The navel takes the air this summer! With the crop top, it all started in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair, when belly dancers presented their bellies. Initially designed to celebrate the culture of the body, this garment has survived the centuries. In the 1980s, it was worn by both men and women, in a sporty style. On stage, Prince and Madonna made it their trademark, when in the cinema, it was highlighted in Rocky Or flash dance. The crop top was then the new form of t-shirt to have, associated with flat bellies, non-existent hips, muscular bodies that met the standards of beauty of an era. You had to sculpt a “perfect” body and show it off.
In the 2000s, Britney Spears swore by him, he came to reveal the navel piercing of young girls and married to low-waisted pants. Fashion, eternal renewal, ends up getting tired of it and he sees himself thrown into the back of the closet, forgotten in favor of more comfortable t-shirts, which can slip into pants. Until returning to the front of the catwalks. “Today, the crop top has become the basic cut for clothing, it is very difficult to find long cuts”, begins Dinah Sultan, trendy stylist at Peclers Paris. The reason for this return with great fanfare? Affirm your shapes, your sensuality and free your body.
The Y2K trend and the return of the crop top
For the past few seasons, brands have sworn by it. “It’s the new white t-shirt!” adds Dinah. The revival of the crop top owes a lot to TikTok and the Y2K trend, which is contributing to the rise of short clothing, brought up to date, especially by those under 20. On the videos, he becomes the emblematic top of the millennials. “Before, fashion was more loose and street, but today all the cuts in the women’s department have been shortened,” adds the specialist. On social networks, it is adored by users, “it is a very visual garment, it emphasizes the chest and the belt, reveals the belly. It’s a way of framing the body,” she continues.
“We see more and more models proudly displaying their curves”, develops Claire Perrot, communication manager of the Noo Paris brand, which markets cropped tops from 36 to 44. Celebrities reinterpret this garment, inspiring thousands of women worldwide. It is no longer only worn by slim bodies – even if Hailey Bieber makes it her uniform, since personalities such as Lizzo or Ashley Graham do not hesitate to present themselves in it. Rihanna for her part, regularly wore a crop top revealing her belly during her pregnancy. Designers are reinventing it, like Miu Miu with her spring summer 2022 show. If the Miu Miu set, has been seen mainly on thin silhouettes with flat stomachs in many magazines, Paloma Elsesser plus size model, was photographed in it, in February 2022 for the cover of fashion magazine iD, recalling then that the crop top was not reserved for just one morphology.
The crop top, a garment to celebrate all bodies
Today, whether tank top, short sleeve, long sleeve, tight or not, we find it in all shapes and sizes in stores. It presents all bodies and becomes a way of asserting oneself, of asserting one’s forms. “There’s a lot of meaning behind wearing a crop top, more than you might imagine,” says Dinah Sultan. “The belly is assumed in the same way as the legs, the arms, the back. We see it as a form of refusal of convention, a manifestation of our freedom as women to wear what we want,” comments Claire Perrot.
From TikTok to Instagram, impossible to miss. Users appear in cropped tops and encourage their colleagues to do the same. “When we don’t dare to wear a garment, but we see someone putting it on the networks, it pushes us to do the same”, confides the trendy stylist at Peclers Paris. “On the question of thin bodies, social networks contribute to everyone getting hold of this garment,” adds Emilie Coutant, a fashion sociologist. Whether in the street or on the networks, the belly is displayed in a more uninhibited way, “it’s good to finally see different bodies take responsibility for themselves by wearing clothes that show the belly”, reveals the head of the communication of the Noo Paris brand. Thus, the crop top becomes a real tool for accepting one’s body, “it’s almost militant! “, underlines the sociologist, “a feminist claim”, adds the stylist. It is part of the positive body trend, “ultimately showing your belly means showing the reality of the body and getting out of the idealized image of the belly which is not necessarily flat”, reminds Claire Perrot. Wearing a crop top allows some women to reclaim their bodies, “I show what I want to show, regardless of how others look,” adds Emilie Coutant.
As the miniskirt could have been in the 1960s, the crop top by discovering the bellies, once again opens the road to acceptance of oneself and one’s body in an era that is still struggling to show diversity, that either in the movies or on the covers of magazines.