The History of Jeans, T-shirts, and Hoodies: Time Travel 101

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Time Traveler Revealed!! The headlines yell out. Someone, standing amidst a crowd holding a cellphone or dressed in a t-shirt pops out glaringly from the black and white image. But is it really a time traveler, or are our modern eyes playing tricks? A closer look reveals a small book instead of a phone or a bathing suit instead of a t-shirt. So, why do we feel like our modern fashion is so very modern? How far back could you go before you stop seeing the familiar?

Let's take a look at the long history of blue jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies. Turns out their names are far more modern than their form! Each one goes through a slow process of becoming a standardized garment in the wardrobe to the extent that we feel the need to name it properly. But all of these pieces existed in various formats long before they were officially dubbed.

Denim and Jean reach back to at least the 17th century as named textiles, though the basic concept of twill woven sturdy working cloth is FAR older. The garments by that time, however, already resemble our modern expectations of "blue jeans" with indigo dyed denim or jean cloth. It takes a few important inventions, wide spread industrial work, and even cowboys before we find a "pair of jeans" in nearly every closet.

T-shirts have their roots in the 16th century with the knitting machine. Add in a dash of tuberculosis scare, and everyone in the 19th century is layering up with wool knits to keep out the cold and damp. Though, apparently, walking about in only one's under shirt is liable to get you in the newspapers. We'll have to wait for athletics to take over in the 20th century before we see the standard short sleeve knit by itself regularly.

As for hoodies, they're really more of a Frankensteins monster of clothing. While knit garments go far back, the everyday popularity of a sweater really takes off in the 1890s. Sportswear adapts this garment into a sweatshirt and eventually adds the ancient hood and the very modern zipper. As for the term "hoodie", that will take another 70 years to find its way into our lexicon.

Sources
(1) https://christmas.musetechnical.com/
NYPL: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/
V&A: https://www.vam.ac.uk/
Met: https://www.metmuseum.org/
Book: issuu.com/artsolution/docs/cat._maitre_toile_de_jeans_a

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🎶Music via Epidemic Sound (https://www.epidemicsound.com)

00:00 Introduction
02:37 History of Time Travel
07:18 Blue Jeans
16:49 T-shirts
25:34 Hoodies