The Tube Top

It's hard to imagine a simpler piece of clothing than the tube top. It's a band of stretchy fabric, strapless, worn around the bust and ribs, held up by nothing but elastic and fit. There are no fastenings, no sleeves, no straps. And in the second half of the 1970s, it became one of the decade's signature summer and party looks.

Tube tops were made in a few ways. Some were knitted in stretch jersey or ribbed knit, others were cut from woven cotton with bands of elastic shirring running around them, which made the fabric grip the body. Many were striped - the terry-towelling tube top in bright rainbow stripes is one of the most recognisable versions - and there were also metallic and shiny versions for evening. The designer Elie Tahari has said he came up with the tube top in New York in the early 1970s, though versions of the idea existed before that, and it's the kind of garment that's hard to credit to one person.

The tube top's popularity depended on two big changes of the decade. One was stretch fabric and elastic, which made simple pull-on clothes easy and cheap to produce, as the easy-care construction entry explains. The other was the move away from structured underwear. With the decline of foundation garments and many younger women choosing to go braless, a strapless top that relied on the body itself suddenly made sense. You couldn't wear a traditional bra under it without straps showing, and many women didn't try.

It suited the decade's leisure life perfectly. Tube tops were worn at the beach and the pool, with shorts or hot pants in the summer, at roller discos, and on dance floors with high-waisted flared trousers or satin skirts, sharing the bare-shouldered look of the halter top and the disco silhouette. Men sometimes joked about them, but for young women they were comfortable, cool, and cheap. For me, the tube top is the purest expression of the late 1970s body-conscious, relaxed mood: a garment that barely exists, designed for a hot night and a lot of dancing.