As a generally curious person, I always try to figure out how articles of clothing assume their names. With this inquisitiveness, I’ve always found fashion a near infinite source of entertainment when it comes to naming things. Let’s take the season’s style staple, the tank, as an example.
Going by a number of names, including wife-beater, muscle shirt, singlet, A-shirt, vest in the U.K. or shooter in the American South, the tank is a blanket term for any shirt without sleeves. It’s an absolute essential for the gym-going guy who simply respects the weather (and the human body’s basic needs vis-à-vis cooling) and dresses accordingly. But why is it called that?
Back in the 1920s, women went swimming in what designers referred to as a maillot, which was basically a one-piece bathing suit with a sleeveless, low-neck torso top and high-cut legs. But maillot sounded weird – it was not something the general public would get accustomed to, so they invented a utilitarian name for it: the tank suit. Back then, swimming pools were called tanks, and “tank suit” was the most logical name for what people wore in them.
Over the past hundred or so years, the maillot has lost its bottom part, like a tadpole losing its tail, and has evolved into an everyday unisex piece now called the tank top.
Look: GAP tank, shirt and shorts, K-Swiss sneakers, Movado wristwatch, EQO Optics sunglasses
Our bi-monthly installment of Fashion Chameleon, a men’s fashion and lifestyle blog written by Jim Joquico the founder of La Moda Dubai.