The Rise of the Graphic T-shirt

The modern t-shirt evolved in the late 19th and early 20th century, transitioning from an undergarment to an undisputed staple of the working class. In 1913 the US Navy issued its sailors with white t-shirts as part of their uniform, to be worn under their naval jacket, however sailors working on hot submarines or in tropical climates would often wear (and therefore dirty) only the t-shirt.

The garment steadily became more common, and in the 1950s a t-shirt clad Marlon Brando’s heartthrob performance in A Streetcar Named Desire propelled the garment to the new, heady heights of mainstream fashion.

Inexpensive and easy to produce, t-shirts became the uniform of the people – adopted by the youth as an easy way to broadcast their newfound identities and values in the post-war boom of the freewheeling 50s and swinging 60s. Political slogans, art, jokes, band names – the t-shirt became a blank canvas. Your own private billboard to say to the world, “this is me, this is what I believe in.”

Throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s the t-shirt was used to telegraph people’s tastes and opinions. Were you a Mod or a Rocker? Were you wearing a flower power t-shirt or Led Zeppelin? Modern t-shirts became identifiers and badges of affiliation, wholly embraced by the tribal landscape and emerging counterculture scenes of the 80s and 90s.

In the surfing world, the shortboard revolution was in full swing and the radical progression that pushed skateboarders to launch themselves above the coping was soon matched on the face of a wave. This new school of thinking, with its flagrant disregard for the established rules, collided with the art, music and popular culture of the day to produce an explosion of bright, unconventional and avant-garde design in print, film and art.

As surfing evolved and the professional world tour was born, brands signed riders and the surfer in the street would show their support for their favourites by buying those same brands. You were either for Kelly Slater or Andy Irons. Quicksilver or Billabong. All emblazoned with wild graphics and tribal art styles that immediately marked surfers out as part of a counterculture.

It was from this melting pot of colour-outside-the-lines, technicolour pastel influences that our design team drew their inspiration for our latest t-shirts.

Many of the designs within this season’s collection embrace this do-it-yourself, eclectic-collage spirit, incorporating hand-drawn elements and roughly hewn cut-outs that have then been digitised to create the graphic prints. Bringing a raw edge to the often all-too-sanitised process of designing in the digital age.