Tank tops are old-fashioned and not for the summer? This myth is now being dispelled. Grandma’s and Grandpa’s fashion is back. Elite boarding school style is chic. Or is that just fake hype?
The supposedly stuffy tank top has a remarkable place in German history books. In his yellow tank top, the FDP politician Hans-Dietrich Genscher played a key role in shaping German unity as Foreign Minister. The sleeveless garment, which the Saxon comedian Olaf Schubert likes to wear with a rhombus pattern or comedian Karl Dall once in his stage program “Der Opa”, is said to be back in fashion. Because it serves the preppy style. And because grandma/grandpa style is trendy. If you don’t understand all of this, you should read on.
“What basically sounds stuffy and old-fashioned will experience a lot of hype in 2023 and is anything but boring,” wrote the lifestyle magazine “Gala” recently. The so-called Granny Style already reveals in the name that it is “about our grandmothers and their wardrobe”. “Sometimes it also includes grandpa’s wardrobe – after all, we have long since left gender stereotypes behind us.”
A trend for all genders
Daniela Uhrich from the Lady Blog explains that the trend actually works for both women and men. «There is a growing awareness of gender fluidity and unisex fashion in the fashion industry. As a versatile piece of clothing, the tank top fits well into this trend towards gender neutrality. And it reflects the zeitgeist in another respect: when we are working from home, we love looks that are comfortable and well-dressed at the same time.»
Uhrich explains: “The sweater vest has been experiencing a renaissance for about three years.” The fact that the slipover has blossomed from a bourgeois part to a fashion must-have and so-called it-piece is due to two trends: the grandpa and the preppy style. Grandfather’s wardrobe is now a source of inspiration. For a look with corduroy trousers and a knitted cardigan, a woolly sweater vest should not be missing.
The preppy style, derived from the fancy private schools called preparatory schools, is experiencing a renewed revival. “Elite boarding school chic includes fashion for tennis, sailing, polo and the library, such as polo shirts, knit sweaters, loafers and boat shoes, pearls and slipovers with a V-neck.”
Both trends speak for a return to tradition and retro looks, as the journalist and author Uhrich («lady-blog.de») says. “In a fast-moving and technology-driven world, the sweater vest is reminiscent of times gone by.” British pop star Harry Styles is one of the great advocates of the nostalgic (and quite ironic) piece of clothing.
Tank tops are sportswear
A revised version of the slipover, so to speak, can also be worn by women over a dress, as an oversize variant (i.e. as a slipover dress) over a blouse or as a top with shorts.
The clothing historian Julia Burde is more cautious in her assessment of retro fashion and trend pieces such as the tank top: “On the question of to what extent the return of retro elements such as the tank top was actually socio-culturally produced or rather conscious through mechanisms of the commercial fashion market is launched, I tend towards the latter,” she says.
«The sweater vest is sportswear. Its beginnings go back to the late 19th century, when knitwear and jersey clothing became the epitome of modern clothing,” says author Burde (“The straightening of the waistline in men’s fashion”). This emanated from the sports teams of Anglo-American elite universities – basically the nucleus of leisure clothing (leisure wear), which is globalized today “and has largely overturned bourgeois dress codes”.
Always retro fashion
According to Burde, who teaches cultural history of clothing in the costume design course at Berlin University of the Arts, the slipover became an element of men’s wardrobes from the 1920s onwards. And in all social classes, for example as a substitute for the waistcoat.
The fashion of the 1970s was itself retro fashion. She “picked up on the sweater vest of the 20s and 30s: as a sporty “casual” genre beyond traditional dress codes,” says Burde. Short, rapid fashion booms do not always have a background that can be interpreted in terms of cultural theory, as Burde emphasizes. «I consider this and all other «trends» to be a construction of commercialism, media communication and retro fashions. I may be wrong.” (dpa)