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Men's Undershirts - History & Style
Hi! I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style. Today I'm going to be talking
with you about the undershirt -- yes, the undershirt. I'm going to be giving you the
history of the undershirt. I'm going to be talking about styles of undershirts. I'm going
to be talking about the fabrics that undershirts are made from, okay?
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Let's go ahead and get into undershirts, the lowly undershirt. I am wearing one right now
made by my friend, Mike, over at RibbedTee. It's a company he started over in Los Angeles.
The undershirt is something that many of us use and many of us don't even know the history
behind it.
UNDERSHIRT HISTORY
Undershirts, as we see them today, basically the T-shirt came out of the US Military and
it was something that was in the Navy, Coast Guard, other services, they had it underneath
as protection. It provided a bit more warmth and it was great for absorbing sweat and protecting
the more expensive clothing on the outside, so let's go farther back in history.
Now, there's not a lot of documentation on this, I don't know why, but if you go back
to Roman soldiers, if you look at Chinese soldiers, they wore forms of undershirts.
Oftentimes, they were just fabric draped around the body, but they served as protection and
also protecting their expensive garments.
A lot of the times, especially if they were an officer or if they were of a higher rank,
it was something that the clothing that they wore was very expensive -- you had less clothing,
it was all hand-made, so you wanted to protect it from your own body because you didn’t
want it to appear soiled. It was easier to change out that undersheet, I guess, than
to change and go and wash all your clothing.
Let's move forward 18th, 19th, 20th Century. All of a sudden, handmade clothing is disappearing.
Manufacturers are starting to make clothing and they are systemizing in a sense what we
normally wear. If you wanted to go out and wear something that's against society or totally
different, you know how hard it is to find something like that because the clothing manufacturers
in many ways dictate what we wear.
So in that way, they decided that, "Well, let's go with the undershirt." It serves the
purpose, like I mentioned, of protection. It serves the purpose of helping keep you
a bit warmer. "Let's go ahead" and they decided that they were going to make it. We saw the
union suits. You can do a Google search on it. A lot of people make fun of it, but it
does serve the purpose of keeping us warm and of protecting the more expensive clothing
on the outside of the body.
We've talked about the history. Let's talk about the styles. I've got some examples.
STYLES
• Tank top - I don't have an example of this one, the wife-***. Just do a Google
search, tank-top wife-***. This is the one without the sleeves. I'm not a big fan
of it because I don't think it serves the purpose of protecting my clothing. Yes, I
do sweat and I want to protect my clothing. I wear an antiperspirant and that kind of
stuff, but I still sweat, so I wear clothing that protects my nice shirts from sweating
in the armpit area.
Those types of shirts I don't think really do a good job. Some men like them and they
like it just basically how you can't see your nipples through if you're wearing a really
lightweight shirt, so that's why perhaps they wear it.
• V-neck - Let's move on to the next one, which I've got an example. I'm going to give
you the V-neck undershirt. You can see this one has a V-neck. I am wearing a V-neck as
well, and the reason I like wearing a V-neck is because I can leave this shirt undone here.
No one is going to see I have an undershirt on and I'm safe.
We'll get into this in fabrics. This one is made from 50% cotton, 50% polyester, and be
thinking about why I would approve of something that uses a manmade fiber, but we'll get into
that in a few seconds.
• Crew neck - This is where it's going to go all the way up to the top. This is probably
the most common undershirt on the planet. This is where the modern-day T-shirt came
from. So if you go back and look at some of the films in the 1950s, the Wild One, these
are guys who are wearing their undershirts in a sense with leather jackets over that.
Eventually, they became the T-shirt, which believe it or not, the T-shirt is a fashion
item and has really just become popular in the 1990s in this part of the 21st Century.
I always get those century things mixed up.
• Long sleeve - The other style I want to talk about is the long sleeve. Do I have a
long sleeve example? I do, and this is more closer to what we would see in the union,
the union suit, and this is for thermal purposes. I live here in Wisconsin. It gets cold and
I do have some thermal underwear. I've also got a full body suit because it keeps you
a little bit warmer, but this is the long sleeve. Oftentimes, you just see thermal underwear.
Go ahead and do a Google search and it'll have a picture pop up, I'm sure.
• Athletic - Now beyond that, we also have athletic. Now Under Armour has really done
a great job coming in and almost cornering the market on this, but before Under Armour
came out, Patagonia, North Face, a lot of these backpacking companies, they were actually
putting out some great undergarments. They did a good job of wicking away moisture and
protecting you.
I remember I picked this one up back in 1997, I believe, and I still have it. It is made
from Capilene, Patagonia. I don't even know if they make this stuff anymore, but this
was an awesome undershirt. Actually, I use it just as regular wear when I was down in
Ecuador. I went down there with an entomologist, and you can do a Google search on what that
means. We were down at the rainforest and it was pretty cool. We were actually studying
all types of insects in the rainforest. I have a biology background, by the way.
• Compression - We've talked about that compression. I'm not going to get into compression
undergarments too much. It's come out of the women's. Spanx was the big company over there,
but if you somehow want to shape your body, go ahead and look into that. I'm not a big
advocate of it, but that stuff is out there.
• Specialty Undershirts - There are also specialty undershirts that are made to help
wick away moisture to absorb sweat. And if you sweat a lot, go check out the Undershirt
Guy. Just do a Google search, "undershirt guy", Tug. He's put out tons of great information
on this.
Now, undershirts also come in a variety of colors. I just showed you a number of whites,
but they also come in gray and black. Black, you want to make sure your shirt's dark; otherwise,
it's going to show through. Gray is nice. I like gray because you can get a little bit
dirtier and stain it. I think they're going to last longer than the whites simply because
they're going to hide stains and it works perfectly fine under a white shirt. I've never
had them show through, but then again, I don't wear really, really lightweight white shirts.
Now let's get into fabric.
FABRIC
Cotton is going to be the most common -- durable, proven, good to go. See something that's 100%
cotton, you're probably safe. Now, there are different levels of quality of cotton, so
that's why something that's made from a super pima cotton is going to possibly be more expensive
than just made from a normal cotton coming out of West Texas. I'm from West Texas, but
honestly, we don't make the highest quality cotton there. So having said that, I'm sure
I insulted some guys at Texas Tech University because they're all about their cotton, but
in any case guys, face the reality, super pima cotton and other things like that are
where it's at.
Now wools, there's a company called Icebreaker that's really making some great undershirts
out of wool. So if you're into that and you want something that will really absorb sweat,
go check them out.
BLENDS
Now, I alluded to this and let's talk quickly about blends. Now, 20 years ago, undershirts
that are made from polyester, I would say absolutely not, but they may come a long way
especially with everything that we've seen in the athletic type of garments.
This one, I brought it up earlier, it's made by RibbedTee and this one is 50% polyester,
50% cotton, and I love it. What separates this and why it works is because of the weave,
so you can't see it here, but this is a gauze weave. I can almost see through this, very,
very lightweight. If you're in a hot area, you're in Arizona, you're down in Florida,
this is the undershirt that you're going to want to check out if you wear undershirts,
okay, guys?
The best undershirt, what is the right one? Well, the right one is the one that serves
you for what you need. I own a variety. I advice you own a variety. I advice buying
less, buying higher quality.
With that, guys, if you want to learn more about men's style, make sure to go check us
out over at realmenrealstyle.com. This entire video right here was in support of my article
over at The Art of Manliness. I'm going to link to that great article right down below,
so go check it out.
Okay, guys, I'll see you later. Bye-bye.