What is the purpose of wearing an undershirt ?

One of the presumed functions of an undershirt is to act as a buffer between the upper body and the outer shirt. Any sweat, for example, theoretically goes into the undershirt, thus prolonging the life and the general well being of the outer shirt. You may be sensing some ironic point here — namely, that adding an undershirt likely also makes us warmer, which may cause additional sweating, in which case you’d be clever to ask: Why wear one? However, in my experience, this simply isn’t true. Undershirts are light-weight and do not cause noticeable increases in perspiration.

The tank-top variety makes absolutely no sense. If the undershirt’s function has to do with perspiration, why eliminate the very regions (the armpits) most involved in that function? If anything, there should be a reverse-tank top model that covers only the armpits and nothing else. Novel, aye, but that would seem weird.

Comments are closed