It Used To Be Underwear

This is an article that Don Franklin wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1977.

The rags to riches story of the T-shirt is one shirt tale that may never end.

It used to be underwear. But today the T-shirt is synonymous with casual, comfortable, carefree, and chic.

The T-shirt revolution, the only word to describe its effect on fashion, owes its birth to a war. When American soldiers arrived in France in 1917, they soon discovered how the Frenchmen kept their cool. A few cotton undershirts were “liberated” and brought home. Underwear manufacturers here began turning out copies of the shirts that were shaped like a “T.” When not required as part of military uniforms, it was simply considered an unappetizing piece of men’s underwear.

It would be several years before a T-shirt could be worn in polite society. But once it got a foothold, thanks to Brando and Presley, there was no stopping the revolution. Now everybody’s wearing them everywhere, except possibly your Great Aunt Rose Elizabeth. Don’t be shocked if you learn a friend has a collection pushing 50. After all, they’re cheap and storage space is no problem. Rod McKuen reportedly has more than 600; he could change twice a day and never repeat a message.

The plain white T-shirt, previously seen hiding hairy chests and sneaking out the top of real shirts, is thankfully just about nonexistent. Today, they are worn up front, come in all colors, all styles, and they say it all. It enables the wearer to convey a message without saying a word. You can even send a telegram or a wedding announcement via a Tee.

Some are so cleverly decorated that they belong in a gallery. In fact, an entrepreneur in New York City recently opened The T-shirt Gallery, where shirts are framed and hung like Picassos. The Gallery is the headquarters for the T-shirt Society, Ltd., whose stated purpose is to “bestow awards for recognition of high achievement in T-shirt art.”

Art form aside, the majority of Tees you pass on the street, even spot in the office, are human billboards. They advertise everything from Adidas to rock albums, from Broadway musicals to political slogans, from college names to petting zoos. Advertising experts don’t know exactly why an individual buys a shirt to advertise someone’s hamburgers or trail shop. But millions are being sold in this country each year. And the fad is not likely to fade from fashion any time soon, say market researchers. Rather, they seem to get more stylish every year.

Those who got in on the ground floor of the fad by now have thousands of screen designs in storage, and spare money to put into better photographic and art equipment, store-bought silkscreen printing machines, and conveyor belt dryers. They are moving out of their home bathroom/darkroom and off the back porch into streamlined production plants to meet the demands of a growing list of clients.

In 1971, Don and Sharman Franklin, with fresh degrees in sociology and design from Florida State University, took a vacation that changed their lives. While visiting the West Coast, they noticed people wearing canvas backpacks with silkscreened designs. They decided that was just what the South needed. Some folks know a good thing when they see it.

Homestead Handcrafts started on the back porch of the Franklin’s cracker home in rural North Florida. The designs got turned out between gardening and tending the goats, chickens, cats, and dogs. To keep themselves warm during the nasty Panhandle winters, Don built a Franklin pot-bellied stove, naturally. With the wood-burning stove, handmade equipment, and lunches as fresh as the garden harvest, Homestead Handcrafts is more reminiscent of old-time craftsmen than of 20th-century assembly lines. “Hand screen printing is a real craft,” says Franklin. “We make our own equipment whenever possible because we like to live by our own wits and labor. The fewer motors and pollution the better,” he says. As a result, the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly. The artists, photographer, the printers, the carpenter, and the seamstress are all interested in what they are producing. Businesses are interested, too. All sorts of them, from country clubs to local pubs. They are buying the idea that they can have their names or logos printed inexpensively to practically give the shirts and bags away. “Tees are the perfect vehicle for promotion of products,” states the HH catalog.

Georgia’s fastest growing family vacation spot is among Homestead’s 500 plus clients. Because of their nearness to Plains, these young craftsmen are able to tap and supply the promotional needs of that area.

“Our first design for Plains,” says artist Sharman, “was a scene of the town with a rising sun which symbolizes the New South.” Homestead Handcrafts also did the official inauguration shirt for Carter and Mondale, which was transported to Washington, D.C. aboard “The Peanut Special.”

After years of working off the porch and out of a small bathroom for a darkroom, Homestead Handcrafts recently moved from Havana to Cairo, North Florida to South Georgia. Appropriately, their first editions of shirts from the new plant were two Egyptian designs to commemorate the King Tut exhibit currently on tour in the U.S. King Tut’s golden mummy mask is even better known now that it is being worn on Tees across the country.

As before, the factory is really part of the Franklin’s homesteading adventure. This time the land is their own, and they are able to steal spare minutes in the garden because the workshop is the keystone of their homestead. But foremost, Homestead Handcrafts is turning out quality products for its customers spread coast to coast.

When the underwear in your drawer finally self destructs under the arms, be prepared to replace it with a menagerie.