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WE, THE T-SHIRT
THE STORY OF THE T-SHIRT’S MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES
by
Nardine Adel Saad
A Professional Multimedia Project Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(ONLINE JOURNALISM)
May 2010
Copyright 2010 Nardine Adel Saad
1
Object Description
| Title | We, the T-shirt: the story of the T-shirt's multiple personalities |
| Author | Saad, Nardine Adel |
| Author email | nsaad@usc.edu; nardinesmail@gmail.com |
| Degree | Master of Arts |
| Document type | Project |
| Degree program | Journalism (Online Journalism) |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2010-04-01 |
| Date submitted | 2010 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2010-04-25 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Hernandez, Robert |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Celis, William Morris Towns, Marlene |
| Abstract | We, the T-Shirt: The Story of the T-Shirt’s Multiple Personalities is a professional project that focuses on the history and evolution of the t-shirt and how the garment has become an American cultural icon, most notably an emblem for hyper-commercialism. The project is located on a web site built on the WordPress content management system and can be found at www.nardinesaad.com/wethetshirt .; From men’s underwear to a walking billboard to high fashion, the t-shirt is just as useable as it was when if first cropped up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The t-shirt is one of the most basic items in a person’s wardrobe next to undergarments and denim. Each t-shirt a person owns—the free one, the one from an event, the college one, or the sports tee, especially if it has a screen print on it—blatantly declares something, whether it be a drink, a fraternity or a lifestyle. America’s social history is splayed across these garments and most people don’t even think twice about how what they wear says everything about their society.; In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, Americans used the t-shirt as the medium to establish their individual identities. This was mitigated by developments in silk screening and ink resulting in a major boom in the t-shirt industry. Experts say that even though the medium didn’t change in form during this time, personalizing the t-shirt was a way to stand out. Even women started wearing t-shirts when they wanted to be viewed as men’s equals. In the 1980s, the shirt became a favorite form of brand management for corporations and advertisers.; Many Americans also don’t acknowledge that they have essentially become advertisers by donning these garments. We, the T-Shirt also analyzes how that culture emerged. The stories include interviews with experts, and profiles of a young designer, a screen printer, a manufacturer and consumers to illustrate the evolution of the cotton wonder. The multimedia is meant to supplement these stories.; After entertainment, fashion is Los Angeles’ most profitable industry. It is one of America’s largest homes to high fashion designers and textile manufacturers. In 2005, the industry raked in $32.9 billion, according to a report from the California Fashion Association. The humble t-shirt is practically the uniform for laid back Southern Californians. This symbol of casual couture is woven into American cultural history through capitalism and hyper-commercialism.; This is the story of the evolution of the modern t-shirt—from conception to consumption--told through Los Angeles t-shirt companies and consumers.; The home page for We, the T-Shirt displays a main carousel that alternates among six main images with excerpts from featured stories: The T-Shirt, The Designer, The Manufacturer, The Printer, The Consumer and You. The same featured stories are listed as thumbnails below the carousel and include excerpts that link off to the stories’ respective pages. Thumbnails and excerpts from the most recent pieces are beneath that and they link off to a list of the top 10 facts found on the site, an interactive graphic that shows the evolution of t-shirt styles and a question-and-answer interview with marketing expert Bettina Cornwell. The sidebar is static and remains on all the pages. The top of the sidebar has alternative sidebar navigation buttons that allow the user to click between recent and featured content, recent comments and a tag cloud. Below that, there is a Flickr.com photostream that pulls in user-generated photos that have added the tag “t-shirt.” Below the photostream is a Twitter feed that posts We, the T-Shirt’s latest tweets. Twitter and RSS feeds allow users to subscribe to the We, the T-Shirt brand.; The first Web page in the series is titled “The-T-Shirt: From Men’s Underwear to Casual Couture.” The story page opens with an embedded multimedia timeline chronicling the history of the shirt and provides about five to 10 minutes of interactivity. The timeline was created with VUVOX collage software that allows the reader to scroll to the years they are interested in. Each year cited in the timeline is accompanied by a photo and a caption. For example, the entry for 1960 displays a photograph of a tie-dye shirt and a caption that reads: As casual dress became more popular in the late 1960s, bands like The Beatles traded in their paisley suits for casual alternatives. Merchandising also helped promote the music industry and rock personalities. Most of The Ramones' income came from their t-shirts. Their signature seal was created by artist and friend Arturo Vega and reflected minimalism in the 70s punk rock scene.; The story on the web page also tells the history of the t-shirt but with more analysis than the timeline. Interviews with a fashion expert from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, a t-shirt blogger, a marketing professor and quoted material from Charlotte Brunel’s “The T-Shirt Book” comprise this story. However, the timeline includes more than 65 photos and is much more detailed in the chronology of t-shirts. Photos also accompany the story.; “The Designer: What’s in a Name Brand?” profiles the t-shirt through Jerry Hernandez, an actor who is new to the fashion business. His story is representative of similar designer’s stories when they are beginning to make a name for themselves. This piece hearkens back to when branding and slogan first started and details these phenomena. It also explains how t-shirts make fashion affordable for consumers and are extremely profitable for designers. The multimedia on this page is a photo gallery of Hernandez’s t-shirt designs. Most of the prints in his collection are similar but bear different slogans and the photo gallery allows the user to get a better look at them and also comment about their favorites.; “The Manufacturer: Why American Apparel Dominates the T-Shirt Market” takes the reader inside American Apparel’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters via a VUVOX virtual tour with photos, video and text. Beneath the VUVOX is a feature story in which Ryan Holiday, one of American Apparel’s marketing specialists, guides a tour through the factory. There is also a YouTube video produced by American Apparel that interviews shoppers at its annual factory sale on the page. American Apparel is the largest manufacturer in the United States and its founder Dov Charney started it with t-shirts and many experts have cited it as an industry leader because of its business model and product output. This feature story also includes interviews with customers and a fashion expert to better balance this piece, which essentially touts the company’s business model. However, the company and its founder have been scandalized recently for their racy ads and unethical business practices. These angles elucidate the manufacturing giant’s lesser appreciated qualities.; “The Printer: Behind the Screens” allows the user to see how t-shirts are screen printed by using an interactive DHTML graphic that includes photos and video. The graphic uses a photo from David Knepprath’s Culver City screen printing shop and the user is meant to click on each of six steps to see what happens in the printing process. The story focuses on Knepprath as its subject and also applies a feature writing style. He has more than 20 years in the screen printing industry and has multiple high profile and Hollywood clients. Knepprath’s experiences with screen printing helped tell the story of how the t-shirt industry has rapidly changed in the past few decades citing NAFTA and other labor contentions that have influenced t-shirt production and also screen printing.; “The Consumer: You Are What You Wear” reads slightly more like a news story but still uses a subject—consumer Joe Abdelnour—as its launching point. Abdelnour has collected multiple free t-shirts and represents Americans who have freely adapted a t-shirt-heavy wardrobe. The story also includes analyses from t-shirt blogger Coty Gonzales, marketing professor Bettina Cornwell and fashion expert Christina Johnson. The multimedia component in this piece comprises 21 different man on the street interviews that question and showcase people’s t-shirt sensibilities. The video supplements what Abdelnour and the experts in the story have already suggested when it comes to t-shirt culture. This approach allows the incorporation of various consumer opinions and lets the reader get a more rounded view of consumer culture. The video’s overall effect is for the user to identify and connect with the stories of these consumers, who talk about t-shirts they received for free or buy on vacation.; “You, the T-Shirt” is the last featured entry on the site and includes a poll in which users vote on their favorite types of t-shirts. This multimedia element was created with www.polldaddy.com, a poll-generating service. Users are encouraged to share their own t-shirt stories in the comments section of this piece.; The t-shirt is simply the canvas on which our cultural transformations have taken place. It is fascinating to take one garment and see how it has morphed over time and what it says about our social history. It is easier to see culture as a collective mindset when you talk about one garment and this project is meant to show that evolution. |
| Keyword | T-shirt; history; Los Angeles; culture; manufacturing; designing; consumer behavior; souvenir; cotton; branding; screen printing |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m2951 |
| Rights | Saad, Nardine Adel |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Saad-3680 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume26/etd-Saad-3680.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | WE, THE T-SHIRT THE STORY OF THE T-SHIRT’S MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES by Nardine Adel Saad A Professional Multimedia Project Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS (ONLINE JOURNALISM) May 2010 Copyright 2010 Nardine Adel Saad 1 |
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