Clothing what is a wife beater

In fact, if you search "wife beaters" on Amazon, you'll get several options of men's tank tops to choose from. Tank tops of this variety became more prominent during this time due to their low price tag and comfortable fit. What's more, iconic male celebrities, like rappers 50 Cent and Eminem, often sported the top, further popularizing the trend and contributing to its intimidating and cool reputation. The term and its implications are inappropriate and offensive, and should be abandoned for countless reasons—one being that sleeveless ribbed tank tops of this variety have taken on a whole new identity as of late.

Sleeveless tank tops are the casual dresser's bread and butter—comfortable, practical, and generally inexpensive. They can be dressed up or dressed down, and sported for any occasion that permits an exposed shoulder. In the 80s and 90s, you start to see the wife beater tank tops become more a part of mainstream fashion.

At that time, one of the first reality shows came on television, the show COPS. The show followed real cops as they chased bad guys of all sorts. As more people started getting arrested on TV, the stereotype of wife beaters being arrested in the shirts they would help name proved to be more fact than exaggerated fiction.

So, it seems like the term wife beater being used to describe a sleeveless white tank top started sometime between or so and the s, right? Well, one more version of where the term comes from actually goes all the way back to medieval times and has nothing to do with domestic violence at all.

On the medieval battlegrounds centuries ago, a soldier who had lost his armor and was left behind to be killed or beaten was known as a waif. These waifs who lost their armor would be left with nothing to protect them except a thin, chainmail undershirt. Some people believe that the modern term wife beater really comes from this much older term.

No matter where the term originated, what you need to know about the wife beater shirt today is that is has come a long way from the days it was used to specify the dastardly intentions of a movie character or was found on the back of a terrible criminal. Today, the wife beater is the go-to undershirt of many people and even a fashion garment for both women and men in its own right.

For higher quality shirts like in the OP, say "tank top". For a true "wifebeater" shirt, say "sleeveless undershirt". Improve this answer.

Artifacts in the image suggest a high level of JPG compression -- "finely ribbed" is exactly the sort of detail that is lost during extreme JPG compression. I think the picture is of exactly the garment you describe. Notice how on the page you link, the ribs become visible only in the mouseover zoom.

I can't see any difference between the linked shirt and the one shown in the question. BenVoigt The wider bands defining the neck and arm openings of the OP shirt indicate a higher quality. I'm trying to say if it's something of the quality that you could wear it as outerwear, call it a "tank top", and if it is only reasonable for a man to wear it as an undershirt call it a "sleeveless undershirt". The article I cited specifically racistly mentions "white-trash" and the OP shirt is just a little too nice.

Gnawme Gnawme 39k 3 3 gold badges 67 67 silver badges bronze badges. Gordon Gordon 3 3 silver badges 5 5 bronze badges. An under-shirt or vest. Community Bot 1. Spagirl Spagirl Roger Roger 51 2 2 bronze badges. What do you mean by "were" here? One could get a bit more specific if "tank top" is too broad.

For example, I might call the garment in the picture a white, U-neck cotton tank top. I agree that it describes them well, and "works well" for searching. But have you actually heard people bother to refer to them that way? I was trying to stay away from anecdote, but since you ask Seriously, though, I'm not sure. I don't feel like I just made it up, but I have no distinct memory of a particular person saying this.

In , Valerie Steele of the Fashion Institute of Technology, told the New York Times she first started hearing "wife-beater" referring to the tank top in the late s. Jesse Sheidlower, then-principal editor of the Oxford English Dictionary's American office, also told the Times the term emerged around , in what was a confluence of rising "rap, gay and gang subcultures.

Those subcultures came together in a pop culture vortex over the course of the '90s, with fashion and popular entertainment birthing a new clothing staple. As for fashion, popular rappers like Snoop Dogg commonly wore undershirts, as did fashionable women with their oh-so-'90s flared jeans — picture Kate Moss in her Calvins.

In the same era, movies like Goodfellas and TV shows like Cops — in which men wearing white undershirts made regular appearances when being arrested for beating their wives — were becoming pop culture staples, as was hip-hop music as America's prevailing musical genre. Why we still say it: Since , the term has been cemented in our sartorial vernacular. For years, it has been seen, heard and read by most of us — mostly without controversy.

Just take several recent comments by fashion insiders. In a conversation with Who What Wear in , Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso said she "wore a wife-beater , Dickies and skate shoes, all with a studded belt" to her first job interview. In January, a stylist told Vogue , "I would always put the girls in some variation of a customized wife-beater and pair of customized jeans.