Male crop tops. As anyone who actually lived through the early ’90s will tell you, they’re one of those “it seemed like a good idea at the time” sort of things. Very few grown men look back at old polaroid photos of themselves wearing crop tops (or as we called them “belly shirts”) without feeling a slight pang of regret.
Related: Thank You For Being A Trend: The ’90s Are, Like, Totally Back!
But since what goes around always comes back around, especially in fashion, the male crop top has returned to haunt a new generation of men 20 years from now. The trend really kicked into gear last summer, and judging by the looks of things, it doesn’t seem like it will be going anywhere any time soon. Get ready for another summer of exposed male mid drifts.
Scroll down for the latest in male summer fashion…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFRLEFaPb8T/?tagged=malecroptop
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEbt-9QGL8e/?tagged=malecroptop
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDrYUR8Agt3/?tagged=malecroptop
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
If you’re that thirsty for attention just take the damn thing off completely or unbutton your shirt. And under no circumstances are outie belly buttons permitted ever!
AtticusBennett
no complaints here! i love seeing some stomach. show it off, boys!
Dave Downunder
Crop tops and three quarter pants: two things no man should ever wear ever no matter how good his bod may be.
MarionPaige
Let the kids have their fun while they are in shape, the trend will be declared dead soon enough, since 90% of the guys writing about trends probably can’t pull off crop tops. You’ll know the trend is officially dead when the New York Times notices it.
My only chime against what I see the young’uns wearing is that these cropped shirts and shirts with no sides probably cost as much or more than conventional shirts. Same with these ripped and stressed jeans costing more. And,
aren’t the gladiators and musclemen in most of these sword and sandals movies in crop tops?
https://youtu.be/GmoUEX1Rd44
DarkZephyr
I see no problem with the return of crop tops. <3
Brian
I think this is more of a marketing gimmick than any real trend towards widespread acceptance of this ridiculous piece of clothing. Unlike women, men tend not to wear clothes for selling purposes.
When it comes to clothes, men tend to be more functional than women. They wear clothes that are more suitable whereas women tend to wear clothes that expose and exaggerate their body parts. Women are constant sellers, don’t forget.
This difference between men and women is fundamental to understanding why women wear tiny bits of clothing when going to nightclubs even when the air temperature is close to zero.
dwes09
@Brian: “This difference between men and women is fundamental to understanding why women wear tiny bits of clothing when going to nightclubs even when the air temperature is close to zero.”
It’s called playing to the expectations of straight men. But that’s the reality of it, and reality is something you would not understand. You’d rather externalize and reify your misogyny.
stranded
Is this a critique on fashion or are you just hating on a trend you’re too afraid to try?
Brian
@dwes09: Playing to the crowd? Sweetheart, it’s called “whoring to the crowd”.
Modern women tend to whore themselves out in this way because they fear the power of male homosexual desire, and thus try to differentiate themselves from the modest dress standards of men. Playing is for playgrounds.
bottom250
Oh my god sweethearts I am loving this. On the right guy these are sooooo cute.
Random
I followed fashion very closely in the 90s and don’t ever recall seeing anyone wear one of these.
b2rocketfan
It appears to be a hipster/twink thing, overall. Although, I’ve seen some bears at pool parties in these and its hella sexy on them!! No worries. People will wear what they want. What I recall were those jerseys made of mesh. Yummy! And Bruce Jenner had a great package! Just saying he was a hot guy in the day.
Thad
This is a ploy to increase clothing manufacturers’ profit. Crop tops use less fabric – and you know they won’t charge less for them.
And ripped jeans? Gawd, no. They’re for broke fools with no pride and no sense to at least get them patched.
navelgazer
What is it about crop tops – especially now – that invites loathing, sneering, giggling from gay and straight men alike? How could such a simple garment provoke so much controversy?
Pull up a chair. I’m about to school you – all of you. Especially you outie-hating pinheads.
Loathing of crop tops seems to be tied up in homophobia – aka the eternal pursuit of masculinity in America. It seems that both straight and gay men both suffer from this affliction. And I, for one, am damned tired of it.
The men’s crop top was originally called the half shirt – because it was, literally, half a shirt, the upper half. It did not start at a gay night club, or anything else sexually oriented – it started on American athletic fields – the college football fields, to be exact. In a wonderful article written by Julie Hadfield of The Boston Globe newspaper in 1978, Hadfield writes:
“Johnny Musso, who was an all-America halfback at the University of Alabama in the 1960s, is credited with being the first player to rip the bottom half off his shirt.”
Elsewhere, the article states:
“The shimmel shirt is a direct steal from the athletes. Manufacturers shrewdly observed the torn shirts as a gold mine and quickly pre-tore it for the customer, hemmed it up, stitched the bottom, and got it into the stores. For the last five years, runners have paid from $11 to $13 for them because they
say it affords more freedom to run in hot weather, while not slipping off the shoulder as tank tops sometimes do.”
Should you want to read the article in its entirety, you can either copy and paste this link:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19810903&id=SfhLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cu4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6968,1012368&hl=en
or you can type the words “jocks cut off their shirts and start a fad” into Google or your favorite search engine.
I don’t see one damn word in that whole article about guys whoring themselves around, about navel rings or other things derisively proclaimed “gay” (in the negative sense), or anything else patently. But it seems that in the minds of some, a crop top or half shirt is the uniform of such crazy folk.
I was in high school when half shirts originally were popular – set the Wayback Machine to the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Having a bellybutton fetish as I do (yes, that’s a “thing”, don’t you dare judge me, you evil queens) half shirts were a perfect vestment for me to steal sidewise glances at hotties with perfectly flat stomachs and their navels exposed. At that time, the whole “abs” thing – pushed by gay magazines, fitness publications, late-night infomercials, and other outlets – didn’t exist. Not like it does now. So when I saw guys sporting half shirts, they had flat, smooth stomachs – not six-packs, not washboards, nothing – just that delightful bit of teasing flesh. (And for the hundredth time, it’s “midriff”, not “mid drift” – there’s no “T” there, okay??)
College football games during bowl championship season was hot for me – all those college guys running around with jerseys just a bit too short to cover their bods. The NCAA only recently banned such garments, saying they weren’t standard gear. To wit:
http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2015/03/so_long_college_football_crop-.html
Or tap “NCAA bans half shirts” into your favorite search engine – Google, Bing, Xtube – for more details.
Another athletic place half shirts could be seen were running events – marathons, half-marathons, etc. – and for the same reasons – ventilation and comfort, not trying to catch a husband.
So can we please dispense with the idea that crop tops started with gays? They didn’t. (We didn’t invent crop tops. But we DID invent gentrification.)
Now…having said that, gays like us – with our marvelous ability to accessorize and colonize – did claim the half shirt as our own, but it took a while. We wore them in the 70s and early 80s but as I recall it, crop tops – as they were called in the 90s – were hounded off the stage when hip-hop and a renewed back-to-roots movement for being a tough guy emerged. Gangsta rap and all that, ya know. No room for sissies in shirts cut a bit too small.
I disliked the 90s for that reason alone. But in my heart of hearts I hoped half shirts would return. Happily (for me, anyway), Calvin Klein made half shirts part of his fashion line just a few summers ago (use your search engine to look up “Calvin Klein crop tops men”). Bingo. CK was a firestarter anew. (Side note: I never could understand why Abercrombie & Fitch never went for crop tops – with their homoerotic catalogs and target market, they could have made a fortune. Oh well.)
Now, let’s get a little more personal. Do I think everyone should sport a crop top? No. A friend of mine put it succinctly, thus: “It’s a privilege, not a right.” I think some guys look better with crop tops than others – guys with flat stomachs, very little belly hair, no abs or ripples. I’ll take it a step further – I think some hottie guys with outies absolutely should wear half shirts – just as their innie brethren do. That’s right, I said it. I like guys with outies. STFU.
Further, some of the crop top photos posted on social media make me cringe, but not because the guys are wearing crop tops – it’s because the photos are so incredibly bad! Bad lighting. Bad hair. Facial expressions that aren’t confident – guys’ faces saying everything from “I don’t see what the big deal is” to “Is this for me?” Long-sleeve crop tops – no, no, no – half shirts started as short-sleeve garments, don’t complicate them. And much more. MUCH more. These are my own heavily biased, not-getting-enough opinions, of course – your mileage may vary.
You see, folks, half shirts – in my perspective – are a bit of a rebellious garment to begin with. Some of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen wear crop tops would not be head-turners ordinarily, but wearing that shirt revealing that dimple on their tummy – and even better, not giving a SHIT what anyone thinks – that is HOTT. That, folks, is called CONFIDENCE. And as we all should know, confidence is sexier than fuck. (Would I wear one? I don’t have the body type – BUT I would wear one around the house for a loving partner who begged me to…just before we did the horizontal boogie.) Half shirts are not for the timid. They’re not for the conventional. They’re not for the boring. They are as unique as the guys who wear them and when you see someone who “fits” in one, with heaven as my witness, you will fucking KNOW IT. You will be stirred somehow – you know how.
I am a semi-pro photographer. I love doing shoots of guys in half shirts. I will never get enough of hotties in them – straight or gay. I am elated that half shirts have made a comeback on sites like Instagram and Tumblr – and have had the staying power for several years now. So when the Fashion Police decide to hold court and condemn these humble shirts, I have to speak up.
Guys – if you’re the “type” for a half shirt or crop top, DO IT. You’ll know if it “works”. We all will.
And now, I’m going to sit back, turn the radio down, and listen!
GameBoy
I for on, Would love the return of male crop top. It’s sexy and cute at the same time. Hell, I would even wear it if I wasn’t shy at all.
captainburrito
I remember seeing those in the late 80s and it was horrendous back then but i was young enough to have blanked it out from my memory mostly unless i saw some old mtv. But you know the stuff that makes you cringe will one day return as a trend. Please don’t let this gain traction or let it just be a brief one summer thing.
I can’t believe i’m saying this when it means more male flesh on display but just go topless i say. The saving from that crop top will buy you a drink.
moopy-doopy
If you don’t like it, don’t wear it, and if you can’t stand others who wear them then don’t look at them, its that simple
moopy-doopy
People can wear what they want
moopy-doopy
I think crop tops are great, they arecomfy on hot days, I think men and women have a right to wear them, the stomach is the most g-rated part of the body too, and any orientation can wear them without having to be labled as something, clothes are clothes.
moopy-doopy
@navelgazer: I agree with almost everything you said, except for the part about hair, I think hairy stomachs have a right to wear to wear them too, its boring to just see smooth ken-doll looking stomachs wearing them, hairy stomachs are just as attractive too, not super hairy where the hair sticks out too much, but hairy trimmed stomach hair, as a semi-hairy man I am proud of my hairyness and I wear crop tops, I don’t care what anyone thinks of me, and I won’t let anyone tell me what to wear, if anyone has a problem with how I dress they can go drink out of the unflushed toilet from the McDonald’s bathroom
JLAD1105
People are seriously upset about this? Fat chicks are allowed to run around in spandex and “daisy duke” shorts, while some people are horrified by the thought of men – even young, well-built men – in half shirts? We used to wear those all the time “Back in the Day.” No one thought much about it and no one really said anything about it. I don’t remember anyone saying they looked “gay.” I don’t know how the hell crop tops became associated with gay men, but there was never anything gay about them. They were just tee shirts cut in half; sometimes they were made that way. I’d stay away from some of the guys in these photos – but not because they’re wearing half shirts. They look freaky no matter what they’re wearing!
I think the real problem is the growing animosity towards the male physique. More and more places, for example, aren’t allowing in men who are shirtless; places like gas stations and convenience stores. Somehow or another, they’re afraid of offending females. It’s also why there’s more violence against males on TV and in the movies, despite that a bunch of idiot, loudmouthed feminists say.
I say if a guy is built well enough, what the hell! Wear a half shirt! I mean, who really cares? Everyone else needs to mind their own damn business.