MerciChic : White Shirt

Every person loves white shirt. But some people don't know who and when did it made.

It made it's first public appearance at the Salon in Paris, worn by a queen in a portrait: Marie Antoinette in a muslin dress. A style and a portrait - by Madame Vigée-Lebrun - far from the royal etiquette: in 1793 it caused a scandal. In the 19th century it was embellished by bouffant details, and by the end of the century it became a symbol of wealth, since it was worn by those who didn’t work, so they couldn’t stain its whiteness. In the Forties it became a trend thanks to the stars of Hollywood: in 1938 Katharine Hepburn wore it in Holiday; Ava Gardner wore a short-sleeved model with wide shorts and lipstick, followed by Lauren Bacall in Key Largo in 1948: white shirt and ice-cold look.

In the Fifties it took Audrey Hepburn to make the shirt with rolled sleeves and lifted collar iconic: she was a princess hanging around with Gregory Peck, those were herRoman Holidays. In those years, femininity was particularly under the spotlight. The pin up style was trendy - shorts and curves, the shirt often tied up to emphasize the decolletage, the bust peeking through. The same happened in the Sixties, but the white shirt was turning into an androgynous piece, an unaware feminist manifesto. In the Seventies, Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn gave their personal interpretations of the androgynous appeal of white cotton. The oversized shirt worn by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and in 1994 a shirt as stylish as its wearer, Uma Thurman, was paired to cigarette pants and ballerina flats in Pulp Fiction. The point of view progressively became anarchic: all the nine top models on the 100th anniversary cover of Vogue US wore the same GAP shirt.

To conclude, there's nothing like a white shirt to show the character of the one who wears it.