The Origins and Evolution of our Love for Lettering and Fashion

From fashion maisons’ logos to streetwear style up to vintage clothes, lettering is a must in contemporary fashion and it represents one of the most long-lasting trends of all time. This trend is mainly about lettering and typography, especially the serif fonts, but it also includes calligraphy and graffiti.

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In contemporary fashion, people love putting lettering on clothes because it’s the most powerful visual language. And it is funny, ornamental and at the same time communicative. It allows them to custom a T-shirt or to make a statement. But many of them don’t even know how lettering changed the world of fashion forever.

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Origin and Evolution

The first type of clothes with lettering was the American Army T-shirts with their military school insignia during WWII. Then between the 50s and the 60s the trend was about tourist and Disney T-shirts. In the first case the use of lettering was functional and it communicated the soldier’s belonging to a military institution. While the second one is totally a different context; in fact lettering was more of a marketing tool to make a sort of wearable souvenir.

In the 60s and the 70s, the political and social protests and the punk movement shaped the printed T-shirt trend. Designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm Mclaren wrote provocative messages using hand lettering, letter stencil and periodic style letters. They used lettering in their clothes to create a new visual language that became the iconic look of punk.

In the 80s, the trend literally exploded, thanks to Katharine Hamnett, designer and inventor of the T-shirts with political slogans. She created oversized T-shirts with political messages and geometric bold letters. The most famous was the one worn by the band “Wham!” with the writing “CHOOSE LIFE”. Hamnett was not just famous for her printed slogans on T-shirts, but also because she transformed the lettering itself into a political act.

The 90s and the beginning of 2000 were the decades of logomania, in which designers started printing their brand’s name on clothes and accessories. Often they would use sans-serif fonts. In this trend designers didn’t want to do just a branding campaign, but create a new typographical aesthetic. And lettering or more often typography was fundamental to define that new concept of fashion.

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Lettering and Fashion Now

Through the years designers from all over the world created many memorable pieces of clothing with lettering and typography. The most iconic cloth with lettering is Valentino’s “Peace dress” in 1991. It was a dress with the word peace written in many languages and created as a form of protest against the war of gulf. The pairing of lettering and fashion is so important that in 1997 even the Met museum dedicated an exhibition to this relationship, called “Wordrobe”.

In 2014, the logo mania spread more than before, for example with the famous repetition of brand name all over clothes in bold type. Now it’s still relevant, but it became more minimal with smaller logos and geometric fonts.

The biggest revelation of these years was streetwear with its use of lettering, typography, graffiti and also calligraphy. This trend transformed the concept of writing to redefine brand style and retro vibes. And it got more popular since the high fashion and luxury industries adopted it.

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A Growing Trend

It’s for sure a growing and unstoppable trend that keeps evolving. Statement T-shirt with geometric fonts (often sans serif) became a must through the last years. Recently also ironic phrases and embroidered lettering started to be fashionable.

As it changes I am curious to see new ways of using lettering in fashion in the future. Personally I would like to see more artisan work and I wish more designers would collaborate with calligraphers and lettering artists. But not just for engraving perfumes’ bottles or writing invitations, as they already do. I mean they should collaborate in fashion collections and create more unique handmade pieces.