I Need It #2: The Quest for the Perfect Tank Top
Conner Ives speaks about his fab tanks, Emily Dawn Long knows sex, and Tank Air does no wrong.
I got excited and wanted to write another “I Need It” piece ASAP…I’m salivating over this new era of FUN, SAUCY, and SEXY tank tops.
The Slinkiest Nip-Forward Tank
This past month, I’ve been craving a tank that has a wink of nipple—slightly erect, just-so peekabooing through slightly sheer material. But not every tank can offer this. This sort of piece has a luxurious one-ply thin feel; clingy-thin so the fabric rides the body like a wave and dissolves into it. The fabric must be palm-soft, feathery, and almost vaporized, like a gust of wind. And voilà! There’s that bosomy perk. We’re talking a double-take moment that is delightfully risky but never lascivious.
The other day, I was chatting with master-of-tanks Emily Dawn Long of her eponymous brand. When I look at her designs, I see a woman who really lives life, sweats in her clothes, and then hand-washes them in the sink. Over text, one tank in particular came up…her Kipling Backless Tank. The viscose piece has a modest but wide round neck, which is a stellar cut whether you’re flat, or it’s the type of tank that if you are Bellucci-busty and want to skip the underwire, you’d feel the breezy euphoria of a mammary-free fall. “All breasts are welcome and all fit the Kipling tank,” writes Dawn Long over text. “You can wear it tight, tucked into your pants, and it looks like a ballerina or bodysuit. You can wear it loose, and it drapes on your body effortlessly.”
But the real appeal of the tank is its waterfall-like, narrow V-cut that darts right to the small of the back, as if there were a hand grazing the sweet spot. Whip your hair up into a pony and let that spine shine—or at least let the tresses trickle down. “It’s for that bitch-ass, gross-ass New York summer. It feels like there’s nothing on your body. It feels like cool water,” adds Dawn Long. “You’re so fucking hot out there, and you want nothing to touch your body.” She then sent me a screenshot of her Google image search of Helen Slater in The Legend of Billie Jean (1985), emerging from the water in a sheared-off tank—I assume single-seam!—with a platter of breasts rearing themselves from her tank, almost begging to escape. Summer is coming.
More Major Slinky Tanks…