LingoTshirts.com, a family-friendly e-commerce website with "t-shirts that talk for you" began in October 2005.

I noticed that millions of people pass by every day - people who look interesting but who I may never get the opportunity to meet. I decided that a t-shirt could change that.  After all, the t-shirt has been telling people about its wearer for centuries.  

It all began in Ancient Rome with the tunic. The lower class working man would wear only a tunic, belted at the waist with the material hitched up to show the knees. In fact, the lower the class, the harder the work, and the higher the tunic to make work easier. Only the two upper classes wore togas over their tunics, with the shoulder of their tunics visible. Their tunics would have a purple stripe, a thin one for the Equestrian (a wealthy businessman who is a Plebian; that is someone who is not an ancestor of the first 100 Patriarchs that founded Rome) & a thick one for the senator (someone who is a Patrician - you guessed it - a person who can trace their lineage back to one of the 100 Patriarchs.) So the Ancient Roman the undershirt, as with almost everything in their society, was used to denote status and class. The tunic told the wearer's life story to whoever walked by.

There is an interesting story about how the t-shirt got its famous tee shape. It is said that when Queen Victoria went to inspect the fleets it was decided that it was "indecent" for the sailor's underarms to be seen while they were working in their undershirts so they were ordered to add sleeves. The t-shirt is the prim Victorian age in a nutshell!

In 1939 the first promotional t-shirt was printed for the movie "The Wizard of Oz", but it seems that in the 40s only children were wearing printed t-shirts for Davey Crockett, Joe Dimaggio and Roy Rogers. The Smithsonian has a "Dew It with Dewey" political t-shirt for Truman-Dewey in 1948, but it was still for kids!

Then another movie changed it all. In 1951 Marlon Brando wore his t-shirt without a shirt over it in a "Streetcar Named Desire" so all the young "hipsters" started wearing their white t-shirts as shirts too. James Dean and Elvis Presley wore t-shirts under their leather jackets, so soon people knew how "cool" or "square" you were by whether you wore your t-shirt as a shirt or an undershirt.

In the 50s the racing culture began putting the same flames and pin striping from their cars onto their shirts to show they were ultra cool. Then they started airbrushing pictures of their cars and characters on the shirts.  

In the 1960s t-shirts were tie-dyed at home, and a whole generation turned to their wardrobe to exercise their freedom of expression. In 1969 Don Boelter Lithography of Hollywood discovered how to put a photo on a t-shirt and in the 70s the iron-on transfer was invented, making way for perhaps the most famous t-shirt of all time - Farrah Fawcett in her red swimsuit. Millions were produced. But I digress. . .

At first I designed t-shirts for my own kids because we couldn't find what they wanted. 

Our high school aged daughter was dating the bass player of a local band and wanted a t-shirt to let all the other girls at the dance know that he was taken with a simple "My Boyfriend is the Bass Player" t-shirt. Do you think we could find one? So we found Cafepress, a Print On Demand t-shirt company, and made one for her. Our son is a gamer and wanted an "I Eat Noobs for Breakfast" t-shirt which I created with a vintage cereal ad. This t-shirt has become one of our best sellers over the years. (Our youngest son asked for a "Truck!" t-shirt which told everyone about his unique sense of humor!) Whenever they wore these t-shirts people stopped to ask where they got them, ask about their boyfriend, their interest in video games or "what does your truck t-shirt mean". They got noticed! They met people with similar interests who read their t-shirt and stopped to talk.

Before you knew it I was designing t-shirts for families that wanted something different than they found in stores. They wanted t-shirts that told about their interests in their kids, sports or hobbies.

When my daughter was in college as a graphic artist, our beloved cat Ferguson passed away. Ferguson was her baby for 11 years and she was heart broken. She created a cute design in memory of her cat which she called a Fluffball - her nickname for him. It is a cat curled up into a ball with one eye peeking. This began a whole collection of Fluffball animals which are available for sale at LingoTshirts.com. She is also into Japanese Kawaii art, so she has designed a collection of Kawaii girls called Cutie Patooties for us too.  

My husband is a nature and landscape photographer, so many of his bestselling photos can be found for sale on t-shirts, mugs, magnets and of course prints. His hippo, bear, coyote and wolf photos are very popular as are his castle photos and stained glass photos at the William Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland.

LingoTshirts.com is a family business where we all contribute ideas and creativity to design "T-shirts that Talk for You" - just like they've done for centuries.