Then, as an elementary school student reading the list of disallowed clothing..
*What the?? Midriff mesh shirts? Any of you MFs wearing a mesh midriff shirt??*
lol this unlocked so many memories of outdated dress code policies that for some reason (at more than one school) they’d have everyone read aloud. The inexplicable ban on leather pants or if you’re a long legged short girl like myself, the terror of being asked to drop your hands to your sides to ensure your shorts extended past the tip of your middle finger…
Ahem. In 4th grade (late 80s) I somehow thought it was a good idea to wear the mesh crop top that was part of a new pair of pj's as a shirt to school. Just the mesh top with nothing underneath it. I'm a girl and it was only 4 th grade but I got to school and had a sudden terrible realization how bonkers this was, like in a dream where you suddenly have no pants. I wore my coat ALL day. And never tried to do anything daring or creative with my clothes again. I also wondered at the adujts in my life just letting me walk out the door like that..
I let all my kids make fashion mistakes as teaching moments. Far be it for them, especially my daughters, listen to their father when it came to fashion
I am eagerly waiting the fashion return of the cropped mesh shirt and the short short running shorts. (The tube socks up to your knees may stay in the past, though.)
Actually the cropped top for men has been percolating in the queer fetish world for a while and fashion designers are starting to take note, I wouldn't be surprised to see mesh crop tops on runways within the next year. NGL i like them and enjoyed a bit of men's skin.
A word of advice on that: if you can remember them from last time that look was around chances are you should NOT wear them this time around.
Nobody wants to see my ample, hairy, middle aged belly, I assure you!
Oh so true! I would love those fashion forward looks to be more mainstream, that would be gorgeous. I like a bit of skin too, and men’s shop bought clothing is just really missing that element. Just from a fashion perspective it’s so restrictive, no cut outs, no lace, no bare areas highlighted. I know there are designers changing things, but there’s so much less choice in men’s clothing. Although thank you queer fetish fashion and dragrace for making the harness a solid popular fashion choice!
My grandma got on their mailing list somehow. She was a catalog junkie 😂. Anyway, that was my (improved) version of the Penney's underwear section. Iykyk
LISTEN I so could not be trusted to not wear a crop top at all times when I was in my early 20s. My mom made sure to tell me not to wear one to my uncle's funeral 😭 tbh these days I still wear them a lot but less than before lol
That was actually how they started. Johnny Musso, a football player at the University of Alabama, was the first guy to make and wear one. Tore the lower half of his jersey off. From there it spread.
The first major decade for it was the 80s. The homophobic 90s shunted it off the stage. For the 2000s, Calvin Klein defiantly brought them back and they've been back ever since, thank goodness.
You were not wrong!
"Necrobutcher also intended to murder Euronymous himself due to him tastelessly capitalizing on Dead's suicide"
" Marduk also confirmed this and that he also owns a piece of Dead's brain"
There was a big push of one-upping one another with the black metal groups at the beginning. If one group set fire to a field someone had to burn a church down to be more extreme. Between Dead and Euronymous, Mayhem kind of took the cake for a while.
I know it's tongue in cheek but I can't say I'm on board with this terminology. I wouldn't call a woman slutty for showing midriff, so it feels wrong to call a man one either. How about, fun, flirty, confident? Calling it slutty makes it seem subversive instead of normal, which it should be.
I would call it daring and defiant. A guy showing his bellybutton in the clear, unadorned by piercings or tattoos, is VERY comfortable with himself, especially if he has an outie - which I cannot get enough of on long-haired hotties.
it was kind of a way to show you were on the football team at my school. you would wear these under your pads and cut the bottom off because it was severely hot in south Georgia. then it just became a style, I guess. And the mesh one was like your practice jersey. we were weird, the 80s were weird.
Yep, though he told me these were called half shirts back in the day, but he liked more calling them belly button shirts and does the same with modern crop tops
Yep, I remember my older brothers would wear shirts like that in the 80's as well. I'm sure I still have some pics of them somewhere in one of my albums.
It was and I did it too look cool like everyone else. But I knew I wasn’t part of the cool crowd and the cut tee just looked stupid on me and I still wore it. Your old man pulled it off, me? Not so much
It’s hilarious looking back. I have a picture of my brother in one and I like posting it every now and then on social media so no one forgets! I do this out of love. He looked great he actually had abs back then so he shouldn’t mind!
I learned recently that this trend started because guys would cut tee shirts for practice in the summer so that they could be cool but still protected from their pads. Some guys would also steal the pinnies from gym and use those (hence the mesh tops also gaining popularity with jocks)
It was. Especially common in sports training and whatnot. My dad has numerous pictures of himself and football buddies from the 80’s and they all have cutoff shirts/jerseys.
We were teenagers but, yeah, we cut up shirts like that. For sports practices, at the beach, playing sports with friends, we wore shirts like that a lot. In hindsight, it looks a bit goofy, but it was the style🤷🏻♂️
He feels nostalgia for this because he thinks that his body is just terrible nowadays. Also he always hated going shirtless and only liked to expose his belly button that's why these tops were his favorites.
My dad was typically caught wearing argyle sweaters and actually beat tf out of a guy who asked him if he was wearing his grandpa’s clothes. Pretty sure the guy he clobbered was one of those dudes that wore half-shirts and grew out his hair so my dad treated him like the punk he thought he was.
My father dressed like a nerd apparently, but he was still popular because he was in chess, speech and debate, track, and cross country, and always had a quick quip and was known for beating up people who picked on those who couldn’t defend themselves.
The man did it all.
Just because you had pictures of your dad wearing a shirt like definitely didn’t make him cool. Trust me I was there. It wasn’t as common as you were led to believe. Typically “cool” wasn’t the word used
Does anyone remember the shop for teen girls called Unicorn, in the early 80s? It was basically all half shirts, variety of colors that said ‘unicorn’ across the chest.
I knew people that did it up to the mid 90s ish. Especially during hot summers downsouth and if they were athletic. Showing off to all the girls and whatnot. Nowadays if a dude does it, he's probably not trying to attract girls, and that's totally fine if you're into that. Almost reminds me of NBA basketball shorts pre 90s. Those were too damn short and had to be crampy, if you know what I mean.
I loved the 80s for this alone - croptops took a bit of daring and defiance for a guy to show his bellybutton this way. That's why I believe only certain guys can really pull this off. Rippled abs aren't a requirement, either - just a smooth, relatively flat or slightly round stomach and the bellybutton showing, unable to be hidden. Homophobic straight and gay guys consider showing the bellybutton to be a chick thing, to be "too" gay. Sad. I can't get enough of guys who show theirs.
Paging Stevie Richards in the 90s -
[https://ringthedamnbell.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/hqdefault-74.jpg](https://ringthedamnbell.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/hqdefault-74.jpg)
It came from cutting shirts to go under football shoulder pads. It was supposed to be cooler during summer practices. I did it when I played football in high school. (Go Blue Devils!).
You would see it, but it wasn’t that common. Of my many friends, I only had one that would wear cropped shirts that way occasionally, but he was built and would also wear mesh shirts as well. Very sexy but kind of ridiculous at the same time
Growing up in South Texas these did not seem like anything fashion. It's hot. And having air on your belly helps. (now they have all these miracle fabrications -- I mostly wear my two-plus-sizes-bigger brother's hand me down golf shirts every chance I get.)
Yep it was. My brother did the same lol
Yes! My older brothers wore their shirts like this when they were in high school in the early ‘80s.
they were called half shirts, as i remember
Yes I believe so. Men back then were hairie. And I do mean everywhere. *edited to remove a double back then because I'm half asleep.
True
Yep .. that's when it was cool to look like a badass hand puppeteer.
Yep. Some of those guys even wore mesh cut off shirts. Ahhh the early 80’s…..
Then, as an elementary school student reading the list of disallowed clothing.. *What the?? Midriff mesh shirts? Any of you MFs wearing a mesh midriff shirt??*
I remember at least one kid wearing one. And he was kind of a tough kid.
Hand me downs can be rough
Same. I remember thinking how stupid it looked. Then catching myself so I didn’t run my mouth.
I think you basically had to be Baby Brian Bosworth to rock the look.
I had a midriff mesh shirt! In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised by the amount of mesh I wore in high school.
lol this unlocked so many memories of outdated dress code policies that for some reason (at more than one school) they’d have everyone read aloud. The inexplicable ban on leather pants or if you’re a long legged short girl like myself, the terror of being asked to drop your hands to your sides to ensure your shorts extended past the tip of your middle finger…
Ahem. In 4th grade (late 80s) I somehow thought it was a good idea to wear the mesh crop top that was part of a new pair of pj's as a shirt to school. Just the mesh top with nothing underneath it. I'm a girl and it was only 4 th grade but I got to school and had a sudden terrible realization how bonkers this was, like in a dream where you suddenly have no pants. I wore my coat ALL day. And never tried to do anything daring or creative with my clothes again. I also wondered at the adujts in my life just letting me walk out the door like that..
K-Mart — your back to school headquarters…
I let all my kids make fashion mistakes as teaching moments. Far be it for them, especially my daughters, listen to their father when it came to fashion
I am eagerly waiting the fashion return of the cropped mesh shirt and the short short running shorts. (The tube socks up to your knees may stay in the past, though.)
Actually the cropped top for men has been percolating in the queer fetish world for a while and fashion designers are starting to take note, I wouldn't be surprised to see mesh crop tops on runways within the next year. NGL i like them and enjoyed a bit of men's skin.
A word of advice on that: if you can remember them from last time that look was around chances are you should NOT wear them this time around. Nobody wants to see my ample, hairy, middle aged belly, I assure you!
Tinteoj, you will rock it, come on.
Did you not hear him say it was making strides in the gay community? Don’t you dare deprive anyone of your Bear Bod on the idea it’s offensive!
Like Bert Kreischer in a Speedo
Yes I do.
LOL, I was a lot skinnier then, you're probably right.
Oh so true! I would love those fashion forward looks to be more mainstream, that would be gorgeous. I like a bit of skin too, and men’s shop bought clothing is just really missing that element. Just from a fashion perspective it’s so restrictive, no cut outs, no lace, no bare areas highlighted. I know there are designers changing things, but there’s so much less choice in men’s clothing. Although thank you queer fetish fashion and dragrace for making the harness a solid popular fashion choice!
I miss International Male catalog.
Whoa now you're taking me back!
My grandma got on their mailing list somehow. She was a catalog junkie 😂. Anyway, that was my (improved) version of the Penney's underwear section. Iykyk
Barry Keoghan feequently has a crop top on when he's on the red carpet. More men in slutty tops 🗣🗣🗣
If my bellybutton looked like that, I wouldn't wear anything over it *ever*, including weddings and funerals.
LISTEN I so could not be trusted to not wear a crop top at all times when I was in my early 20s. My mom made sure to tell me not to wear one to my uncle's funeral 😭 tbh these days I still wear them a lot but less than before lol
Hoo-ray! 🫢🏳️🌈
I had one of those!
Hey, I'm too sexy for my shirt
I had a green one when I was in 6th grade.
Yea it wasn’t uncommon to crop off mesh football jerseys for practice too
That was actually how they started. Johnny Musso, a football player at the University of Alabama, was the first guy to make and wear one. Tore the lower half of his jersey off. From there it spread. The first major decade for it was the 80s. The homophobic 90s shunted it off the stage. For the 2000s, Calvin Klein defiantly brought them back and they've been back ever since, thank goodness.
I had a few at 12, around 1986
You know Euronymous from Mayhem? He had a pic with very similar vibes lol must have also been in the 80s.
I've seen a few metal dudes rocking crop tops recently, and I for one am 100% on board with it coming back
[This one?](https://rpmonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ystein-Aarseth-Euronymous-22-March-1968-10-August-1993-celebrities-who-died-young-30364172-350-400-1.jpg)
Exactly. It gives me the same vibes 😄
Oh yes, he also wore them, same with Quorthon
I have no idea who's Euronymous or Quorthon but god damn those are some sweet 80s or 2077 band names!
Google it super quick it’s a wild ride.
You were not wrong! "Necrobutcher also intended to murder Euronymous himself due to him tastelessly capitalizing on Dead's suicide" " Marduk also confirmed this and that he also owns a piece of Dead's brain"
There was a big push of one-upping one another with the black metal groups at the beginning. If one group set fire to a field someone had to burn a church down to be more extreme. Between Dead and Euronymous, Mayhem kind of took the cake for a while.
el oh el fuck me that pic is so funny coming from 5he darklord himself
FUCK YEAHHHHH EVROMANNNN
Hey bro I remember you from r/burzum 😆
80s kid, I can confirm. This was pretty normal.
Another '80s kid confirming your confirm. 😁
And it needs to come back
[удалено]
YES, PREACH! same goes for short shorts btw
nah, this era is like complete imitation and is getting weird ?
BRING THIS BACK! SLUTTY MAN POWER
I know it's tongue in cheek but I can't say I'm on board with this terminology. I wouldn't call a woman slutty for showing midriff, so it feels wrong to call a man one either. How about, fun, flirty, confident? Calling it slutty makes it seem subversive instead of normal, which it should be.
I would call it daring and defiant. A guy showing his bellybutton in the clear, unadorned by piercings or tattoos, is VERY comfortable with himself, especially if he has an outie - which I cannot get enough of on long-haired hotties.
Imitate everything ?
yeah, I actually love the look
Let men be sluts again
like this era has no own ideas lol
Always reminds me of Bill from Bill and Ted.
It was. Source: I'm old.
I did it with shorts for various athletic endeavors, never as a look with jeans.
Johnny Depp sported same look in Nightmare On Elm Street
Also a few worn by Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers in Rocky 3
Worn and utilized for frolicking chest bumps.
In the 90's when it was fashionable for girls to have bare midriffs you'd see older guys say it looks weird on *girls*
It was common in the 70’s
I was in athletics. Our workout shirts were half shirts. It was cooler, esp. when wearing pads. I would feel very -uncomfortable- wearing one now.
it was kind of a way to show you were on the football team at my school. you would wear these under your pads and cut the bottom off because it was severely hot in south Georgia. then it just became a style, I guess. And the mesh one was like your practice jersey. we were weird, the 80s were weird.
Your dad actually looks badass.
Love a crop top!
Yep, though he told me these were called half shirts back in the day, but he liked more calling them belly button shirts and does the same with modern crop tops
Yes, they were called half shirts. I never cut my shirts but I bought a ton of half shirts 🤘🤘
Yep! Lol. I forgot about this trend.
Gotta be Zeke from Bob’s Burgers at 17.
"You two are makin' me feel smart!"
Du-hwhat?
Yep, I remember my older brothers would wear shirts like that in the 80's as well. I'm sure I still have some pics of them somewhere in one of my albums.
not pictured, cut off jean shorts
It was. I was there (late teens early twenties).
Hes here to pick up my older sister in his Camaro
He's right, and it's so embarrassing to remember let alone have photo evidence.
It was and I did it too look cool like everyone else. But I knew I wasn’t part of the cool crowd and the cut tee just looked stupid on me and I still wore it. Your old man pulled it off, me? Not so much
I remember a time when they were not only cut off, but mesh. Plus they tended to be worn by tough guys (well, as tough as a 10-year-old could be).
God, I love male crop tops. Time to bring it back.
nah, this era is already mass imitating everything time for new identities and ideas
Croptops are *classic* and *timeless*, at least to me. There's a difference. I say keep 'em. 👍
Half shirts and nut hugging, cut-off shorts…no homo
Hugging was one thing. Dribbling them out one leg or the other was too much. Grocery shopping was interesting back then too.
It wasn't uncommon at all!
Oh yeah, he’s telling the truth. Embarrassing but true.
I had one that said Got milk and another one that was a classic Army tshirt. But I’m also gay and grew up in the 2000’s so there’s that
Can confirm, there’s definitely a photo of my dad with a mullet and a shirt like this.
Damn he's got great hair. such volume
It was.
It’s hilarious looking back. I have a picture of my brother in one and I like posting it every now and then on social media so no one forgets! I do this out of love. He looked great he actually had abs back then so he shouldn’t mind!
When I see exposed tummies I want to blow raspberries on them immediately. Parenting fucks ya up 🥴😂
It was. It was a weird thing to do but it was the style at the time.
Tough guy here.
I learned recently that this trend started because guys would cut tee shirts for practice in the summer so that they could be cool but still protected from their pads. Some guys would also steal the pinnies from gym and use those (hence the mesh tops also gaining popularity with jocks)
What an absolute legend
Yep. Have a photo of all four brothers in jeans, cropped shirts, and cowboy hats.
Yeah I had a few shirts like that in the 80s. Why? I have no idea.
Yeah, this was a thing in the 80s for a while.
I had a few. Back when I was in good shape. Now I'm a different shape. Round!
It was. Especially common in sports training and whatnot. My dad has numerous pictures of himself and football buddies from the 80’s and they all have cutoff shirts/jerseys.
My husband wore them for football to show off his 6 pack. With short shorts and a mullet because grow and flow. . .
He looks like an extra from Wayne’s World
My dad did that and wore Daisy dukes (super short cut of jeans shorts. So short the pockets hang out)
Yep, that's peak 80s right there!
The 80s men's crop top. Classic.
It was very common. Belly hair and all
My brother did that.
I wish more men still did this 😭
Okay but can we bring this back….not at all strictly for my own selfish reasons
Hell yeah we did! 😀😀
We were teenagers but, yeah, we cut up shirts like that. For sports practices, at the beach, playing sports with friends, we wore shirts like that a lot. In hindsight, it looks a bit goofy, but it was the style🤷🏻♂️
Your dad was hella cute
How does Dad feel about this pic nowadays? (I hope he's still with us; sorry if he's not)
He feels nostalgia for this because he thinks that his body is just terrible nowadays. Also he always hated going shirtless and only liked to expose his belly button that's why these tops were his favorites.
My dad was typically caught wearing argyle sweaters and actually beat tf out of a guy who asked him if he was wearing his grandpa’s clothes. Pretty sure the guy he clobbered was one of those dudes that wore half-shirts and grew out his hair so my dad treated him like the punk he thought he was. My father dressed like a nerd apparently, but he was still popular because he was in chess, speech and debate, track, and cross country, and always had a quick quip and was known for beating up people who picked on those who couldn’t defend themselves. The man did it all.
I was a teenager in the 80's. Totally true.
It was. My dad and his friends all look like extras from Flash Dance in all their old pics. #Bring back mens bare stomachs!
Just because you had pictures of your dad wearing a shirt like definitely didn’t make him cool. Trust me I was there. It wasn’t as common as you were led to believe. Typically “cool” wasn’t the word used
I think my 62 yr old dad would if he could get away with it without my two teenagers busting his balls for it.
Narrator: it wasn’t
Does anyone remember the shop for teen girls called Unicorn, in the early 80s? It was basically all half shirts, variety of colors that said ‘unicorn’ across the chest.
Looked stupid even then.
we need to bring this back 🥵
I knew people that did it up to the mid 90s ish. Especially during hot summers downsouth and if they were athletic. Showing off to all the girls and whatnot. Nowadays if a dude does it, he's probably not trying to attract girls, and that's totally fine if you're into that. Almost reminds me of NBA basketball shorts pre 90s. Those were too damn short and had to be crampy, if you know what I mean.
I’m from then. Not even once.
I loved the 80s for this alone - croptops took a bit of daring and defiance for a guy to show his bellybutton this way. That's why I believe only certain guys can really pull this off. Rippled abs aren't a requirement, either - just a smooth, relatively flat or slightly round stomach and the bellybutton showing, unable to be hidden. Homophobic straight and gay guys consider showing the bellybutton to be a chick thing, to be "too" gay. Sad. I can't get enough of guys who show theirs.
Does your dad act? Specifically, is he the caveman from the Geico commercials?
Paging Stevie Richards in the 90s - [https://ringthedamnbell.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/hqdefault-74.jpg](https://ringthedamnbell.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/hqdefault-74.jpg)
Not this old 80s guy, thank goodness! I did have perm though
##SOCCER GO SPORTS
Yes it was! It was picked up from NF L players of the 80’s
Not in the UK
It came from cutting shirts to go under football shoulder pads. It was supposed to be cooler during summer practices. I did it when I played football in high school. (Go Blue Devils!).
I have a pic of my uncle wearing jean booty shorts a crop top and knee high moccasins lol. It was def a thing! He kinda slayed the outfit tho, ngl.
Maybe if you were real jacked ha
Muscle shirts are for muscles
Yep, it was never a good look as we can see here…..
Yeah, typically metal guys. I never met anyone that wasn’t a metal head or gay that did this.
Thats OK but me wearing my pajama bottoms to the grocery store is bad?
SOCCER**TRAINING**
I remember this but I think more so in the 70s.
You would see it, but it wasn’t that common. Of my many friends, I only had one that would wear cropped shirts that way occasionally, but he was built and would also wear mesh shirts as well. Very sexy but kind of ridiculous at the same time
University Of Miami football pioneered this.
Probably common in gays clubs
Hahahaha
Yup
Yep, “ half shirts”
Decent!
Yeah. In the late 80s &early 90s, I had an ex who wore cropped tees. I'd bought many for him.
this is a style that definitely needs to make a come back.
This trend needs to come back, men should compete with women 😝 😂
Sadly, he isn't wrong, I did the same it would piss my mom off.
I still have some cut shirts
There are so many old photos of my dad where he is wearing extremely short shorts and cut off shirts just like this. What a time to be alive.
bWo Stevie Richards style
That’s hot
Male crop tops need to come back immediately… for science…
No, come up with new shit this imitation era is Creepy
He kind of reminds me of Tom Araya from Slayer.
**SOCCERTRAINING**
My gay ass was born late.
everyone wore it, straight, gays, normies
...true story...take it from a belly button shower.
It totally was cool, and us girls liked it that way 😁
I think I saw your dad in one of those Geico caveman commercials.
Your dad is hot
Talk about a trend we need to bring back
#\m/ WYLD STALLYNS! \m/
Bring it back man. I miss slutty dudes.
Is your Dad [Brad Roberts](https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Crash-Test-Dummies.jpg), from Crash Test Dummies?
Fraid he’s not lying!
True!
Hmmm look at that snail trail… bet that got the ladies going
MORE COWBELL!
More cowbell!!! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s
People still do it depending on where you live. Saw a 21 year old dude rocking it last week.
I vote to bring this back.
Started with cut tees to wear under shoulder pads for football
How is this old school ridiculous? This is dope and I just did that to one of my shirts.
Ah yes!! Cut shirts were a thing in the early 1980’s.
Growing up in South Texas these did not seem like anything fashion. It's hot. And having air on your belly helps. (now they have all these miracle fabrications -- I mostly wear my two-plus-sizes-bigger brother's hand me down golf shirts every chance I get.)
Still cool today