Although some topics might seem a bit more mundane than others, anything is interesting once you peel back the surface layer of history and find out some of the weirder details, which is exactly the case with custom tee shirts.

They might seem like the regular, everyday, plain-old, staple garments everyone has, but if you take a closer look, you might find that they’re pretty interesting.

Every year, 2 billion tee shirts are sold.

Yep. You read that right. Every year, some 2 billion tee shirts are sold across the world. Whether that’s because people are replacing their worn out, ragged old shirts, because they simply love tee shirts to the point where they compulsively buy them, or a combination of both remains a mystery.

The First Promotional Custom Tee Was Made For the First Movie in Color.

Brands everywhere make cheap custom tee shirts, and then give them away in an effort to promote their company by generating more brand awareness. It’s such a common practice nowadays that according to the Advertising Specialty Institute, some 48% of consumers own cheap custom tees. While it may be a widely used practice nowadays, it wasn’t always this way. The first ones to come up with the idea of using custom tees to promote a brand were the ones in charge of marketing the first movie ever shot in color, The Wizard of Oz.

The Most Expensive Tee Shirt in the World Costs More Than $1 Million.

The cost of a tee shirt varies depending on where you’re shopping. A five pack of plain undershirts might sell for $10 a pop, but a single, fitted, brand name tee shirt that’s equally as plain might also sell for $10. It all depends on where you’re shopping. However, chances are you’ll never even see another shirt that costs even close to as much as the world’s most expensive shirt, which is about $1,275,000!

See? Who would have thought that tee shirts could be so interesting? If you know any other neat facts about custom tees, feel free to share in the comments.