When Volodymyr Zelensky emerged from the voting booth in Kiev last month, he was wearing a dark worsted navy suit and a crisp white t-shirt. It was the biggest night of his life. Over the previous six months, the actor and comedian had been campaigning for the presidential seat in Ukraine. An early frontrunner in opinion polls, Zelensky was expected to win the election handily with over 70% of the votes — and he did. Not long after the polls closed, and with little more than 10% of the votes counted, early results showed Zelensky was coming in for a landslide victory. Incumbent President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter: “We succeeded to ensure free, fair, democratic and competitive elections. I will accept the will of Ukrainian people.”
It was a big night for t-shirts (and a bigger night for Zelensky). About a hundred years after its invention, the t-shirt has gone from being underwear — replacing the union suit, which is the all-in-one undergarment you’ve likely seen in black-and-white cartoons — to an everyday piece of clothing that even presidential candidates can wear on election night. Like chinos, pea coats, and cardigan sweaters, the t-shirt has its roots in the military. Around the turn of the 20th century, the US Navy replaced square-necked, shoulder-buttoning shirts with cropped sleeved undershirts. American seamen wore them while swabbing decks and manning armaments. The shirts were made white (still the garment’s most popular color) for several reasons: white t-shirts are cheap to produce, as they don’t have to be dyed, and they marry well navy uniforms. Besides, since white t-shirts show dirt easily, it was believed they’d instill a sense of discipline and help maintain personal hygiene.
Stuffed shirt traditionalists love to mark the t-shirt as the end of Western civilization — the replacement for collared shirts and, ultimately, the suit. It’s true that t-shirts were initially undergarments that were never meant to be seen, but within my lifetime, they’ve always held the same cool appeal as blue jeans. In the run-up to the United States’ entry into the Second World War, a Sears, Roebuck, and Co. advertisement proclaimed: “You needn’t be in the army to have your own personal t-shirt,” suggesting the quotidian garment had an inherent sense of heroism and machismo. A sweat-soaked, sexually magnetic Marlon Brando wore a white tee when he shouted “Stella!” in the 1951 film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. Virile heartthrob James Dean also sported one in Rebel Without a Cause. People who complain that t-shirts aren’t “proper” miss the point. The t-shirt’s military roots, machismo nature, and ability to rouse elites are exactly the reasons why it feels rebellious (although, a strong case can be made that it’s now just part of a middle-class uniform, losing all of its tough political edge).
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