First appearing in Paris in the latter half of the 19th century, the tanktop became a bonafide fashion item throughout the postwar decades – assuredly sensual. Marlon Brando sported a simple white one in 1951 in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, very lightweight and tight-fitting, particularly indented both in front and behind the neck, giving tenfold more visibility to what was previously just a garment for the task at hand.
Before Brando, and thus well before the piece’s advent for women, poor workers from merchant and industrial zones got good use out of it. This use goes back to the 1860s, in the days where Les Halles in Paris was swarming with life. There, a warehouseman tore the sleeves off his shirt to liberate his shoulders and arms. Soon, everyone would follow suit, until one Marcel Eisenberg, owner of a hosiery factory in the small town of Roanne, came along. This man decided to mass produce this new bodysuit for the torso. Everything would thenceforth accelerate, and the tanktop would see its use spread to the popular classes. Having already proved its utility, history would put it to the test in many a war and introduce it into the evolution of its social customs, bringing about its commoditization and therein founding its immortality…
As for the fashion world, expansive, innovative, hungry for trends and an expert in recuperation, it would snatch up this little Parisian creation right from the start. Sometimes it is restored and perpetuated, fabricated in white cotton, especially as an undergarment or for homewear. Sometimes it is re-imagined, given larger straps (Dries Van Noten, Dolce & Gabbana), more or less flexibility or amplitude… The tanktop may not be heralded by the masses, but those of both sexes who’ve made it a key piece in their summer wardrobe, and know how to wisely integrate it into their outfits, playing with the sensuality it suggests and the casual style it feeds, can’t be wrong. They are the ones who translate, in utmost simplicity and perhaps even unconsciously, their attachment to this substantially audacious Parisian marvel.
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