The history of this garment – whose name derives from the Latin word camisa, a garment which is worn on the skin – dates back to ancient Egypt. It seems to have drawn its origin in a piece of Egyptian fabric pierced by a single hole for the head: the Kalasiris. In coton, linen, wool or in silk, it dressed the majority of the population of this country. In order to distinguish the master from the slave, the scholars from the lower castes, the “Designers” back then turned naturally towards the first physical element known: the kalasiris – made longer for the rich, and shorter for the poor. Thus since ancient times, was born the social distinction by the clothes. And, when the Egyptian empire bestowed its knowledge upon Greece and, centuries later, upon the Roman Empire, the primitive tunic profited by ornamenting itself with sleeves: rendering tunica manicata the direct ancestor of the modern shirt.
But, during the dark period of the Middle-Ages, the shirt – used in direct line with the miraculously woven seamless robe of the Christ – was used as a garment of second skin. Concealing this garment under ones clothes was the tradition back then. For, it is the soul itself which through it is enclosed in a sort of second corporal envelope ; to protect itself against cold, the impurities of the body renunciated by the Christians, but principally from the regard of others’ and the human offences: the decency takes roots for the sake of orthodoxy. In this way, the shirt – the only under-garment since long, was thus destined to hide and, to be hidden. While centuries earlier, the Old Testament erected a symbol of purity under its linnique form, the 13th century imprisoned it in a white hue, symbolizing it thereby as a Christian luxe: “God grant you, as you are at present covered physically in a white robe, to appear before him on Judgement Day with a conscience pure and irreproachable. Amen” announced the Godfather, while bestowing the shirt to the baptised. Therefore, the shirt speaks on the moral character of the person, in other terms, on his qualities : when he is conscious of his aspects/actions, he merits dignity. In 1238, a conclave held at Trèves ordered the priests “to adorn the camisa” – here similar to the rochet – while going to worship: the shirt is thus sacred. And, just as religion advocates love, the symbolism of “the soul of the shirt” is rapidly taken up by the lovers of the 13th and 14th century: in France, they exchange their shirts and then wear them on their skin, it is said, to feel the presence of the beloved.
The Renaissance marked the end of the religious authority and, very soon, liberated the dress codes of its’ restrictions. The body was not yet liberated, the soul yes: gradually at the dawn of the 18th century, the shirt got liberated at its turn, and passed definitely from underneath to above. It must still publicly distinguish the souls of the workers from the souls of the upper-middle class: wealth is exhibited by means of fine linen, the elegant and chic souls prefer the embroidered lace (on the collar of the dress and on the front of the shirt) whereas the pensioners symbolise their laziness through the longue sleeves/cuffs, inutile to pull up. The silk is colored in blue, in yellow or in black and the white is left to the peasants / farmers. In love, the shirt still plays its role : some widows pass their body through the cells of the bloodstained shirts of their martyr husbands, thus promising their unwavering love in the face of humanity.
In the 20th century, it is this visibility that seeks the camisards (French Protestants), the shirts in red, brown or the militia black, wanting to signify to the face of the world, their devotion to an ideology, to a party, to a motherland. Meanwhile, the numerous designers/stylists, inspired of the framework of the shirt, Chanel in the lead, create the famous shirt dresses belted under the bust, around the waist or on the hip. In short, the shirt today, is an eternal part of the essentiel basics of the wardrobe, and inspite of all the modifications brought about by history, retains a classic-ism resumed notably in the Italian collar and the chest pocket. Indeed, the shirt is a Masterpiece.
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