Cut the crop

                                         Proenza Schouler


The days when 'crop top' brought to mind 90s high-school films and undignified nights out on girly summer escapades are long gone. I wouldn't have seen it coming, but it appears that crop tops can actually be done with stylish flair. It's something about the way they end so abruptly that looks so 'cool': as if you couldn't be bothered to wait for the finished product, pulling it over your head fresh from the sewing machine. 

                                           Reed Krakoff

But crop tops done properly also have that sleek, contemporary refinement about them. In fact, if your wardrobe were a living room, the crop top would be the modern, low-lying Scandinavian-inspired coffee table at the centre of it: modest and unassuming, but controls all the proportions of the grander scheme. Their minimal stitching, marginal detailing, and negligibly tailored shape give them that edge of understatement that rules the world of 21st Century unisex fashion. In one word, crop tops at their best embody minimalism - quite literally. And there is only one rule for translating it from chic catwalk androgyny into office appropriate wear: meet the midriff with a high waist.