T-Shirts are once more bound to be the trendiest garments in Tanzania throughout 2025 as the country gears towards forthcoming General Elections.
But even without the polls, T-shirts have always ranked highest in the local residents clothes shopping list, being cheaper, readily available and offering on-body palates for individuals, companies and institutions’ own branding.
A study conducted by The Tanzania Times team in major cities such as Arusha, Dar-es-salaam and Mwanza revealed that almost all young people adorned T-shirts at any given moment with exception of formal situations like public offices that require certain types of clothing.
Most of the T-shirts that the Tanzanian youth adorn are second hand garments popularly known as ‘Mitumba,’ featuring exotic branding especially those of big international pop stars, film actors or top soccer players.
Great design, popular graphics and colors are however what attracts most young people in Tanzania to buy imported second-hand T-shirts.
The two popular football teams Simba and Yanga of Dar-es-salaam have also been releasing their own branded T-shirts backed by online gambling entity Sport-pesa and these have been selling like hot cakes among supporters during big stadium matches.
But as the country heads towards the October 2025 polls, political parties and candidates have started placing orders for their own branded promotional and campaign T-shirts.
The country’s leading textile factories, A-to-Z and Sunflag Tanzania Limited, both based in Arusha have been producing some of the best T-shirts and Polo shirts for export, but few of those are ever sold locally.
The ‘T’ in T-shirt refers to the shape of the garment, which when laid flat on a surface resembles the letter T.
The origins of the T-shirt date back to the late 19th century when the first T-shirts were worn by laborers as undergarments. They were simple, lightweight, and easy to clean.
In the Early 20th Century, T-shirts became popular among sailors in the United States Navy where again they were issued as undergarments, and it was when the term ‘T-shirt’ was coined.
After the Second World War (WW-II) T-shirts gained popularity as casual wear, especially among young people. Marlon Brando’s iconic T-shirt look in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ released in 1951 helped to popularize the trend.
In the period between 1960s and 70s, T-shirts became a fashion statement, with the rise of graphic prints, logos, and slogans.
At the moment T-shirts are a staple in fashion worldwide, not only in Tanzania or East Africa, with endless designs, styles, and materials.