Article by Jermaine Grenville

For anyone that is entrenched in any way shape or form in the trends of urban fashion, one of the most common facts is that the T-shirt is an invaluable staple of that fashion niche. If fashion was a wheel, the T-shirt would be the hub that everything else links to. The T-shirt often sets the pace for an entire outfit; with a persons hat, pants and sneakers taking their style cues from the T-shirt. The simple T-shirt comes in many variations of color, style, materials, etc., but overall it remains the same standard part of our wardrobe.

Below we give a few hints on the basic variations of the T-shirt, as well as display its role as a fashion must have:

- The simple T-shirt has been around for ages, having at one point been relegated to simply being a part of our underwear. In various points in time the T-shirt was not seen, but merely worn for its insulating properties during cold months. Now the T-shirt has evolved to become a fashion piece all of its own. With the advent of mass production and the creativity of various designers, T-shirts have taken their rightful place as part of our daily attire.- One variation of the T-shirt is as a branding mechanism for sports teams and colleges. Often composed of very affordable and economical materials, and produced very inexpensively, the T-shirt provides a low-cost method of advertising the logos of various sports teams, affording the fan the opportunity to feel connected to his or her favorite team. Being able to wear the team insignias, and even their favorite player’s number brings the fan into the action in a more personal way.- Another variation on the classic T-shirt is its use in making personal or political statements. With the development and advancements in screen printing, came a method for quickly and inexpensively getting a message out. Almost any politician will tell you that prior to the viral messages going out online, T-shirts were the primary medium for getting a grassroots message out to the masses. But not all T-shirts with printed messages are solely for the purpose of making a statement, some tell jokes like “I’m with stupid” or “Run DMC Forever.” These types of T-shirts have proven worth their weight in gold in comic and personal value.- And yet another variation, that is proven to be extremely popular and powerful, would have to include the artistic culture. This grouping of T-shirts have been emblazoned with artwork that ranges from the extreme to the boringly sedate. Examples of this genre would include everything from the old Rolling Stones T-shirts bearing a mouth with a hanging tongue to a variety of T-shirts that use pot leaves as an expression of art, to the more toned down T-shirts that might simply bear an artistic rendition of someone’s name or hobby in a graffiti type of style.

As you can clearly see, from these examples, the T-shirt provides a wide range wardrobe options and uses. The true role of the T-shirt in urban fashion is really what each of us makes of it, the T-shirt can be a major part of our style, or it can act as a simple accent piece – with hints of color or design that bring out the finer points of the rest of our outfit. The T-shirt can be used for dressing up or dressing down, depending on which of the variations, in which variation of the variations, you are opting to go with on a particular day.

No other article of clothing in most of the functionality and flexibility that the T-shirt processes. It is the only article of clothing that has ascended from the ranks of underwear to major outerwear, and I am fairly certain that this fact will remain true until practically the end of time; as attractive as some of us may be, I don’t think that walking around in our skivvies will ever be considered fashion forward (more likely, this is the stuff of our nightmares about strangely popping up in our old high school classroom in nothing but her underpants).