The Nation: The White Tee Makes a Comeback
Posted by Ivan at 5:36 PM
By: Anika Brown
What happened to style?
As I became reacquainted with my hometown, Vallejo, California, after living in San Francisco for two years, this question ran repeatedly through my head. What happened to dressing with authority, individuality and flair? Even animals, with their rainbow-colored plumes and unique scents, make an effort to stand out from the pack. So what's up with this homogenous clothing trend and its diminished individuality?
Passing yet another sea of billowing white T-shirts and baggy jeans, it becomes obvious that young human males have officially tossed aside nature's rules. Lamenting their laziness and lack of couture creativity, I recently approached my older brother to find out the reasoning behind this uninspired phenomenon.
"What's going on?" I asked. "What's up with the whole white T-shirt thing? Every time I see you and your friends, you guys are wearing the same thing."
"It's just how we dress. You know, like the song, 'White T-Shirt, Blue Jeans, and Nikes,'" he said, quoting Oakland rapper Keak Da Sneak's popular song.
"And it's not the same thing every time you see me...I wear a new one every day," he added.
"You what?"
"I wear a new [white tee] almost every day. You can't really wear them more than once, twice at the most. They start to look dingy. You gotta stay fresh, crisp. The tees are only about $13, so it doesn't really matter."
Clothes Cross Boundaries
All of the members of the white tee fraternity I talked with shared this line of thinking, although only a few took it to my brother's level of wastefulness. These young men were from varied demographics, but shared some tastes and characteristics. They ranged in age from thirteen to thirty-one and represented many ethnicities: African, European and Filipino-Americans. While I didn't ask about their household incomes, judging by their cars, the guys' financial resources were also diverse. This physically disparate group was connected by a shared appreciation for comfortable, unfussy clothing and an admiration for hip-hop and urban culture.
"I don't even really wear G- Unit [clothing] and all that anymore," explained John, a high school senior, "These are so much easier. They're cheap, they match everything. I don't have to think about anything...Just throw on a white tee and a pair of jeans and go."
Ernest, 30, said, "It's how we do it in the V [a nickname for Vallejo]. We keep it gutter." (I tried not to roll my eyes at this one. I have a hard time associating my fellow suburbanites with the word "gutter.")
Chris, the youngest person I talked to, gave the simplest explanation for his T-shirt affinity, "I noticed my favorite rappers wearing them."
Looking at the kid, I wondered if he was partaking in a trend that probably predates his parents.
Same Sentiment, Different Decade
The white tee is the seminal piece of antifashion. It began life as an undershirt, meant to be hidden from the public and relegated to the lower class. In 1951, a smoldering performance by Marlon Brando in the film A Streetcar Named Desire elevated the drab garment to iconic status. James Dean, Elvis Presley, and others soon followed Brando's lead, cementing the plain white T-shirt's place as the official uniform of rebels and troublemakers.
Fifty years after Brando's Stanley Kowalski character made his big-screen debut, the tee has resurfaced on the backs of society's latest group of antagonists--rappers.
The current resurgence began as a backlash against hip-hop's flashy, label-hungry fashion aesthetic that gripped the music industry and fans in the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Since Run DMC's 1986 brand-endorsing anthem "My Adidas," conspicuous consumption and rap music have gone hand in hand. The late-90s' so-called "bling" era, though, brought the obsession to new heights. Pedestrian clothing labels and gold chains gave way to a competitive need for Gucci suits and chinchilla coats. Keeping up with the P. Diddys of the world eventually began to wear thin on both consumers' psyches and their wallets. Thus the emergence of fashion's most egalitarian element: the simple white T-shirt.
The white tee trend, like so many of hip-hop's popular styles, originated in poor, urban neighborhoods, among people furthest away from the genre's newfound "ghetto fabulousness." Soon, it trickled up to the stars who found that the shirt's bareness made their jewels stand out even more. And, as logo splattered tops yielded to blank canvases on red carpets and in music videos, love of the tee disseminated to the masses.
Posted by Ivan at 5:36 PM
By: Anika Brown
What happened to style?
As I became reacquainted with my hometown, Vallejo, California, after living in San Francisco for two years, this question ran repeatedly through my head. What happened to dressing with authority, individuality and flair? Even animals, with their rainbow-colored plumes and unique scents, make an effort to stand out from the pack. So what's up with this homogenous clothing trend and its diminished individuality?
Passing yet another sea of billowing white T-shirts and baggy jeans, it becomes obvious that young human males have officially tossed aside nature's rules. Lamenting their laziness and lack of couture creativity, I recently approached my older brother to find out the reasoning behind this uninspired phenomenon.
"What's going on?" I asked. "What's up with the whole white T-shirt thing? Every time I see you and your friends, you guys are wearing the same thing."
"It's just how we dress. You know, like the song, 'White T-Shirt, Blue Jeans, and Nikes,'" he said, quoting Oakland rapper Keak Da Sneak's popular song.
"And it's not the same thing every time you see me...I wear a new one every day," he added.
"You what?"
"I wear a new [white tee] almost every day. You can't really wear them more than once, twice at the most. They start to look dingy. You gotta stay fresh, crisp. The tees are only about $13, so it doesn't really matter."
Clothes Cross Boundaries
All of the members of the white tee fraternity I talked with shared this line of thinking, although only a few took it to my brother's level of wastefulness. These young men were from varied demographics, but shared some tastes and characteristics. They ranged in age from thirteen to thirty-one and represented many ethnicities: African, European and Filipino-Americans. While I didn't ask about their household incomes, judging by their cars, the guys' financial resources were also diverse. This physically disparate group was connected by a shared appreciation for comfortable, unfussy clothing and an admiration for hip-hop and urban culture.
"I don't even really wear G- Unit [clothing] and all that anymore," explained John, a high school senior, "These are so much easier. They're cheap, they match everything. I don't have to think about anything...Just throw on a white tee and a pair of jeans and go."
Ernest, 30, said, "It's how we do it in the V [a nickname for Vallejo]. We keep it gutter." (I tried not to roll my eyes at this one. I have a hard time associating my fellow suburbanites with the word "gutter.")
Chris, the youngest person I talked to, gave the simplest explanation for his T-shirt affinity, "I noticed my favorite rappers wearing them."
Looking at the kid, I wondered if he was partaking in a trend that probably predates his parents.
Same Sentiment, Different Decade
The white tee is the seminal piece of antifashion. It began life as an undershirt, meant to be hidden from the public and relegated to the lower class. In 1951, a smoldering performance by Marlon Brando in the film A Streetcar Named Desire elevated the drab garment to iconic status. James Dean, Elvis Presley, and others soon followed Brando's lead, cementing the plain white T-shirt's place as the official uniform of rebels and troublemakers.
Fifty years after Brando's Stanley Kowalski character made his big-screen debut, the tee has resurfaced on the backs of society's latest group of antagonists--rappers.
The current resurgence began as a backlash against hip-hop's flashy, label-hungry fashion aesthetic that gripped the music industry and fans in the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Since Run DMC's 1986 brand-endorsing anthem "My Adidas," conspicuous consumption and rap music have gone hand in hand. The late-90s' so-called "bling" era, though, brought the obsession to new heights. Pedestrian clothing labels and gold chains gave way to a competitive need for Gucci suits and chinchilla coats. Keeping up with the P. Diddys of the world eventually began to wear thin on both consumers' psyches and their wallets. Thus the emergence of fashion's most egalitarian element: the simple white T-shirt.
The white tee trend, like so many of hip-hop's popular styles, originated in poor, urban neighborhoods, among people furthest away from the genre's newfound "ghetto fabulousness." Soon, it trickled up to the stars who found that the shirt's bareness made their jewels stand out even more. And, as logo splattered tops yielded to blank canvases on red carpets and in music videos, love of the tee disseminated to the masses.
