Gay gym culture pumped-up bare muscular arms and flattened abdominals to the point where only the vest could show off

Gay gym culture pumped-up bare muscular arms and flattened abdominals to the point where only the vest could show off all one’s assets. The “gay vest” not surprisingly frightened heterosexual men away from the inoffensive little garment. Frankly, wearing a white vest was tantamount to waving a Barbra Streisand Fan Club card and Tank Girl and her alter ego Angelina Jolie made the khaki ribbed vest regulation uniform for every dyke under 20.It was Bruce Willis in the Die Hard trilogy who rehabilitated the vest for the mainstream heterosexual market. Hard-man Willis is about as camp as an anvil and he turned the vest into an indispensable part of your average action hero’s working wardrobe.We’ve since seen George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Jean Claude Van Damme and Vin Diesel working the He-Man singlet. Nevertheless, Hollywood’s support for the singlet hasn’t really made the leap across the pond. Anyone over 30 is old enough to remember the heinous sight of Coronation Street characters such as Stan Ogden (nowadays Jack Duckworth) wedged into a Draylon suite drinking lager, smoking fags and wearing string vests.Even now, television uses the string vest as shorthand for a coarse, common man: think of Harry Enfield’s Wayne Slob, Gregor Fisher’s Rab C Nesbitt and Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances who was, incidentally, played by the same actor as the Ogdens’ lodger Eddie Yeats.So why did Mintel report that the vest is making a comeback? My theory is that hip-hop, not Hollywood, has the fast track to kids’ wardrobes today. If Jay-Z, 50 Cent or Eminem wear vests – and they do – then so too will every kid in the shopping centre.

While hip-hop superstars can afford branded mesh basketball vests, their followers will have to improvise with a nice white cotton three-pack from Marks & Spencer. His belly looks like sausage meat being squeezed through a hairnet8: Victoria BeckhamBlame Dolce & Gabbana for filling Victoria Beckham’s wardrobe with vests – the Italian design duo took the little dear in hand last year. Not only does he sport a singlet, he even keeps pigeons, for heaven’s sake7: Rab C NesbittThere is an honourable tradition of British working-class slobs and string vests Of this ugly club, Rab C Nesbitt is by far the foulest. In 50s America, a dirty, sexy man in a dirty, sexy vest was the equivalent of Robbie Williams’ naked arse on the cover of British Vogue and an infinitely prettier sight6: Jack DuckworthBe-vested Jack has inherited the mantle – if one can call it that – of Stan Ogden, Coronation Street’s token couch potato. This white vest is positively conservative compared to previous fashion crimes3: 50 CentWe can blame hip-hop for such delights as the hooded GBH sweatshirt, bling jewellery and ludicrous trainers.

Rappers like 50 Cent are now unleashing the string basketball vest on the world’s eager teenagers4: Craig DavidIt is rumoured that when David’s latest album made disappointing early sales, his record company axed the cover shot of Craig-in-singlet, shoved him in a T-shirt andwatched the CD rise up the chart5: Marlon BrandoBrando set pulses racing in Streetcar in 1951. The vest’s sequels, Die Harder and Die Hard: With A Vengeance, made an equally big impact at the box office2: David BeckhamBeckham is responsible for the heinous demographic “metrosexuals”: straight men who stop short of being gay at the bedroom door. Britney Spears, on the other hand, can make Chanel look like a plastic bin-liner On the torso of a Clooney or Cruise, the white vest rocks. Visible underneath a shirt and tie, it sucks.Vest wearers top 101: Bruce WillisIn 1988 Bruce Willis created the role of Sergeant John McClore in Die Hard and instantly transformed the humble undershirt from timid middle-aged insulation into sexy, tough body armour. Madonna could wear a plastic bin-liner and make it look like Chanel. But these ladies are minnows in the style-icon stakes compared to old mother Madonna.

It was she who wore black teabag mesh vests in the dark ages of the early 80s when she introduced the vest, bangles, slutty tutu and cut-off tights look to perform tracks such as “Holiday”, “Lucky Star” and “Like A Virgin”. She revived the white singlet when she modelled it in last year’s Gap Ad.As with any classic piece, it is how you wear it that separates fabulousness from tragedy. The white vest is already popular with David Beckham, Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams and Will Young and you can bet your bottom dollar Will buys his smalls at M&S.Another demographic which is clearly pushing vest sales up are the little girls buying little-boy sizes in order to look like the vest-wearing pop idols Britney Spears, Victoria Beckham and Kylie Minogue. Worn with ripped jeans, snakeskin loafers and a jewelled belt, the tight, white vest looks sexy. Blair, too, has been known to get his fingers burnt by fashion: for example, wearing his chav-tastic Burberry polo shirt last year and the ghastly Nehru-collared national-costume suit in India. But it is equally fatal to ally yourself to a totem of middle class, middle-aged masculinity such as the vest under the shirt.

It is a trap Blair narrowly avoided, partly by wearing the sleeved version and partly by being completely upfront about it – he himself joked yesterday about wearing what he was obviously not ashamed to describe as a “vest”.”The only place you see a vest now in fashion is on the catwalk at Dolce & Gabbana,” says Esquire magazine’s fashion director Catherine Hayward, “and then it is modelled on a stud with a great tan and a great torso. We would indeed fear for the Prime Minister’s political future if he had allied himself with Major as a sad, drab vest-wearer.Obviously, there is nothing worse than a middle-aged politician wearing inappropriate clothing. William Hague and his baseball cap, Peter Mandelson and his penny loafers and Ann Widdecombe’s tussle with the peroxide bottle all spring to mind. Most men wear a T-shirt under the shirt-and-tie when they need an extra layer. Only saddoes are seen with VVL: visible vest line.John Major was a notorious vest wearer, but the rumour that he tucked his vest into his underpants did much more to damage his credibility than sleaze. Sleaze at least has the virtue of being rather sexy and dangerous. You cannot respect a man who tucks his vest into his underpants any more than you could trust an Italian Prime Minister who wears a bandanna.The last politician who wore a vest and retained his credibility was the great John F Kennedy.