Men joining the British Army in the late 1970s and early 1980s were issued with dark green underwear. As well as several pairs of truly horrendous y-front pants, soldiers also received two or three dark green vests and it is one of those we have tonight:
The vest is a sleeveless design, made of a dark green open weave fabric. A label is sewn into the neck which would have given sizing and care instructions. The vest has seen many washes however so the printing is completely obliterated now:
The hems of the vest are sewn with a heavy duty machine sewn seam to prevent them coming undone with the regular washing a garment like a vest would be subjected to:
The vest was often called a ‘shreddie’ vest, the name deriving form a popular British breakfast cereal with a lattice shape. The vests seem to have been marginally more popular than the underpants, but generally they were quickly ditched in favour of more comfortable civilian underwear; although by all accounts the issue aertex underwear was useful as a cleaning cloth- apparently they were especially good at cleaning glass with!
1980s British Army Aertex Vest
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