Fruit Of The Loom T-Shirt Tag Guide: A Year-by-Year Timeline
The Evolution of Fruit of the Loom T-Shirt Tags by Year
How I Determined the Years for These Tags
When dating vintage t-shirts, the year printed on the graphic doesn’t always match the actual copyright date printed on the shirt. Copyright dates reflect when the image was copyrighted, not necessarily when the shirt was made. So, sorry—your Snoopy tee probably wasn’t printed in 1965.
A more reliable way to determine a shirt’s age is by looking at dated event graphics, like a 1984 World Series tee or a 1979 Annual Chili Cook-Off shirt. These are more likely to be from the year stated—unless the design was popular enough to be reprinted later. However, there’s always the chance that a printer used an older blank shirt, leading to different tags on shirts from the same event year.
Since we don’t have an official tag history from Fruit of the Loom itself, this is an ongoing research project rather than an exact science. The tag years listed below come from event-dated shirts rather than copyright dates. As I collect more examples, I’ll continue updating this guide—it's a resource for me, and now for you too.
Fruit Of The Loom - Best Fruit Of The Loom - Lofteez - Heavy Cotton - Made In USA - RN13765:
1980s:
1989
1990s:
1991
1992
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000s Y2Ks:
2000
2001
2003
2004
Links To Other Tag Histories:
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