a limited number of spot colors (typically one to four) are used to print the design. To achieve a wider color spectrum with a limited number of colors, process printing (using only cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink) or the simulated process (using only white, black, red, green, blue, and gold ink) is effective. Process printing is best suited for light-colored shirts[17] while the simulated process is best suited for dark-colored shirts.
The invention of plastisol in 1959 provided a more durable and stretchable ink than water-based inks, allowing much greater variety in T-shirt designs. Very few companies continue to use water-based inks on their shirts; the majority prefer plastisol because it allows printing on varying colors without the need for color adjustment at the art level.
Specialty inks trend in and out of fashion and include shimmer, puff, discharge, and chino-based[18] inks. A metallic foil can be heat pressed and stamped onto any plastisol ink. When combined with shimmer ink, metallics give a mirror-like effect wherever the previously screened plastisol ink was applied. Specialty inks are more expensive to purchase and screen, and tend to appear on boutique garments.
Other methods of T-shirt decoration airbrushing, appliqué, embroidery, impressing or embossing, and the ironing on of either flock lettering, heat transfers, or dye-sublimation transfers. Laser printers, using special toners containing sublimation dyes, can print designs on plain paper which can then be permanently heat-transferred to T-shirts....
Other methods of decorating shirts include using paints, markers, fabric transfer crayons, dyes and spray paint. Some techniques that can be used include sponging, stenciling, daubing, stamping, screen printing, bleaching, and many more.[21] Some new T-shirt creators have used designs with multiple advanced techniques, which includes using glow-in-the-dark inks, heat-sensitive fabrics, foil printing and all-over printing." (wikipedia)