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Hamza Abou Ammo first got the idea for cropping his T-shirts from his wife, who had been doing it herself from a young age. Ammo had been thinking that his own T-shirts didn’t look quite right on his 6’1” frame—they were just too long—so he started experimenting by cutting a few inches off some of his lesser-worn tees. He was pleasantly surprised at just how much better they looked. “The fit was way more flattering on my body,” says Ammo, an LA-based marketer. “I like where it sits on my waist in comparison to my pants. It just has a better visual appeal. The biggest thing I noticed was how it altered the proportion of my torso to my leg.”
Today, Ammo says, most of his shirts are cropped—some just a snip-snip with scissors and the hem left raw, others which he’ll take to a tailor to have professionally sewn to his sweet spot of about 21 inches from collar to hem. He’s also been known to buy women’s shirts—tank tops from Target, say, or linen short-sleeve button-ups from Uniqlo—because they often offer a better (i.e. shorter) length. He shares tips on how to crop tees at home or style them on his TikTok page, where he has nearly 113,000 followers.
Spend enough time in certain menswear-centered corners of TikTok and you’ll find that cropping your T-shirt has become a central theme in recent months. At this stage, the idea has spawned its own taxonomical universe of content and meta-content: how-tos, GRWMs, outfit inspo slideshows, and, of course, insidery jokes. According to the fashion search engine Lyst, over the past six months searches among men for “cropped shirts” are up 40%, “cropped tops” are up 46%, and “cropped jumpers” are up 55%. As TikTok creator Ethan Glenn notes, cropped T-shirts satisfy a few obsessions of chronically-online menswear enthusiasts: a preoccupation with proportion and fit bordering on fetish, the popularity of DIY and customization tied to an idea of “personal” or “individual” style, and the 1980s gym-style vibe (led by Aimé Leon Dore’s Ralph Lauren-esque marketing) currently cresting in the market.
“In the winter and fall it’s a bit easier to wear a sweater that’s cut a bit shorter and pair it with pants that are a bit higher,” Glenn says. “It’s harder to achieve that in the summer though. A high-waisted pant isn’t comfortable to wear in the heat, but you can counteract that with a shorter-length shirt—you can even wear it with, like a pair of nylon shorts.”
As Glenn notes, this all plays into the social media discourse about proportion—things like the silly yet salient big shirt-little pants vs. little shirt-big pants debate. It’s why we’re stuck in an endless pendulum swing between skinny jeans and wide-leg. It’s why cropped tees are, in a way, an update to the boxier, baggier silhouettes championed by Balenciaga and Yeezy, but now married to the Depop vintage vibe that’s also dominating the fashion conversation. To Glenn, a cropped T-shirt and straight or loose pair of pants is the warm weather equivalent to the beloved hoodie-and-shorts fall outfit—a riff on something we see daily, but with just a slight alteration that unlocks an unexpected, elevated new effect. Now, some brands are just making their tees cropped.
Which isn’t to dismiss the proportion discussion, either—it’s arguably the most foundational one in menswear. It’s the reason why, for example, Macaulay Alves started cutting his shirts and why, today, virtually every shirt he owns—tee or button-up—is cropped. Standing at “a whopping 5’5”,” he says shirts typically looked off, and he wanted to achieve that golden ratio of menswear: the rule of thirds, where the top comprises one-third of an outfit while the pants make up the remaining two-thirds. Alves, who lives in Massachusetts and works in real estate finance, recalls cutting that first shirt—a Blondie T-shirt he bought on Amazon—and immediately feeling like he unlocked something, even if that first try was, in retrospect, a bit too short. (A word of advice: your tee will likely curl up a bit over time and with washing, so consider keeping it a half-inch or so longer than you think.) He’s since ditched the scissors and invested in a key tool from the modern handbook of cropped T-shirts: a rotary fabric cutter.
“Oh, it’s definitely changed the way I dress,” admits Alves, who says he now wears more mid-waisted pants that sit slightly above the hip and toward the natural waist. “I wouldn’t put that much effort in before, because nothing would look that great on me and I’d get discouraged. So cropping my shirts has definitely given me courage to dress better.” Alves’ TikTok feed is now filled with outfit inspiration, each one with a shirt that hits beautifully at the waist.
And then there’s the elephant in the room: as far as garments go, cropped T-shirts are on the far end of the horny spectrum. Consider them the summertime equivalent of fall’s beloved gray sweatpants—they are not overt in their thirst-trappery, but a coy rejoinder. They are a more advanced version of the ribbed white tank top, and come complete with a host of hot cultural references, like Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or a young Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Moreover, they allow the wearer to embrace looking sexy without looking like you’re begging for attention (i.e. just walking around shirtless). While an exposed midriff is blatant in its request for onlookers to, quite literally, navel gaze, this breed of cropped T-shirts are a slyer, friskier provocation. They merely hint at a glimpse of skin, those missing two inches of fabric promising a glance at that much-loved but less-seen erogenous zone, the lower stomach. With this promising to be summer of the male thirst trap (see: J.Lo’s Father’s Day Instagram post of a shirtless Ben Affleck, Maluma’s prideful post-body transformation posts, Throwing Fits’ declaration of a Slut Boy Summer) a cropped shirt is a way for guys to coquettishly ask for attention, not beg for it.
“I think it’s great. The midriff is hot, it’s great to show it off,” says Ian Bradley, a stylist and noted crop top-wearer. “And I love that straight guys are doing it. We should all liberate our bodies.”
Of course there are hints of backlash brewing, as Abou Ammo noted in our conversation. Some argue the crops are ruining clothes for a fleeting trend, soon to be filling vintage shops with chopped-up tees. Others cry queerbaiting, while still more say that, in an attempt to create an individual look, now everyone just … looks the same. Those discussions, valid or not, are part of just existing online in 2023.
“For me, it just looks better,” says Jacob Jordan, whose TikTok page is filled with cropped T-shirts—endorsing their appeal both all winter long and with baggy jorts. “I tend to do mine a little shorter than the average guy. Some may assume things about me because of it, but I don’t care.” Jordan notes that there's also the practical matter in warmer months: “The updraft you get is also very nice as the temperature starts to rise.”
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