Men's Crop Tops Are Back and They're Here to Stay

The concept of a gendered wardrobe is beginning to crumble. Today, women constantly borrow from the "male" wardrobe, while men are beginning to draw more and more from the so-called "female" wardrobe. In 1975, Helmut Newton made history when he photographed a woman smoking in the streets while wearing a black Yves Saint Laurent tuxedo—created nine years earlier. The tuxedo in the iconic photograph, known as “Le Smoking,” which went on to become a symbol for women’s emancipation, was not received well at first. Most of the public present at its unveiling was scandalized by the idea of a garment like this being worn by a woman. But this was the beginning of women appropriating male garments into their own wardrobes. And since then, many women have said that they’ve never felt sexier than when they were wearing "men's" clothes. This poses an important question: what if it were the same for men?

In April 2019, Parker Van Noord, the son of one of the most famous faces of menswear in the '90s, Andre van Noord, told Vogue Paris that he felt sexiest when wearing a crop top. This answer reflected back what society was already beginning to see—a new generation of men assuming 100 percent of their masculinity. While crop tops have grown to have a feminine connotation, historically, crop tops were born in the '80s in a place considered to be the very symbol of masculinity: the locker rooms of American football matches. 

Although the garment is still considered by men to be a traditionally feminine style, it was originally an ultimate proof of masculinity—football players and athletic stars swore by this piece. At the time, American football players began to cut their t-shirts above the navel, in order to better distribute their body heat. Gradually though, more and more athletes opted for the shorter length shirt, which brought them more comfort.

Soon, the trend began to enter pop culture avenues, like when it was adopted by Will Smith in The Prince of Bel-Air, and Johnny Depp in The Claws of the Night. Since the crop top of the 1980s and early 1990s was closely linked to sport, athletics, and masculinity, some icons of the time, straight or not, began to adopt it. Just think: Prince wore a crop top on stage, Dennis Rodman wore a crop top on the red carpet, and Mark Wahlberg wore a crop top in an advertisement for Calvin Klein.

For example, Harry Styles, an essential icon of gender-fluid fashion, wore a crop top in part of his "Watermelon Sugar" music video back in 2020. Jacob Elordi, known for his roles in the Netflix teen movie The Kissing Booth and HBO Max’s Euphoria, adopted the crop top on the cover of the men's magazine Man About Town—and even made a statement with his earrings, too. Rapper Bad Bunny also has hopped on the crop top train, having posted an image of himself wearing a cropped sweater on Instagram. In 2014, Kid Cudi, who had also paid tribute to Kurt Cobain by wearing a dress on the stage of Saturday Night Live, took to the stage of Coachella wearing a crop top. Lil Nas X and Troye Sivan also do not hesitate to impose the crop top on the red carpet.

Though crop tops are still predominantly adopted by queer people and bare the stigmas of gender and sexuality, we still see that the crop top is making its way into the dressing room of straight men. Does this then mean they've become a normalized trend? Not yet. But fashion houses are working on it, offering crop tops and other laced tops for men in their collections. Among them, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, who takes it a step further by adorning the garment with sequins, the creations of Casey Cadwallader at Mugler, Palomo Spain, Fang NYC, and Alled Martinez.