NEW YORK — “I’m not normally one to risk having my nipples exposed unnecessarily,” said TikToker @itsjust.campbell, “but I thought it would look cool.”
The nipple revealer in question was a crocheted shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch, the former retail chain known for its sexy take on Americana and a magazine that combined Bruce Weber’s photos of neat teenagers with the musings of philosopher Slavoj Zizek.
And the creator wasn’t the only one who thought it would look “pretty cool”: This summer, TikTok—and the streets of American cities—have been filled with men, millennials and under, who have made the $100 crochet polo a cornerstone of their warm-weather wardrobes.
The Crochet-Style Button-Through Sweater Polo, as it is officially called, comes in a variety of colors: white and orange, cream and blue and yellow, a tightly woven all-black color, and a cornflower blue with a perforated design.
Though they resemble designs popular in the ’60s and ’70s — which can still be found on sites like Etsy and eBay — they’re all made from a blend of cotton and either acrylic or viscose, a typical fabric for fast-fashion pieces and, increasingly, designer goods. Abercrombie may not consider itself fast fashion — and customers flock to the brand as an alternative — but there’s little to suggest that its materials and design practices differ from those of Shein or Zara, aside from the sheer volume of products they produce.
On a recent visit to the brand’s Midtown flagship, the musky-oak scent of the brand’s Fierce fragrance hung no longer in the air; there was no shirtless man with washboard abs standing at the door, enticing and intimidating shoppers like a lacrosse captain’s siren call. Such previously staples of the Abercrombie shopping experience are now gone, amid design and C-suite changes that amounted to what New York Magazine recently dubbed the “unbranding” of Abercrombie & Fitch, with a focus on generic designs in a wide range of sizes and affordable go-tos like wedding dresses and clothes for the dreaded office days of hybrid work schedules.
The market seems to agree: The company’s shares have risen some 245 percent in the past year, Fortune reported in January. Meanwhile, the media and brand-conscious consumers, exhausted and skeptical of the constant rebranding of companies like Victoria’s Secret and J.Crew, have been wracking their brains over how to make sense of the transformation of a company better known for its outrageous designs and imagery and discriminatory hiring practices, detailed in the 2022 documentary “White Hot,” than for its successes. Two years ago, writer Hanna Phifer asked, “When did Abercrombie become The Row for people on a budget?”
Getting your hands on the shirt of the summer can be tricky: two colours nearly sold out in stores, and online stock reflects a similar level of popularity.
Elliot Duprey, a 23-year-old management consultant from Chicago who gives fashion and styling advice to men on TikTok, described the shirt as “easy to wear” — crucial for young men eager to push the boundaries of their personal style but hampered by mild insecurities. “What is acceptable for a straight man to wear?” Duprey mused about the mindset of men. “Especially in Chicago. It’s like, ‘What is no one going to say anything about?’ And at this point,[this style]has been around long enough that it’s become this safe, slutty thing to wear.”
The shirt is emblematic of two cultural shifts in fashion: first, Abercrombie’s aforementioned transformation from reviled retailer to your high school’s most villainous jocks to unexpected problem-solver of basics, and second, the rise of affordable, mainstream knockoffs of vintage or sustainable styles – items popularized by those pushing back against the dominance of fast fashion.
Corey Robinson, chief product officer at Abercrombie & Fitch, wrote in an email that the brand first released the style in three colors five years ago, “when classic ’50s menswear was starting to become trendy.” But, Robinson wrote, “in general, current trends are less preppy, so we’re seeing more success with our sweater polos than with our traditional pique polo.”
“The response from our customers has been incredible, and we’ve expanded our choices dramatically to be a key part of our menswear assortment today.” Search “abercrombie crochet shirt” on TikTok and you’ll find countless men trying it out. Most are wearing it over a plain cotton tee or tank top, though some are also trying it without the underlayer. One man tries it on over a black shirt and then, through the magic of TikTok’s editing tools, appears to tug on the shirt and make it disappear, revealing his bare chest between the woven meanders of the shirt. Savory!
Duprey still associates Abercrombie with the mall’s heyday — in our video interview, he wore a shirt full of strange holes from John Waters favorite Comme des Garçons over a T-shirt — but he said he’s seen some shoppers searching for copies of clothing that looks sustainable or vintage. “A brand like Todd Snyder, which I really like, also makes these crochet polo shirts,” he said. “But (Abercrombie) takes it to a fast-fashion level, where it’s a very safe zone. They tell you on their website what to buy and what to style it with.”
While generations of consumers detest counterfeit products, whether due to the financial, social or intellectual cheapness of such products, Gen Z and Millennials see them as “copies,” portraying copies as harmless, a hack or a gimmick.
The date the shirt was first introduced also hints at the thinking behind Abercrombie’s strategy. In 2019, the New York-based brand Bode was starting to catch on, winning the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Emerging Designer of the Year award. Crochet polo shirts, some made from repurposed textiles, others from new fabrics, are a staple of the brand, which designer Emily Adams Bode Aujla has explained were created to help men view their clothes as heirlooms, or pieces to be worn and repaired for decades. Her shirts are more than six times more expensive than Abercrombie’s. Many have sold out.
The same year that Bode began his menswear reign, Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time In Hollywood” was released, which unleashed a wave of zaddy, early-’60s styles. The trend was further reinforced in a number of photoshoots — of soccer star Christian McCaffrey and actors Brad Pitt and Steven Yeun — in GQ , styled by longtime menswear whisperer George Cortina, who emphasized a sexy, sloppy, hunk kind of masculinity with a dash of contemporary sensibility. (Last year, the magazine even published a shoppable guide to wearing crochet polo shirts. ) Meanwhile, vintage shopping has become a hot topic, as shoppers tire of fast fashion’s low-quality, mediocre designs — making the look of old all the more appealing. In a text message, Cortina said he likes the crochet and knit tops for “their age and patina,” adding that they’re also “v. photogenic.”
As Robinson put it, “Our designers get their inspiration for our products by staying close to our customers and following their style needs and trends.” Most brands do this, of course: Countless designers (including Bode) hire specialists to find vintage pieces for inspiration, and many vintage stores, especially those in New York and Los Angeles, generate additional revenue by renting their pieces to designers who use them as source material for future designs.
But it’s the timing here — a five-year period between the creation of indie designers, the mythmaking in movies and magazines, and the vintage boom — that’s most revealing. Duprey calls it “the cerulean sweater trickledown,” referencing the monologue in “The Devil Wears Prada” in which a magazine editor reduces a high-runway collection to a sweater in the discount bin. Abercrombie has focused much of its energy on sending products to influencers with smaller followings, a tactic used by fast-fashion brands like Shein and Fashion Nova. That may make the style seem more accessible, but it also increasingly distances shoppers from the source material — whether that’s a well-designed (but wildly expensive) T-shirt or a moment of vintage or film reimagining.
As fast fashion takes over more and more companies, we’re getting further and further away from the sources of true style. But maybe we’re too picky about style. These days, most of us just want to wear a fancy shirt without having to watch multiple movies and listen to a bunch of albums to figure it out.
