This summer, you should wear tank tops on top of each other

What’s better than a tank top in summer? Easy: two tank tops. Or a tank top and a t-shirt, but also a tank top and a sheer shirt. Over the last two seasons leading up to summer, the idea of how to enliven the necessary minimalism of seasonal tops—which the need for lightness often condemns to being too plain—has bounced between runways and collections of very different designers. Nearly twenty different brands, in fact, have proposed the same idea in both masculine and feminine styles, both formal and sporty: wearing a tank top with another layer underneath or over it without covering the shape of the tank top itself, whose silhouette and colors contrast with the other layer. Playing a role in the (still barely emerging) rise of this trend is the appeal that, riding the wave of the broader Y2K macro-trend, layering clothes is having—creating that “messy but authentic” vibe that enhances textures and draping over the actual appearance of the garments themselves. Think, for menswear, of early 2000s Brad Pitt with his combos of long- and short-sleeved t-shirts or vests over tees, with sleek sunglasses and mega cargo pants. A sense of studied disorder that aims to convey spontaneity where in fact there is very precise styling. But how have fashion brands interpreted the trend?

There is certainly a strong difference between one brand and another, as well as between menswear and womenswear solutions. Among the women’s collections, for example, we go from the extreme sophistication of Fendi’s SS25, where a tank top covered in appliqués is worn over a blouse made of the same chiffon, and the combo of a cut-out tank top and an open-fitted serafina by Prabal Gurung; to the great simplicity of Miu Miu, one of the brand’s great relaunchers, and MM6 Maison Margiela where the crinkled tank top looked as if attached to a second transparent tank top, or also Sandro, where the pairing is very simple and executed with ordinary, everyday garments. True to his worn-in aesthetic, Marco Rambaldi placed the tank top under a sheer shirt whose sleeves, however, were tied around the chest – similar and perhaps even more natural was the solution by Marques’Almeida, while The Row layered two progressively sleeveless garments over a black t-shirt, ending in a hybrid between a tank top and a halter top. The most original, however, were Natasha Zinko, who extensively used the layering concept by placing a grey tank top over an outer garment (it looked like a shirt but wasn’t), and especially Wiederhoeft, who created a kind of sporty corset worn over a classic tank top.

Menswear was simpler: if Dries Van Noten, in his final SS25 show, placed a kind of cape made of sheer, ethereal fabric over a black tank top, the most inventive was Simone Rocha, who decorated her tank top with iridescent ribbons shaped like stylized flowers. And while Songzio, Blumarble, and Pronounce interpreted the theme without excessive flourishes—just like Maximilian Davis at Ferragamo, with even three layers—the most original was without doubt Heliot Emil, where the white tank top was the final layer of an entire architecture of ultra-light white layers, ending in a super-light rain jacket. The solutions adopted are many, and certainly, when the real heat arrives, wearing more than a single layer will be unbearable for those more sensitive to temperature—but for style, we do this and more. Almost as if, by doubling or tripling it, the tank top manages to shed its rougher and, arguably, objectifying connotations to take on the literal substance of an outfit: on its own, it's a tank top, in two or three, it definitely becomes a look. Another not-so-small challenge will be finding two tank tops that can be layered without huge style clashes—managing fit and materials won’t be easy, also because everything depends on that. On the bright side, however, the messy summer look of 2025 couldn’t ask for a better solution than this relatively simple styling trick.