P&Co | The History of the Graphic T-Shirt

There are some things in life that are so ingrained into society that it’s difficult to imagine a world without them in. One of those things is the graphic t-shirt. The first product we ever made was a graphic tee, and even now, they are at the core of pretty much every collection that we release. We recently delved into the history of the plain white tee, but now we’re going to be looking at the history and evolution of the graphic t-shirt.

Much like the plain t-shirt before it, the graphic tee has a lot of its history rooted in the millitary. During WWII, members of the millitary were given t-shirts sporting then names of their units, bases or training programs, which they often continued to wear long after the war ended. These graphics were applied with paint and a stencil, a similar technique that they used to to mark their vehicles. Life magazine even published a model wearing one of these t-shirts on the front cover in 1942, proving its manoeuvre into the world of fashion.

Disney then jumped on the graphic tee bandwagon, with the company Tropix Togs acquiring the rights to print characters such as Mickey Mouse, onto t-shirts in order to promote the newly opened Disneyland.  Of course, like most things that Disney create, the t-shirts were a huge success and another thing that ushered the graphic tee into being a classic trend.

The method of screen printing with Plastisol Ink became possible at the end of the 50s, making it possible to mass-produce any kind of design onto cotton t-shirts. Despite the increase in mass-produced designs, counterculture also played a huge part when it comes to the graphic tee. During the 60s and onwards, as society developed more liberal attitudes towards politics, sex, drugs etc and it became super popular to print slogans and messages to reflect this. Lots of bands from this era also realised that creating their own graphic t-shirts with their band names and logos would not only promote their music, but also be another source of income for them. Designs from bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Pink Floyd were so popular, and still are today. Andy Warhol took screen printing to the next level by developing a method to transfer photographs into screen prints, which could then be easily transferred onto t-shirts. 

Companies also began to print their logos in the same vein, with the logos of brands such as Calvin Klein, Adidas, Fred Perry etc becoming even more recognisable. Even brands that didn’t necessarily sell clothing, such as Coca-Cola and Budweiser, began printing their logos onto t-shirts. By the end of the 80s, you could pretty much pick up a graphic tee from anywhere you travelled to, from your favourite bar to the arcade you hung out with your mates at. 

And of course, we couldn’t talk about graphic tees without mentioning the surf and skate cultures. A lot of skate and surf brands in the 90s were still young and inspired, with loads of freedom to create super artistic graphic tees that allowed their wearers to let others know that they were immersed in the culture. These pieces were what really made brands like Quicksilver successful.

All of these moments in the history of the graphic tee have influenced our take on the classic piece, along with a lot of other pieces we make. We’ve always been inspired by all things heritage, music and counter-culture, hence the reason that the graphic t-shirt is always a key part of any of our collections and will be for as long as our brand keeps going.