Despite having its genesis as a military undergarment - as well as obtaining commercial fillip through the likes of Marlon Brando and James Dean wearing the humble white T-shirt in movies such as A Streetcar Named Desire, The Wild Oneand Rebel Without a Cause- the first recorded example of T-shirts for sale to music fans arose in 1964 when the Beatles rolled out the merchandise during their first tour of the US.
One million T-shirts were sold in the first three days, but due to a licensing oversight by the band's manager, Brian Epstein, millions of dollars were lost in the deal.
The first pop band to have their own successful merchandising company was The Monkees, whose management learned from the mistakes made by Epstein.
Although T-shirts were viewed as a fad, the notion of a T-shirt designed and manufactured for a tour or one-off event took hold from the mid-1960s onwards, courtesy of US west coast music promoter Bill Graham.
Come the early mid-1970s, Graham's newly-created Winterland Productions went on to become one of the most prominent merchandising companies in the US.
Throughout the following decades the importance of the T-shirt has grown. Superstar acts profit very well from sales, while up-and-coming acts use the income from T-shirt sales to support themselves from week to next.
