Starting in San Francisco, but taking the world by (quiet) storm at present, what Americans call workwear is the big fashion story at present. The kind of clothing that was worn by cowboys and farmers, factory hands and forestry workers has become a huge fashion statement.

It seems that fashion responds to our primal urges and what most people want now is a job, or at least to look as if they’ve got one, and that means that the basic uniform of the manual worker or tradesman has become one of the most popular fashion looks around.

What’s hot

If your staff wear high-vis clothing, then green is the new black, the bright lime-green used in High Visibility vests was all over the catwalks at the beginning of the year, but glowing orange was nowhere to be seen.

Caterpillar and other work boots, worn with thick cushioned work socks turned down over the top of the boot cuff, were also much in evidence.

The old blue-collar of blue collar workers is trending as a huge hit. Work shirts in shades of blue are outselling other colours three to one in Japan! Worn with the sleeves rolled up, these durable work shirts are not in factories but in the bars and clubs frequented by Japan’s students.

What’s not

Anything too light or lightweight has been ruled out – chunky sweatshirts and heavy boiler suits are in, as are thick work trousers with cargo pockets but right out are thin cotton trousers, slip on shoes and skinny jackets.

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This week a trio of celebrities: choreographer Arlene Phillips, girlfriend of Arsenal star Theo Walcott – Melanie Slade, and fashion designer Tracey Boyd, revealed their take on classic white T-shirts.

Their designs are part of the Race for Life 2010 collection – raising money for Cancer Research UK. Always a summer wardrobe necessity the collection of white t-shirts comprises three very different styles which will earn money for the charity.

This kind of celebrity/charity tie-in is high profile, but it’s easy for a small business to develop a similar public profile – why not ask a local school or design students from a local college to create a T-shirt for your staff to wear for a sales promotion? Run it like a TV competition, with T-shirt face-offs where the designs are modelled by local dance and drama students, and a voting system and involve the local press in publicising it. You can give the winning T-shirt designer a prize and make a donation to a local charity of their choice to further increase your public profile. Then get the most popular T-shirts printed and worn by your team, it’s a positive investment in your business and a boost to local talent too.

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Meryl Streep courtesy of Adonis Chen

There have been a series of articles about the vintage hotties who are currently wowing the world: Sharon Stone and Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep, all of whom have had major cinematic hits at a point in their lives when female movie stars used to become almost invisible. Their clothes have garnered as much attention as their performances – with Sarandon’s red dresses and Streep’s swing coats turning up on catwalk models half their age or less. But one thing few of them have been photographed in … is a T-shirt.

That doesn’t mean women over a certain age shouldn’t wear T-shirts – two of the UK’s finest talents: Judie Dench and Julie Walters, both made red carpet appearances in formal-style T-shirts this year, and Meryl Streep brought the long sleeved jersey T-shirt back into high prominence in The Devil Wears Prada, but it does mean there are new rules to be aware of.

Midriff baring is best left to the under thirties who have abdomens of steel – even the faintest wrinkle or bulge will look glaring if your skin peeks out from under your T-shirt.

The arms matter. In cap or short sleeves, you have to be sure that there isn’t some arm strangle going on – sleeves should be relaxed, not clamped around a body area that does tend to show one’s age at the best of times. For spaghetti straps, make sure you don’t end up with a back fat bulge – it’s not seemly. And while the very young can probably get away with three or four straps on each arm, for vintage ladies it’s probably best to just wear one set of straps and a good supporting, strapless bra.

Oversized T-shirts (Dawn French apart) are not good for public appearances unless you’re on the beach. It just gives the impression that you’ve surrendered to your age, or that you’ve had a senior moment and pulled on your hubby’s T-shirt by mistake. A fitted T-shirt is alluring, especially one that’s specially shaped to the female figure

T-shirts with clever slogans are great, but if you’re over twenty, you need to step back and ask if the message is so important that you want it across your chest. What’s cute in a teen can seem like a brash statement in somebody with age and authority on their side – Katharine Hamnett may have made a career out of T-shirt messages but be very sure that the words you wear really do define the person you wish people to see.

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Everything is up in the air: banks, recessions, hemlines in Milan … but Dior rocked Paris fashion week with an upbeat show that looked like Paris Hilton meets the Colombia Pictures Lady with the Torch.  A lot of the appeal came from a kind of fusion-tribal theme: snakeskin skin jackets and corsetry – often with embroidery, clinging T-shirts with studs, and short, transparent pleated skirts a la cheerleader. Dresses continued the theme, they were sheer silk, very draped and heavy with crystal embroidery.

When Americans go to vote, they need to watch out for the fashion police.  Anybody wearing an Obama or McCain T-shirt to the voting booth can be fined, removed from the area and possible even held by the state police.  There are several states where any form of advertising for the candidates is classed as electioneering (trying to persuade others to vote in a particular way) but Kansas has the strictest laws, including specific guidelines on what not to wear and that includes T-shirts.  You can’t ‘wear, exhibit or distribute labels, signs, posters, stickers or other materials that clearly identify a candidate in the election or clearly indicate support or opposition to a ballot question’ all of which are classed as ‘Election Crime’ The no-electioneering bubble extends to 250 feet in a circle around the door of the polling station and people turning up in T-shirts with election slogans or candidates’ faces on them are usually asked to turn the T-shirts inside out before entering the 250 foot zone.

Election crime T-shirt courtesy of jurvetson

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Or has it?  Only a few months ago, every T-shirt you saw had a sarcastic or offensive message. Divas were seen in T-shirts that said Dump him, while Big Brother contestants sported tops saying, I stole your boyfriend, and of course guys were wearing MILF emblazoned T-shirts to school sports days.  But now it seems we’re becoming nicer.

Why?

One theory is that election years (USA) and potential elections (UK) bring out our desire to share positive messages rather than negative ones, or in other words, to persuade people to our way of thinking, not shock them with it. Regardless of the reason, many of the T-shirts being shown alongside this year’s skinny-leg jeans are ‘happy’ message or ‘higher purpose’ ones.

Happy ones show self-esteem or support for a positive cause eg ‘vegetarians have happier days’ while higher cause ones seek to make people think about something bigger than themselves.  John Lennon wouldn’t have been surprised by the Love & Peace T-shirts being worn in LA last week for the teen fashion festival, nor by sweatshirts begging us Give Earth a Chance. The key feature of these T-shirts is that they are not ironic or clever – just simple, sweet and somewhat retro – either featuring rainbows or the current fad, tattoo-style printing.

So are we all getting nicer, or are we just saving our nastiness for the elections?

Love myself T-shirt courtesy of cgparkhouse

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What is it with Australians and their T-shirts? Back in May Dom Rebel put the most expensive T-shirt in Australia on display ($1000, a diamond studded skull design) and now, a beaded and frilled T-shirt featuring a print by Del Kathryn Barton is going on sale at $400 as part of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, starting in Melbourne tomorrow.

It’s not what you expect of the average Aussie, is it? Given the national identity with grunge clothing, sport and rough-and-ready humour, this predilection for pricey T-shirts is peculiar to say the least. However there is some method in the madness. The expensive T-shirt was commissioned by Sydney label Romance Was Born as part of a ‘Limited’ exhibition of specially commissioned T-shirts which will be sold to the public after a presentation at the GPO shopping complex in Melbourne. Other designers include Alpha 60, Ksubi, Rainer and Bassike, who all contributed custom-designed T-shirts to the Limited project. One of the organisers of the event said, ‘We wanted to celebrate the humble T-shirt, because it’s where a lot of Australian designers have their beginnings … most people wouldn’t pay that much for an average T-shirt, but this one is special, it has become a work of art.’

Alexi Freeman show, Melbourne, courtesy of fashionistar

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The area, which gave a start to many a famous name from Bernard Gant of Gant shirts through to Calvin Klein, and is home to the Fashion Walk of Fame, is shrinking fast. Fashion designer Anna Sui wants to save it, and she’s trying to do so by using fashion to save fashion – along with scores of other names in the fashion industry she’s exploiting the high profile of New York Fashion Week to get the message out. And the message itself is carried by a classic black T-shirt stating Save the Garment Center.

The problem is that new zoning laws have changed the way buildings in the district are classified and many landlords are hoping to turn what have been factories into luxury lofts and chic hotels, nice for them, with rising rents but not so nice for small fashion contractors who will have nowhere else to set up their small but essential businesses. Sui, Vera Wang, Nicole Miller and others are encouraging their fellow Council of Fashion Designers of America members to help promote the T-shirt which also bears the email addresses of New York City officials who can be petitioned to change the zoning – those rather less than stylish addresses are on the back of the fashion-statement T-shirt, by the way! And if Sui has her way, those details will be seen on the backs of many a model as she does her catwalk turn …

Anna Sui courtesy of Budjit

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  Karen Davidson, great-granddaughter of Harley-Davidson co-founder William A. Davidson is creative director of general merchandise for Harley-Davidson and supervises design for the company’s two decade old MotorClothes division. Since 1947, when the first Harley leather jackets appeared, the biker ‘uniform’ of black leather jacket, jeans and T-shirt has been a classic, but now things are changing – the traditional ‘leather’ has been joined by leather treated to be water resistant, and even by cottons and synthetic materials.

As bikers have aged, they have also wanted more from their clothing, like shirts that work on the bike and in the office too.  And the customer mix has changed: men purchase about 60% of the clothing and women buy 40%. This has meant creating brighter colours and new styles along the classic lines. Pink leather jackets were introduced a couple years ago and fitted Harley T-shirts are a big seller. Now the line is expanding again to include grommets and appliqués to personalise both T-shirts and jackets. 

Harley-Davidson T-shirt courtesy of jorgemejia

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A team of scientists in Portugal have designed a t-shirt that could save lives. The Vital Jacket, designed by BioDevices, continuously monitors heart rate and ECG waves so that those living with acute heart problems can be constantly updated on their physical condition.  And it’s expected to transfer to the fitness market too – especially in upmarket gyms.  There are two versions, one that stores all its heart monitoring data on an SD memory card for further analysis on a PC later on, whereas people wearing the HWM200 boasts can keep track of their vital signs in real time via a smartphone or PDA. There’s only one downside – all that complex technology means you can’t put it in the washing machine.

If you’ve had a breast cancer diagnosis, you probably spent some time feeling less than great about your appearance.  But now you can be a supermodel on the catwalk at the Breast Cancer Care Scotland fashion show. The Daily Mail in Scotland has partnered the charity to search for two truly super models – one female and one male – to represent the Sunday Mail at the show. They and eighteen others with breast cancer will strut their stuff at this glittering fundraising event. There will be two shows on Thursday, September 25, at Glasgow’s Radisson SAS Hotel. If you want to show how look and feel great, despite your diagnosis, please download an application form from http://events.breastcancercare.org.uk/server/show/nav.75  or call 0141 221 2244. Hurry up though – the deadline is tomorrow!    

Gym courtesy of combust

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It’s an important contest because prizes for this year’s winners include free stands at various tradeshows including Pure Accessories in London, Moda Menswear in Birmingham and Pret a Porter in Paris as well as other awards including financial support and global trade advice worth £20,000 provided by FedEx. The awards will be held at The Landmark, London and presented by HRH The Princess Royal.

Fashion parade by grahammclellan  

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