Wed, 7 Jan 2009 17:55

Helen of Troy may have had the face which launched a thousand ships, but Ernesto "Che" Guevara had the face which launched a million printed t-shirts. The image of the Cuban revolutionary has transcended to iconic status by featuring on a huge variety of printed clothes and memorabilia owned by people all over the world. Despite it being 42 years since his death, there are still few more iconic images to feature on items of screen printed clothes.

Released on New Year's Day, Steven Soderbergh's movie epic Che: Part One has reignited interest in the fabled man who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution of 1959. The film documents Argentine Guevara's rise to global fame as Castro's second-in-command in the fight to topple the US-backed Batista regime from power in the Cuban capital of Havana.

It is widely expected that the movie, which is set over two parts, will generate a fresh round of interest in printed t-shirts, printed sweatshirts and printed rugby and drill shirts which bear Guevara's image. According to the Independent, Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen was recently pictured wearing a bikini featuring the revolutionary's face, while his image has also been embroidered on a Louis Vuitton handbag owned by Liz Hurley. Actress Lindsay Lohan also wore a Che Guevara printed t-shirt while appearing in the movie Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.

The famous image was originally taken by photographer Alberto Korda at a memorial service in 1960 and later published in German magazine Stern. However, it was Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick who first transferred it to the red, white and black version which has featured on so many items of screen printed clothes and t-shirts. The image has also proved superbly adaptable for a wide variety of purposes. Over the years, it has morphed into the face of everyone from Christ to Virgin chief Richard Branson and comedian Ricky Gervais.

The image also features at the Cuban Ministry of the Interior building in the form of a gigantic sculpture. Alongside the music of Buena Vista Social Club, it remains one of Cuba's most enduring exports to the world.

As the band's percussion player Amadito Valdes explained to Insight magazine: "I was working in Korea and one of the promotional phrases for my concert was; Che Guevara, Tabaco Cubano and Buena Vista Social Club are the symbols of Cuba."

David Crowley, a design historian at the Royal College of Art, told the Independent that the enduring popularity of Guevara's image is the result of good timing.

"By the 1960s, the image of revolution in the Communist world had become enervated," he explained. "But the Cuban revolution injected electricity into it. The Che image was very much tied up with that excitement, which was so attractive to radicals in the West."

As the second instalment of Soderbergh's epic about the famed Marxist rebel is still to be released, it is likely that Guevara's image will continue to prove popular. The fact remains that there are few more enduring images to have featured screen printed t-shirts. From an icon of the Cuban revolution, Guevara has now become a legend of printed t-shirts.