Got this email from a new reader a couple of days ago with great ideas for my site. I hope to incorporate some of them in the coming months. To illustrate one of his ideas, he included an article about his fondness of “wife beater” tank top undershirts:
Hi Tug,
I came across your blog, and I think it’s terrific.
I hope you don’t mind a couple of suggestions.
The first thought is to provide your reader with some demographics or market research on undershirts. I’ve searched the web, and I can’t find any.
Maybe a survey of your readership would be a way to get at it.
Standard stuff: what styles worn, why, purchase behavior, etc.
Secondly, dedicate a few blogs to something in the form of “why I wear what I wear”.
It’s not much good to make a suggestion without giving something in the way of a sample. So I attach a piece I wrote (just for you!) on my favorite undershirt style.
Maybe other readers can contribute a “Why I Wear a T-Shirt,” or “Why I Wear a Muscle Shirt.”
Great job…keep the blogs coming.
“C” in Cali
His full write up is below, a great contribution to the site. If you’d like to share why you wear a specific type of undershirt, feel free to send it my way!
I did want to mention that I do have a poll (link at the top of the page) that asks guys what their favorite undershirt brands are.
So far, out of 77 votes, the top three are 2xist, Hanes, and Calvin Klein.
Also, following his feedback above, I decided to add another poll and ask everyone about their favorite style of undershirt.
Make sure you vote!
Why I Wear: A Wife Beater
Written By: “C” in Cali
The simple tank top undershirt has been much maligned.
Starting with its name, you will also find the tank top as a wife-beater, a guinea-T, or a redneck uniform. As if that isn’t enough to discourage us from wearing a tank top, few of us would take our fashion cues from the television show “Cops” where wife-beaters outnumber the whole lot of T-shirts, V-shirts, and muscle shirts.
Even our esteemed blogger Tug admits that he rarely wears tank tops, and his fashion tips are well-worth taking.
Enough with the wife-beater put downs! It’s time, and it’s easy, to make a case for this abused undershirt because it has considerable merit.
Let’s start with its design.
The tank top undershirt is simple with just enough material to cover what an undershirt is supposed to cover, including bulging nipples, by being suspended with two proportioned straps over the shoulders.
The neckline typically plunges in a distinctive U-shaped form. The back portion is positioned higher than the front accentuating back muscles and affording more body warmth and coverage. It is typically made of ribbed cotton or a cotton-micro-fiber blend, and it mainly comes in standard white, though some colors, more suitable to the gym or the beach, are available.
In general, it is priced modestly and almost universally available. It also goes by the favorable moniker of an athletic shirt.
But, unless you’re British and know it as a vest, or a marathon runner who calls it a singlet, the tank top is pretty much stuck with being known as a wife-beater.
The wife-beater has lots of competition: the T-Shirt that conveys a safe and unobtrusive look, the V-neck shirt that can, depending upon your point of view, look like your dad’s undershirt or, thanks to its neckline, a hybrid of a wife-beater and a T-shirt, or the muscle shirt that keeps the T look but eliminates short sleeves to accentuate muscle tone.
A recent style competitor is the square necked A-shirt that doesn’t seem to know quite what it wants to be when it grows up.
Its look of a child’s bib may make it obsolete; at least, let’s hope so.
So, why do I, a white collar professional, wear a wife-beater?
Fit and Shape.
For the properly proportioned male, the wife-beater fits like a comfortable shoe.
With the right fit, it’s snug to the upper torso and covers the important areas without crowding and tightening up in the underarm area like a T-shirt. Its shape means that it doesn’t do much to absorb perspiration, but it also doesn’t create sweat because of its sleeveless design.
The wife-beater can’t incorporate yellow stains from either sweat or deodorant, a constant problem with the T.
The shape of the wife-beater is perfectly proportional and accentuates the right body lines unlike the T-shirt that serves as a breastplate removing any body angles.
Comfort.
The wife-beater versus T-shirt debate is like another one in the world of underwear between briefs and boxers.
Wearing one over another is a matter of personal style and comfort. Wife-beaters “give” more as you move about.
T-shirts are a lot like ties: they may look good, but they are constraining.
Not so with wife-beaters. The form of the shirt allows for ease of movement. Wife-beaters have always been the uniform of the gym because they adjust well to a standing, seated or contorted body position.
The shoulder straps and lack of sleeves give lots of freedom to the upper arms and neck.
Versatility.
The wife-beater excels at versatility.
The classic tank top can embellish almost any outfit.Some men seem to go “commando” when they wear “uniform” white cotton shirts to avoid show and tell wife beater shoulder straps. I’ll take that look instead of protruding chest molds, errant hairs, or nipple bulges.
It’s just a cleaner slate, and with good cotton shirts or stripes, there’s very little or no show-through.
With a V-neck sweater, the tank top complements a casual look without drawing attention away from the sweater, like a T-shirt does, but provides just enough contrast in color and layering. In the case of a golf shirt or jersey open at the collar, the tank eliminates the belt-and-suspenders (and arguably nerdy) look of two competing shirts.
With a heavy stock fashion T-shirt, the tank top provides extra warmth and a layer of comfort that can avoid the scratchiness of wool or other fibers built into a designer T-shirt—but please no white tank top under a white T-shirt.
Overall Appearance.
Wife-beaters look cool when atop shorts at the gym, sweats/PJ bottoms at home, or walking shorts when lying in a hammock.
They look great when walking on the beach. You will also be comfortable sleeping in a wife-beater.
So just what does a tank top say about us?
I like to think that a wife-beater makes us look a little daring, individualistic, hip in a good way, and unconventional.
Like a day’s stubble, a leather wristband, or a California shell necklace, it makes for a tasteful “bad boy” look when you and everyone else knows you’re not bad at all.
If wife-beater as a description of a tank top still nags at you, put your mind at rest. The tank top is also known as an athletic shirt, and who among us doesn’t strive to look athletic?
