subject: University Of Illinois T-shirts Sportswear [print this page] Fighting Illini, University of Illinois t-shirts sportswear. A person inevitably builds up an impressive collection of t-shirts over the course of a lifetime. Anyone who has graduated from the University of Illinois no doubt has at least a few well-worn Fighting Illini shirts in the closet. It's a real-live memory, rendered in short-sleeve orange and blue.
It's a funny thing, because especially with t-shirts, there's some kind of residual memory attached to seeing people in those college shirts -- even years later. Like some personable fat guy sweating in an Illinois tee reminds you of that friend who somehow managed not to ruin his or your reputation (and life) because his version of fun corresponded to "very dangerous." Or the way that one girl wore that orange shirt which looked just like all the other shirts -- only she wore it a few important degrees better, and then, that meant love.
University of Illinois T-Shirts
Those two, of course, got married. He became a state senator. She hosted a very popular regional cooking show. Somehow all your memories of the two of them are superimposed on the Illinois colors, on the tees that they both wore on their way to meeting each other. It was a younger time then.
What I like about the t-shirt is that it's the thing we keep longest. Well, and sweatpants, maybe. But for the sake of this argument we'll say t-shirts stay in the family well into the next generation. I don't feel like bootie shorts stick around as long, but again, as I say, it's open to debate. The tee, though, even as the big orange "I" fades over time, somehow the tee gets better and better. Like wine, but with wine stains.
University of Illinois T-Shirts Sportswear & Apparel
And the college t-shirt is particularly resistant to the advance of time. Because those colors never change; that logo doesn't either. Sure there are new styles, but there's a kind of tradition to the college tee. It's a time capsule. So too are mesh shirts and leisure suits and leather chaps, but maybe the point is that the t-shirt is less ... incriminating.
I think what I'm getting at is that the t-shirt is some greater thing than just a piece of clothing. It's there at the beginning of stories, it resists change, it encourages fidelity and adoration and nostalgia. It comes apart with us as well, which proves merely that in the timeless weave of textiles, the t-shirt too is only human.
