09/15/2020

From Pandemic Necessity to Human Billboard

How face masks evolved into a must-have accessory

When New York State first issued a face-covering mandate back in April, I wasn’t even sure where to buy one. Positive cases of COVID-19 were skyrocketing, and it was nearly impossible to get your hands on this new, literally must-have accessory.

At that time, masks were pure utility. But now that they’ve been a part of daily life for months—and will continue to be—face masks are starting to morph from a personal necessity to a form of personal expression. Face masks inherently create a sense of sameness—they cover up half your face, after all—so the masks themselves have to serve as a way to express individuality. As a result, people are giving some serious pizzazz to their PPE, and it has a surprising historical parallel. The T-shirt.

While the need wasn’t as acute as masks, T-shirts were also solely utilitarian at first. They evolved from long johns in the late 1800s and were considered underwear. In 1904, the Cooper Underwear Company popularized the garment by marketing the T-shirt as an easy-to-care-for, buttonless undershirt for bachelors who, as you know, can’t do anything for themselves. It wasn’t until the 1950s that T-shirts started to become acceptable as outerwear. “Cut to films like A Streetcar Named Desire and Rebel Without a Cause, when you had these hypermasculine stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean wearing white T-shirts,” said Sara Idacavage, a fashion historian and lecturer at Parsons School of Design. “That’s obviously going to influence young people, because they want to be young and sexy like Marlon Brando.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from Fast Company.