Tank Top

Strip a t-shirt down to two narrow straps and a scoop or straight neckline and you've got a tank top — the simplest silhouette in the whole apparel line, with no sleeve to speak of at all. Straps typically run 1 to 2 inches wide, narrower than a muscle tee's, and the armhole sits higher and tighter against the body instead of dropping open.

Next Level's 3633 and Bella+Canvas's 3480 are the standard unisex blanks race organizers and gym owners order by the case for summer events, usually in 100% ringspun cotton or a poly blend depending on whether the run needs moisture-wicking. A 5K finisher's tank and a brewery's beer-mile shirt are both built on this same basic block.

Because the front panel is narrower at the shoulder and the armhole cuts in sooner than a t-shirt's, artwork sized for a standard tee usually needs to shrink by 10 to 15 percent to keep clear margins on a tank top — a design that reads fine on a G500 crew neck can crowd the armholes on a tank cut from the same size chart.

The mistake we catch most often is buyers reusing a t-shirt file at full size on a tank-top order without resizing it first — the narrower chest panel means the same artwork that fit clean on a tee will run right up against, or past, the armhole seam.