T-shirt: Cult, Culture, Subversion

published 24 January 2018

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Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher greets fashion designer Katharine Hamnett, wearing a t-shirt with a nuclear missile protest message, at 10 Downing Street, where she hosted a reception for Br — (Image credit: PA Archive/PA Images)

"If you want to get the message out there, you should print it in giant letters on a T-shirt." This certainly rings true for the quote's originator Katharine Hamnett. The fashion designer made her name in the 1980s with her revolutionary slogan-emblazoned creations favoured by the likes of George Michael and Naomi Campbell. And it's a tactic that still has the ability to strike a chord, with Dior's sell-out "We Should All Be Feminists" T-shirt one of the most talked-about fashion items of the past year.

London's Fashion and Textile Museum will track the powerful history of this most humble of garments with a new exhibition exploring its ability to shock, surprise and subvert. Encompassing more than 100 items spanning 50 years, it tracks the evolution from early construction methods to the wearable technology of today, and how along the way it has served as everything from fashion statement to a vehicle for political expression.

Vivienne Westwood models a Vivienne Westwood-designed t-shirt for the Save the Arctic collection, shot by celebrity photographer Andy Gotts MBE.

Highlights include rare pieces from Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren such as the "Cambridge Rapist" T-shirt, encapsulating the aesthetic of the 1970s punk era. Meanwhile Westwood, who played a particularly central role in transforming the T-shirt into a mode of self-expression and cultural signifier, will have an entire section dedicated to her private archive.

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Similarly, band T-shirts have long played a key part in how we outwardly identify with – or against – our social peers. Here, instantly recognisable designs representing the likes of Joy Division, The Velvet Underground as well as Nico and The Rolling Stones are displayed, while the exhibition also delves deeper into the debate as to how far fashion has co-opted the concept.

Moving onto the political, the show explores the garment's influence in equal rights movements, and the figures behind the most iconic designs. Among the pieces on display will be Keith Haring’s ‘Ignorance = Fear, Silence = Death’, highlighting issues around AIDS, with the role slogan T-shirts played in the history of the LGBT+ Community Pride showcased further with a visual timeline of events and campaigns. It then moves on to explore how other ethical issues have permeated the fashion industry in different ways, including the rise of eco-friendly garment manufacturing and the designers that champion sustainability.

It also investigates how the T-shirt itself has augmented and shape-shifted over the decades, from changing silhouettes to being adopted by different sub-cultures. And with T-shirts just as likely to be sold in designer boutiques as on the high street, it remains just as pivotal a part of popular culture today.

T-shirt: Cult - Culture - Subversion is at The Fashion and Textile Museum from 9 February to 6 May 2018; ftmlondon.org