Mens shirts - a brief history
Since
the early
twentieth century, mens shirts have evolved from being neglected
underwear to the default choice of outerwear for men. Prior to this
time, mens shirts were plain, undyed and loose fitting garments worn
next to the skin and generally left unexposed.
The
earliest medieval
mens shirts evolved from tunics, a simple two piece garment, and
during the eighteenth century became ever more elaborate with frills
below the collar (jabots), and at the cuffs. At this point, it became
acceptable to expose these portions of the shirt, although mens
shirts were still strictly perceived as being an item of underwear.
The
first colour dyed
mens shirts appeared in the nineteenth century, and this can be
viewed as being the point at which mens shirts began the be treated
as outerwear, although only the lower classes would have worn these
garments informally.
By
the Edwardian age,
mens shirts had taken on the basic configuration that we see today.
Mens shirts during this era generally had stiff, detachable collars,
that allowed the collars and body of mens shirts to be laundered
separately and the collars interchanged depending on the formality of
the occasion at which the mens shirts would be worn.
The
formal wing collars
of the late Victorian and Edwardian ages can still be seen on todays
mens shirts, for example in dinner shirts and mens shirts used in
morning dress.
However, the folded down collar has become the default
collar pattern in modern mens shirts, and comes in a number of
variations, including cutaway collars and button down collars.
Another
design pattern
still found in modern mens shirts is the double, or French cuff.
Again, first seen in late Victorian shirts, the cuff is fastened with
cufflinks and gives a more formal feel to the shirt when compared to
the more modern single, or Barrel cuff, which is fastened with
buttons.
Today's
mens shirts are available in an almost infinite amount of fabrics, patterns and
designs, a far cry from the early, plain underwear garments that
are the ancestors of the modern mens shirt.
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