The history of the shirt has very ancient origins, so much so that it was known since late Roman times, it had the characteristics of being long and light (linen or fine linen) and was worn under the tunic. To confirm its antiquity, it was already mentioned in the will of Patriarch Fortunato to his clerics at the end of the seventh century with the term "camisas et bragas".
Unfortunately, until around 1500 the shirt could only be seen through the cuts of the sleeves of the robe but it had different uses. Until the Renaissance it was worn when women and men took a shared bathroom. It was also used to separate the naked body from heavy clothing and avoid the formation of epidermis, so it also played a barrier role. Later in the
The Middle Ages changed its role and became a gift or a token of love but with the end of the seventeenth century it had a further transformation because it became a real status symbol that divided the aristocracy from the people, who however sometimes used it as a single dress.
Later the "camisas" was also used to distinguish the belonging to a political ideology: for example the red shirts of the so-called Garibaldini or the black shirts of the fascists.
We have to wait for the Baroque period to see the importance of the shirt in men's clothing grow and all thanks to the invention of the tie (at the beginning a simple strip of white linen).
Initially the collar of the shirt, called "pistagna" (Korean collar), was short and vertical. But with the advent of the bourgeois costume of the early 1800s it had to be white and closed by a tie with an impeccable knot. This type of style was created and imposed by Lord Brummell, who considered personal cleanliness one of the most important distinctions that a true "dandy" must have. In the same period we also witness another evolution, that of cuffs that were closed by cufflinks.
Only around 1860 did we begin to see the first colored shirts that were worn only for daywear while the white shirt for the evening remained a must.
Thanks to sport, there were numerous innovations such as the floppy and attached collar, the flannel sports shirt or jeans even worn without the jacket. The denim shirt was initially used as a work uniform but then was used as a sign of protest by young people.
During the twenties the "button down" shirt, so called because it had and still has the collar stopped by two buttons on the front, became very fashionable and which even today remains a unique garment.
Subsequently, each country interpreted the shirt in its own way and became an irreplaceable and extremely versatile garment, so much so that today we can use a beautiful shirt in all situations of our daily life depending on how and with what we dress it.