Men's T-Shirts

Style & Fashion Statements

Split the Atom looks at the statements men like to make - and why the T-shirt is the ideal vessel for them.

There's a difference between men's tops and men's t-shirts - just as there's a difference between men and women (well, derrr). These differences, ostensibly easy to spot, do require a little explaining.

So sit back and relax, because in the interests of doing things the wrong way around, Uncle Atom will tell you about the second statement first.

See it's all about statements.

Men like to make statements. Take, for example, football players. They like to make statements. Honestly. They spend their whole working day wearing tshirts (of a sort) and insist on putting different tees underneath.

It's not to keep warm that they do this - a vest would surely do the job (in a seriously naff kind of way). No, it's because some football players are designers who like to make statements.

Witness, for example, Robbie Fowler's support of the Liverpool dockers' strike in 1997. Having scored a goal he lifted his top to reveal a mock Calvin Klein (doCKers) motif tee shirt underneath. The political stencil earned him a hefty fine but also a newfound respect amongst Liverpudlians. Equally, Thierry Henry chose an ice white men's tshirt with 185 scrawled on it to celebrate breaking Arsenal's all-time top goalscoring record. (As did Ian Wright, with the aid of Nike's designer skills, before him.)

So even football players, hardly the most intellectually proficient cross-section of global society, are capable of making vaguely original t-shirts.

And how does this link to the second statement? How are men different to women? It's not that women don't like to make statements, it's just they tend not to take their tops off during football matches. (The exception being US soccer star Brandi Chastain, who whipped off her shirt after victory in the 1999 Women's World Cup to reveal - not a tee - but her bra - which, we suppose, is a statement of sorts.)

The difference between a men's top and a men's tee-shirt takes a little longer to explain and a little bit of investigative digging.

Yesterday we took a good long hard look in our wardrobe. Alongside the plethora of designer tees, custom graphic prints and iconographic style statements sit at least ten long sleeved tops, twenty-odd shirts and a number of winter-warming sweaters.

Of the long sleeved tops the most stylish or daring graphics were a couple of well placed logos (isn't it strange how we pay to advertise other people's brands? No such trouble at Atom). Of the shirts, one or two were duotone, and there's an ill-advised brown, purple and squiggly number. And the sweaters? Well their monotone existence can only be justified by the warmth they offer.

The tee-shirts, however, are a different story: a blaze of colour, an array of styles and quite simply the most original items in the Atom closet. Where else would you find your favourite saying, a witty turn of phrase, or a picture of a lion playing Scalextric with a giraffe?

Expressive Tops - Who am I?

But there are more reasons Atom blokes love t-shirts.

Fashion comes into the equation.

Some items never go out of fashion. Jeans, plain tops, a decent pair of sneakers: these things have always looked happy walking down the street, be it the hippy sixties or the naughty noughties.

But, like the changing of the tide, many other things do go out of fashion. And when they do - if you're the sort of cutting edge fashionista that needs to stay afloat of the stylish sea - it can be very expensive to keep pace with the change.

A decent tee offers the best way of dealing with that change in an inexpensive way. An Atom t-shirt, never anything but fashionable because it's been voted for by many discerning members, only costs twenty squids. Stick that with your old jeans, beat up footwear and artfully dishevelled hairstyle and you're right on the cutting edge of fashion without even really trying.

Tee Humour

T-shirts also tend to be funnier than your average top.

It's not that some shirts aren't funny. It's just that when they are it's rarely intentional. It's doubtful when your uncle turned up at your cousin's wedding wearing a puce shirt and magnolia tie he was trying to attract attention to himself in a comic way. In fact, he probably thought he looked rather natty.

Such mistakes aren't ever made in a tee. A decent comic t-shirt, one that fulfils its intended purpose, isn't exactly difficult to find.

Some bring a smile to your face, some are generally witty, and some can even be laugh out loud funny. All of which implies a certain amount of versatility. Your t-shirt is your flexible friend.

To give credit to other items of clothing in our wardrobes, they can also be very versatile (hats off, in particular, to the hats). But few items of clothing match the humble tee.

As a footnote to this lecture on men's tees - an encore if you will - it's worth discussing shape. Read well, Atom-splitter, because here's the deal:
DO NOT EXPERIMENT WITH THE SHAPE OF YOUR TEE-SHIRT.

After years of searching high and low - from deepest Tibet, to shallowest 5th Avenue - Split the Atom can exclusively reveal that anything less than a classic t-shirt is not worth wearing.

You may doubt this research. You may think you have a wonderfully quaint take on the classic tshirt. You may think you've bought something outstanding. But step back for a moment. Take a look at yourself. You've made a horrible mistake.

Baggy Tees & Micro Metro-sexuals

Witness the baggy, blanket-esque efforts of the early nineties. Witness a man strolling down the street in a football top. Witness, if you dare, the figure-hugging, metro-sexual spray-on vanity projects that are skin tight white tees.

All have their place (fifteen years ago, the football terrace and the bonfire respectively), but none is a real tee.

A real tshirt is like a real human. There are imitations, and a select few people dedicate quite a lot of time to them - but we chose not to spend too much time with those people. Those people aren't cool, they aren't effortless, they're just trying too goddamn hard.

A tshirt shouldn't be a difficult choice. It should be natural, it should be comfortable, and it should be your second skin.

There's a reason good tshirts are the shape they are. It's Darwin, it's evolution. And Split the Atom has picked tees from the top of the food chain. If you want a tee with an arm missing or want to add your own artistic influence then go ahead. But it won't improve on perfection.

And if you have made horrible mistakes in the past, walk away from your computer, remove the offending items from your wardrobe and place them in that plastic charity-bag that was left on your door step. We promise we won't tell…