"The King hath … declared his resolution of setting a fashion for clothes which he will never alter. It will be a vest." Samuel Pepys (1666) At one time, in the UK, a race vest was a string wife-beater, worn by odd people who ran – or Jimmy Saville – a niche item of clothing seldom seen on the racks of your local sports shop, as real men played football or rugby (and women played netball or hokey). The cult of running - in the UK at least - really began in the 1980s, no doubt spurred on by the launch of the London Marathon (1981), which spawned many other city runs, and was part of a Western shift away from an unhealthy culture of drink, fags, fried food and recreational violence, to a culture of health and fitness lifestyle, well at least for some.
The Race Vest, a pre-history
The Race Vest, a pre-history
The Race Vest, a pre-history
"The King hath … declared his resolution of setting a fashion for clothes which he will never alter. It will be a vest." Samuel Pepys (1666) At one time, in the UK, a race vest was a string wife-beater, worn by odd people who ran – or Jimmy Saville – a niche item of clothing seldom seen on the racks of your local sports shop, as real men played football or rugby (and women played netball or hokey). The cult of running - in the UK at least - really began in the 1980s, no doubt spurred on by the launch of the London Marathon (1981), which spawned many other city runs, and was part of a Western shift away from an unhealthy culture of drink, fags, fried food and recreational violence, to a culture of health and fitness lifestyle, well at least for some.