NEW YORK — “I’m not normally one to take any unnecessary risks with my nipples on display,” said TikTok user @itsjust.campbell, “but I thought it looked pretty cool.”
The nipple-revealing shirt in question was a crocheted shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch, a once-mall staple known for its take on sexy American culture, publishing a magazine that combined Bruce Weber’s salacious preppy teen images with the musings of philosopher Slavoj Zizek.
And the author wasn’t the only one who thought it looked “pretty cool.” This summer, TikTok and the streets of American cities have been swarming with millennial and younger men who have made $100 crocheted polos into hot-weather wardrobe staples.
Its official name is the “Crochet Style Button-Through Sweater Polo” and it comes in a variety of colors including white and orange, cream, blue and yellow, a tightly knit all-black, and a cornflower blue with a perforated design.
These resemble designs popular in the 1960s and ’70s that can still be found on sites like Etsy and eBay, but they’re all made from a combination of cotton and acrylic or viscose, materials typical of fast fashion items and a growing number of designer goods. Abercrombie might not think of itself as fast fashion (customers are flocking to the brand as an alternative), but other than the volume of products produced, there’s little to suggest that its materials or design approaches are different from Shein or Zara.
On a recent visit to the brand’s flagship store in Midtown, the musky, oaky scent of the brand’s Fierce perfume was no longer in the air. No shirtless man with a ripped abs stood at the entrance, luring and intimidating shoppers like a lacrosse captain’s siren. These staples of the Abercrombie shopping experience are gone in what New York Magazine recently called the “Unbranding of Abercrombie & Fitch,” a design and executive overhaul that has focused on generic designs in a range of sizes and affordable staples, like wedding guest dresses and clothes for the dreaded office days of a hybrid work schedule.
The market seems to agree: Fortune magazine reported in January that the company’s shares had risen about 245% over the past year. Meanwhile, media and brand-savvy consumers, tired and skeptical of the constant rebranding of companies like Victoria’s Secret and J.Crew, are struggling to make sense of the transformation, detailed in the 2022 documentary “White Hot,” of a company known more for its scandalous designs, imagery and discriminatory hiring practices than for its success. Two years ago, writer Hannah Pfeiffer wondered, “When did Abercrombie become The Row for people on a budget?”
The shirt may be hard to come by this summer, with both colorways nearly sold out in stores and online stock reflecting the same popularity.
Elliot Dupree, a 23-year-old management consultant from Chicago who gives men’s fashion and styling advice on TikTok, called the shirt “wearable.” That’s important for young men who want to push the boundaries of their style but are hindered by a bit of insecurity. “What is OK for a straight man to wear?” Dupree wondered about male mindsets. “Especially in Chicago, it’s like, ‘What is it that no one is saying anything about?’ And at this point, [this style] It’s been around for so long that it’s become established as a safe and lewd way of dressing.”
The shirt symbolizes two cultural shifts in fashion: Abercrombie’s aforementioned transformation from hated retailer to high school’s most notorious athlete and unlikely basic problem solver, and the rise of affordable mainstream knockoffs of vintage and sustainable styles, popular items among those pushing back against the dominance of fast fashion.
Abercrombie & Fitch’s chief product officer, Corey Robinson, wrote in an email that the brand first introduced the style in three colorways five years ago, “when classic 1950s menswear was starting to become popular. But Robinson wrote that “overall, current trends are less preppy, and sweater polos have been more successful than our traditional piqué polos.”
“The response from our customers has been overwhelming, and we’ve significantly expanded our selection to now be a key part of our menswear assortment.” Search “Abercrombie Crochet Shirt” on TikTok and you’ll find countless men wearing them. Most are layering them over plain cotton tees or tank tops, but a few are wearing them without any underlayers. One guy tried wearing it over a black shirt, but with the magic of TikTok’s editing tools, he appeared to erase the shirt by pulling it up, revealing his bare chest through the fabric of the shirt. Spicy!
Dupree still thinks of Abercrombie in its mall glory days—in a video interview he wore a weirdly shaped, hole-ridden Comme des Garçons shirt, a favorite of John Waters, layered over a T-shirt—but he says plenty of shoppers are also looking for replicas that look sustainable or vintage. “Brands like Todd Snyder, who I love, are making these crocheted polos,” he says, “but… [Abercrombie] “They’ve taken it to the level of fast fashion and made it a very safe zone. They tell you on their website what to buy and what to wear with it.”
While generations of consumers have disliked counterfeits for their financial, social or intellectual cheapness, Gen Z and millennials view counterfeits as “dummy” and position them as harmless, inferior or shoddy.
The date the shirt was first introduced also speaks to the thinking behind Abercrombie’s strategy. New York-based brand Borde started gaining popularity in 2019, when it won the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s New Designer of the Year award. Crocheted polos made from recycled and new fabrics are a staple of the brand. Designer Emily Adams Borde Aujla says she created the shirts to encourage men to think of their clothes as heirlooms, clothes they can wear and repair for decades. Her shirts cost more than six times as much as Abercrombie’s. Many are sold out.
The same year that Bode began to establish itself in the menswear market, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was released, unleashing a craze for early 1960s tacky style. The trend was further cemented by a series of GQ photoshoots (with footballer Christian McCaffrey, actor Brad Pitt, and Steven Yeun) styled by longtime menswear whisperer George Cortina, which emphasized sexy, shabby masculinity with a modern sensibility. (Last year, the magazine even published a guide on how to wear a crocheted polo shirt.) Meanwhile, vintage shopping has exploded in popularity as consumers tired of fast fashion’s low quality and bland designs have made the look of old all the more appealing. “I love the way it ages and pats” crocheted and knitted tops, Cortina said in a text message, adding that they’re “very photogenic.”
“Our designers get inspiration for our products by working closely with our customers and following their styling needs and trends,” Robinson says. Of course, most brands do this: countless designers (including Bode) hire experts to source vintage pieces for inspiration, and many vintage stores, especially in New York and Los Angeles, make extra money by loaning pieces to designers to use as material for future designs.
But the timing here—a five-year span from the creation of indie designers, the mythologization of movies and magazines, and the vintage boom—is most telling. Dupree calls it the “cerulean sweater trickle-down,” referencing a monologue in “The Devil Wears Prada” in which a magazine editor traces a luxury runway collection to a discount sweater. Abercrombie has focused a lot of its energy on sending products to influencers with smaller followings, a tactic employed by fast-fashion brands like Shein and Fashion Nova. This may make the style seem more accessible, but it also alienates shoppers further from the material—whether it’s a highly designed (but very expensive) shirt or a vintage or cinematic moment of imagination.
As fast fashion takes over more and more, we are moving away from the source of true style. But maybe we care too much about style: these days, most people just want to wear a cool shirt, without having to watch too many movies or listen to too many albums to be judged.
