One of the flagship items of the Soko Ni Inai collections is the t-shirt. An essential and versatile garment that knows no age or season for both a casual look, worn with a pair of jeans and trainers, and for more sophisticated environments, perhaps combined with an androgynous suit and high heels.
With long, short and three-quarter length sleeves: the t-shirt owes its name to its “T”-shape given by the short sleeves, round neck and straight cut of the bust. The history of this iconic garment has distant origins: similar items of clothing with sleeves of various lengths existed as early as in ancient times (among the Etruscans) and in the Renaissance period, but they were most popular from the 18th century onwards, being worn as an undergarment beneath the outer clothes.
In the 19th century, the t-shirt gained favour and became a piece of informal and casual clothing, worn by workers during work hours, both due to its comfort and the lack of a collar, which at the time was seen as a distinctive element of elegance, typical of the wealthier classes.
In around 1940, the US armed forces adopted the crewneck t-shirt as part of their men’s uniform, with this trend catching on in Europe during the Second World War.
The T-shirt’s popularity was consolidated in the ‘50s thanks to the big screen with Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951), Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953) and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The T-shirt had officially entered the men’s wardrobe as a fully-fledged item of leisure clothing
The T-shirt’s intrinsic sex appeal was appreciated primarily by singers and actresses in the 1960s and became a truly unisex garment in the 1970s: in 1977 Jacqueline Bisset scandalised American audiences with her wet and see-through white t-shirt in the film The Deep.
When the T-shirt left the exclusive domain of underwear, it became a white space for sending a message, whether political, advertising, explicit or humorous.
Couture T-shirts have been on the market since the ‘50s and since then the garment has been reinterpreted by numerous designers: Yves Saint Laurent and Dior in the ‘70s, Chanel, Lacoste, Calvin Klein, Polo Ralph Lauren in the ‘90s. For Giorgio Armani, Helmut Lang and Nicolas Ghesquière, the t-shirt is part of their uniform.
A timeless must have.
