Printed T-shirts are one of those things that, if you didn’t give them a second thought, you might assume had been around forever. While printing technologies have been around for quite some time, printed T-shirts are actually a much more recent phenomenon. Let’s take a quick but deep dive into the history of T-shirt printing, to see how it’s evolved over the years.
This is a collaborative post
Woodblock printing
The first textile printing technique was developed in China around the 9th century. There were also examples of woodblock printing pieces found in Japan from as early as the 8th century, which were likely inspired by technologies developed in China as well.
Screen printing
Also in China, a few hundred years after Woodblock printing was introduced, we saw the invention of screen printing. This method of printing didn’t make its way to Europe until the 1700s and didn’t become a common method until even later on.
While more technologically advanced nowadays, companies such as Screen Textiles still commonly use screen printing techniques to personalise t-shirts to this day.
T-shirts are introduced
While screen printing technologies have existed for over a thousand years, T-shirts weren’t introduced until just over 100 years ago, around the beginning of the 20th century. Originally, they’re believed to have been invented by factory workers who cut the arms off their work uniforms, to avoid the stifling heat in the workplace.
1960s
Printed T-shirts really exploded in the 1960s, with the emergence of counterculture movements. Printing political designs on T-shirts became a key form of personal and group expression, and designs from both political movements and cultural groups proliferated. T-shirts from tours done by bands like The Beatles, Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd remain popular to the current day!
1990s
Towards the end of the counterculture movement, in the 80s and 90s, printed T-shirts started to be produced in different contexts, with emerging and established brands recognising their potential power. Think Nike, even non-sportswear brands like Coca-Cola – practically everyone jumped on the bandwagon.
2000s boom – eCommerce
By the 2000s, the world of eCommerce revolutionised internet shopping with retail analytics and better customer engagement tactics. Combined with digital printing technologies, that meant that consumers and brands alike suddenly had access to an almost infinite range of off-the-shelf and customisable T-shirt options.
Today, consumers are able to choose between a wide range of different printing options, depending on what kind of effect they want, how much they’re prepared to pay, and a range of other variables. While some technologies have come a long way, people still find value in using screen printing techniques that have hardly changed in 1000 years.
Seeing the historical lineage of the items that are so familiar to us today can be really eye-opening. It helps to understand that nothing develops in a vacuum and that the technologies we take for granted have histories that span both time and space. Hopefully, learning about this little history might just make the process of choosing a T-shirt printing method a little more enjoyable.
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