Giordana Specoo

A shirt is a cloth garment for the upper body. Originally an undergarment worn exclusively by men, it has become in American English a catch-all term for almost any upper-body garment other than outerwear such as sweaters or coats, or undergarments such as bras. The term "top" is sometimes used in ladieswear. In British English, a shirt is more specifically a garment with a collar, sleeves with cuffs, and a full vertical opening with buttons. This is known in American English as a dress shirt.

History

The world's oldest preserved garment, discovered by Flinders Petrie, is a "highly sophisticated" linen shirt from a First Dynasty Egyptian tomb at Tarkan, ca. 3000B.C. : "the shoulders and sleeves have been finely pleated to give form-fitting trimness while allowing the wearer room to move. The small fringe formed during weaving along one edge of the cloth has been placed by the designer to decorate the neck opening and side seam."

The shirt was an item of men's underwear until the twentieth century. Although the woman's chemise was a closely related garment to the man's, it is the man's garment that became the modern shirt. In the middle ages it was a plain, undyed garment worn next to the skin and under regular garments. In medieval artworks, the shirt is only visible (uncovered) on humble characters, such as shepherds, prisoners, and penitents. In the seventeenth century men's shirts were allowed to show, with much the same erotic import as visible underwear today. In the eighteenth century, instead of underpants, men "relied on the long tails of shirts to serve the function of drawers. Eighteenth century costume historian Joseph Strutt believed that men who did not wear shirts to bed were indecent. Even as late as 1879, a visible shirt with nothing over it was considered improper.

The shirt sometimes had frills at the neck or cuffs. In the sixteenth century, men's shirts often had embroidery, and sometimes frills or lace at the neck and cuffs, and through the eighteenth century long neck frills, or jabots, were fashionable. Colored shirts begin to appear in the early nineteenth century, as can be seen in the paintings of George Caleb Bingham. They were considered casual wear, for lower class workers only, until the twentieth century. For a gentleman, "to wear a sky-blue shirt was unthinkable in 1860 but had become standard by 1920 and, in 1980, constituted the most commonplace event."

European and American women began wearing shirts in 1861, when the "Garibaldi Blouse", a red shirt as worn by the freedom fighters under Giuseppe Garibaldi, became fashionable.

Types of shirt

• Camp shirt — a loose, straight-cut, short sleeved shirt or blouse with a simple placket front-opening and a "camp collar."
• Dress shirt — shirt with a collar, a full-length opening at the front from the collar to the hem, and sleeves with cuffs
  • guayabera — an embroidered dress shirt with four pockets.
• T-shirt — also "tee shirt", a casual shirt without a collar or buttons, made of a stretchy, finely knit fabric, usually cotton, and usually short-sleeved. Originally worn under other shirts, it is now a common shirt for everyday wear in some countries.
  • Ringer T-shirt — tee with a separate piece of fabric sewn on as the collar and sleeve hems
  • halfshirt — a high-hemmed t-shirt
    • A-shirt or construction shirt or singlet (in British English) — essentially a sleeveless t-shirt with large armholes and a large neck hole, often worn by labourers or athletes for increased movability. Sometimes called a "wife beater" when worn without a covering layer.
    • camisole — woman's undershirt with narrow straps, or a similar garment worn alone (often with bra). Also referred to as a cami, shelf top, spaghetti straps or strappy top
• tennis shirt, golf shirt, or polo shirt — a pullover soft collar short-sleeved shirt with an abbreviated button placket at the neck and a longer back than front (the "tennis tail").
  • rugby shirt — a long-sleeved polo shirt, traditionally of rugged construction in thick cotton or wool, but often softer today
  • henley shirt — a collarless polo shirt
• baseball shirt — usually distinguished by a three quarters sleeve, team insignia, and flat waistseam
• sweatshirt — long-sleeved athletic shirt of heavier material, with or without hood
• tunic — primitive shirt, distinguished by two-piece construction. Initially a men's garment, is normally seen in modern times being worn by women
• shirtwaist — historically (circa. 1890-1920) a woman's tailored shirt (also called a "tailored waist") cut like a man's dress shirt; in contemporary usage, a woman's dress cut like a men's dress shirt to the waist, then extended into dress length at the bottom
• nightshirt — often oversized, ruined or inexpensive light cloth undergarment shirt for sleeping.
• sleeveless shirt — A shirt with no sleeves. Contains only neck, bottom hem, body, and sometimes shoulders depending on type
  • halter top — a shoulderless, sleeveless garment for women. It is mechanically analogous to an apron with a string around the back of the neck and across the lower back holding it in place.

Tops that would generally not be considered shirts:

• onesie or diaper shirt — a shirt for infants which includes a long back that is wrapped between the legs and buttoned to the front of the shirt
• sweaters — heavy knitted upper garments
• jackets, coats and similar outerwear
• tube top (in American English) or boob tube (in British English) — a shoulderless, sleeveless "tube" that wraps the torso (not reaching higher than the armpit, staying in place by elasticity or by a single strap that is attached to the front of the tube

Parts of shirts

Many terms are used to describe and differentiate types of shirts (and upper-body garments in general) and their construction. The smallest differences may have significance to a cultural or occupational group. Recently, (late 20th century) it has become common to use tops to carry messages or advertising. Many of these distinctions apply to other upper-body garments, such as coats and sweaters.

Shoulders and arms

Sleeves

Main article: sleeves

Shirts may:

• have no covering of the shoulders or arms — a tube top (not reaching higher than the armpits, staying in place by elasticity)
• have only shoulder straps, such as spaghetti straps
• cover the shoulders, but without sleeves
• have short sleeves, varying from cap sleeves (not extending below the armpit) to half sleeves (elbow length)
• have three-quarter-length sleeves (reaching to a point between the elbow and the wrist)

Cuffs

Main article: cuff

Shirts with long sleeves may further be distinguished by the cuffs:

• no buttons — a closed placket cuff
• buttons (or analogous fasteners such as snaps) — single or multiple. A single button or pair aligned parallel with the cuff hem is considered a button cuff. Multiple buttons aligned perpendicular to the cuff hem, or parallel to the placket constitute a barrel cuff.
• buttonholes designed for cufflinks
  • a French cuff, where the end half of the cuff is folded over the cuff itself and fastened with a cufflink. This type of cuff has four buttons and a short placket.
  • more formally, a link cuff — fastened like a French cuff, except is not folded over, but instead hemmed, at the edge of the sleeve.
• asymmetrical designs, such as one-shoulder, one-sleeve or with sleeves of different lengths.

Lower hem of shirt

• leaving the belly button area bare (much more common for women than for men). See halfshirt.
• hanging to the waist
• covering the crotch
• covering part of the legs (essentially this is a dress; however, a piece of clothing is perceived either as a shirt (worn with trousers) or as a dress (in Western culture mainly worn by women)).
• going to the floor (as a pajama shirt)

Body

• vertical opening on the front side, all the way down, with buttons or zipper. When fastened with buttons, this opening is often called the placket front.
• similar opening, but in back.
• left and right front side not separable, put on over the head; with regard to upper front side opening:
  • V-shaped permanent opening on the top of the front side
  • no opening at the upper front side
  • vertical opening on the upper front side with buttons or zipper
    • men's shirts are often buttoned on the right whereas women's are often buttoned on the left.

Neck

• with polo-neck
• with v-neck but no collar
• with plunging neck
• with open or tassel neck
• with collar
  • windsor collar or sprea