Misplaced Pages

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (January 2024) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Political T-shirt" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A political T-shirt is a T-shirt that has a political slogan or image printed on it and which is intended to convey a political message.

History

The earliest recorded political t-shirt was created in 1948 by the Governor of New York, Thomas E Dewey. He put "Dew-it-with Dewey" on a t-shirt to support his political campaign. Although it didn't land him the job, the shirt did have enough of an impact for Dwight D. Eisenhower's supporters to adopt similar tactics four years later.

Revival

Katharine Hamnett revived the use of such shirts in 1984. Dressed in a "58% Don't Want Pershing" T-shirt, she was photographed shaking hands with the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher at a Downing Street reception for London fashion week designers in 1984. (The slogan referred to public opposition to the basing of US Pershing missiles in the UK at the tail end of the cold war.)

References

1. Valerie Steele (2005), Encyclopedia of clothing and fashion, p. 342

This clothing-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

This article about politics is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• T-shirts
• Political communication
• Clothing stubs
• Politics stubs