In Praise of the Humble Tee

If you log on or walk into Uniqlo at the moment, you can't miss Tweety, and a number of other characters, carefully and cleverly presented on T-shirts. Uniqlo is a 900-strong Japanese chain specializing in affordable casual wear with shops around the world, including the U.K. and China. It has been a beacon of success throughout the downturn. Warner Bros.' Tweety is just one of an impressive 1,300 T-shirt designs created for Uniqlo's UT project, an annual retail event that celebrates the spirit of the T-shirt. "A T-shirt is more than just a T-shirt, it is an expression of who you are, how you feel, where you've been and what you love," posts the Uniqlo Web site. In the past, it has offered UT designs by '80s artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as photographers, musicians and designers from all over the world and from all artistic persuasions. For 2010, the theme is UT All Stars and the range of T-shirts, huge by any standards, offers a bold mixture of cartoon heroes and characters, interspersed with work by German graphic designers and typesetters, manga artists and patterns inspired by the work of Hans Christian Anderson. Characters from Warner Bros. and Toei Animation, for example, also appear. It is an eclectic mixture with contributions from all over the world and the products are at once individual and part of a club. Each UT T-shirt comes with a large, glossy label giving background about the design, credentials, cultural references, artist biography and incorporates phrases such as "Why does Tom always chase Jerry?" The swing tags have very high production values, but the tees cost only a tenner. What's behind this particular presentation? It allows the customer to learn about the character, buy into the design credibility and feel reassured of the authenticity of their choice. These are much the same reasons, of course, that consumers follow brands.

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Generally thought to have caught the attention of American troops in Europe a century ago and, as a practical, lightweight undergarment, was suited to manual work back home in the U.S. It underwent its own cultural awakening thanks, in part, to screen heroes and rebels Marlon Brando and James Dean. After the war, T-shirts were easily dyed, decorated or printed. T-shirts bearing Mickey Mouse and Davy Crockett were among the first licensed ones made by a company called Tropix Togs in Miami in the 1950s. Since then, the history of licensing is impossible to conceive without the T-shirt. As well as being a billboard for brands, characters, political statements, sentiments or personal taste, the T-shirt has become an icon of international economics, fair trade, factory standards and green issues (the story of the garment from cotton field to compost heap is well told in Pietra Rivoli's "The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy"). And Uniqlo's current UT campaign shows that despite the ubiquity of the T-shirt, the world never tires of putting its favorite characters on one or finding fresh ways to present this most staple of garments. The marriage of T-shirt and licensed character continues to appeal to consumers in a splendid, till-ringing way.