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We, the T-shirt: the story of the T-shirt's multiple personalities

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We, the T-shirt: the story of the T-shirt's multiple personalities

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Content 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

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract iii
We, the T-Shirt Web site http://www.nardinesaad.com/wethetshirt/ 1
Bibliography 2

iii

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.

iv
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

v
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.

vi
“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.

vii
“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.

viii
“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.
WE, THE T-SHIRT
Link to We, the T-Shirt: http://nardinesaad.com/wethetshirt

Figure 1 A screenshot of the We, the T-Shirt homepage

1

2
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdelnour, Joe. Phone interview with subject. September 2009.
Awadalla, Angie. In-person interview and phone exchange with subject. March 2010.
Botros, Helena. On-camera interview with subject. March 2010
Brunel, Charlotte. The T-Shirt Book. New York: Assouline Publishing, Inc., 2002.
Cornwell, Bettina. Phone interview with subject. March 2010.
Cornwell, Bettina. “T-Shirts as Wearable Diary: An Examination of Artifact

Consumption and Garnering Related to Life Events.” Advances in Consumer

Research 17, 1989. Association for Consumer Research, pages 375-379.
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/display.asp?id=7036

Crane, Diana. “The Social Meaning of Hats and T-Shirts.” Fashion and Its Social
Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press. 2000. Pages 82-87, 176-178, and 243.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/117987.html

“Four in Five Americans Attached to Old T-Shirt.” MarketingCharts.com. 17 April 2009.
http://www.marketingcharts.com/topics/behavioral-marketing/four-in-five-americans-
attached-to-old-t-shirt-8754/

Gonzales, Coty. “Everything You Need to Know About T-Shirts in 1000 Words.” Coty
Gonzales. 3 February 2010.
http://www.cotygonzales.com/2010/02/03/everything-you-need-to-know-about-t-
shirts-in-1000-words/

Gonzales, Coty. E-mail exchange with questions. March 2010.
Johnson, Christina. Phone interview with subject. March 2010.

3
Knepprath, David. Phone interview. September 2009.
Knepprath, David. In-person interview. September 2009
Hernandez, Jerry. Phone interview with subject. September 2009.
Hernandez, Jerry. In-person interview with subject with digital recorder. September 2009.
Hoder, Randye. “You Saw it Here First.” Los Angeles Times, (Los Angeles, CA),

22 October 2006.
http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/fashion/la-
125fashionfirst102206,0,2563030.story

Linn, Virginia. “History of the T-Shirt.” Post-Gazette, (Pittsburgh, PA) 13 February
2007.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07044/761575-51.stm

Rivoli, Pietra. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy Second Edition. Hoboken:
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009

Rosen, Adam. “Irony, to a T.” Gelf Magazine. 6 May 2007.
http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/irony_to_a_t.php

Sibbles, Emma. “Get it off your chest.” Guardian, (London, UK) 19 June 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/19/slogan-t-shirts-hamnett

Wells, Troth. Trigger Issues: One Small Item, One Giant Impact T-SHIRT. Oxford: New
Internationalist Publications Ltd., 2007.

Wreksono, Asmara. “The Most Famous Statement T-Shirts.” So Jones. 10 September
2009.
http://www.sojones.com/news/1465-the-most-famous-statement-t-shirts/

Abstract (if available)

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 .

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Asset Metadata

Creator Saad, Nardine Adel (author)

Core Title We, the T-shirt: the story of the T-shirt's multiple personalities

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Online Journalism)

Publication Date 04/25/2010

Defense Date 04/01/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag branding,consumer behavior,Cotton,culture,designing,History,Los Angeles,manufacturing,OAI-PMH Harvest,screen printing,souvenir,T-shirt

Place Name California (states), Los Angeles (city or populated place)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Hernandez, Robert (committee chair), Celis, William (committee member), Morris Towns, Marlene (committee member)

Creator Email nardinesmail@gmail.com,nsaad@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2951

Unique identifier UC1275882

Identifier etd-Saad-3680 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-307919 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2951 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Saad-3680.pdf

Dmrecord 307919

Document Type Project

Rights Saad, Nardine Adel

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu