If you've found yourself looking into the history of K-pop boys in crop tops, you are not alone. When the promotional photos for TXT's latest EP Minisode 1: Blue Hour hit the internet in late September, it didn't take long for "crop top" to trend worldwide on Twitter. The reason? Oldest member Yeonjun's white, smiley-face long sleeve, the hem of which ended just above his navel.
It was a relatively bold yet still brazenly youthful look for rookie group TOMORROW X TOGETHER, whose previous concepts called for a more boyish, street style — like bomber jackets and colorful tees, ripped jeans with plaid overlays, baggy sweaters, and animal prints mixed with leather. But "Blue Hour" signaled a playful and purposeful new era for TXT, the "not boys, not yet men" phase of their young careers, and with it came a leveled-up wardrobe in an array of cutoff shirts.
Yeonjun's cropped Balenciaga sweater. Taehyun's tiny pastel pullover and exposed abs. Beomgyu’s long-sleeved Levi’s tee. With the “Blue Hour” MV, the members of TXT embrace one of K-pop's most popular fashion trends: The crop top – a sartorial choice that, over time, has become something of a rite of passage for all K-pop "It" boys.
Some recent instances of K-pop boys in crop tops include Monsta X leader Shownu, who wore a cropped ruby suit jacket — with nothing underneath — during a recent performance of "Love Killa" on Korean music show M Countdown. In July, SEVENTEEN member Wonwoo shocked fans when he donned a midriff-baring t-shirt while promoting the single "Left & Right" (notably, it was a suggestion from leader S.Coups.) He later revisited the style in the music video for the group’s latest Japanese release "24H," donning a classic black crop top and a cropped red blazer.
NCT's Taeyong — no stranger to short hemlines, cutouts, lace, and chiffon — rocked a cropped, embroidered blouse for SuperM's "Tiger Inside" stages. Wonho left little to the imagination in a variety of navel-exposing ‘fits during the music video for his solo debut "Open Mind." One of the looks featured an open-front sweater that echoed singer Ginuwine's memorable plum blazer from 2000.
Other artists like ATEEZ's Seonghwa and Stray Kids' Felix and Bang Chan have also jumped on the trend in the past few months, following the likes of GOT7's BamBam, Kang Daniel, the members of A.C.E, and K-pop's reigning crop top king, EXO's Kai. From knit sweaters and denim jackets to military-inspired vests and the more common cotton tees, Kai has graced the stage clad in almost every iteration of the garment.
While it may appear that K-pop is experiencing a “Crop Top Renaissance” as of late, men in the industry have been showing skin since the mid-aughts, when teen idol group TVXQ burst onto the scene in 2003 with their heartthrob good looks and androgynous fashion.
Members Jaejoong and Yunho can be seen in white cropped shirts during a 2004 live performance of "The Way U Are," and in 2005, Jaejoong embraced the concept fully, promoting "Rising Sun" in a now-famous cropped black suit jacket that showed off his belly-button piercing. A few years later, in 2009, South Korean singer Ajoo wore a sleeveless, black belly shirt that sat inches well above his navel like a proper half-shirt while promoting his single "Wealthy 2nd Generation."
During a 2012 press conference, SHINee's Taemin pulled off one of the more polarizing looks of his prolific career in an asymmetrical, belly-baring shirt. Taemin's choice perhaps inspired the artist to take even more fashion risks throughout his solo career. In his new music video for “Idea,” he's seen sporting a cozy turtleneck sweater with a peak of midriff. But even before that, the performer has become known for his more gender-neutral looks. In 2017, he told Billboard he "really wanted fans to understand that outer appearances really don’t matter."
Certainly, it’s safe to say these K-pop artists all challenge today's Western ideas of heteronormative masculinity by donning their cropped threads. But it hasn't always been that way.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, the crop top emerged as a preferred item inside jocks’ closets, a symbol of masculinity and athleticism that appears to trace back to college football stars. Bodybuilders and athletes in the ‘80s regularly showed off their chiseled physiques in cropped sportswear, both inside and outside of the gym. In 1984, A Nightmare On Elm Street not only introduced a young Johnny Depp to the world, but it also gave audiences one of the most iconic cinematic images of the decade: That of teen football star Glen Lantz (played by Depp) lounging on his bed in his cropped No. 10 jersey, abs out and blissfully unaware of the horrors that lie beneath him. It’s a scene that has been amply echoed in movies and television. (A recent example would be Ross Lynch’s Harvey Kinkle on Netflix's The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.)
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Shortly after Depp’s Glen, the late ‘80s and early ‘90s gave us television characters like Can’t Buy Me Love’s Rico Suave and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's Will Smith, two attractive manly men who could pull off a crop top in style. Around the same time, models-turned-entertainers like Mark Wahlberg starred in a 1992 Calvin Klein ad in a plain black crop top alongside supermodel Kate Moss, wearing an identical ‘fit.
However, while the crop top was being championed by hunks in the ‘90s, it was already a popular look among punks and rock stars. Amid the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, crop tops became widely accepted for women, but in the ‘70s, artists like Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant (who regularly wore delicate, open-front blouses while performing), Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone (an early crop top devotee), and David Bowie (who famously showcased his androgyny through makeup and fashion) began to embrace gender-fluid looks, a performative subversion of traditional ideas of gender and masculinity.
Prince would blur the lines even more, in ruffles, cummerbunds, sequins, lace, and, yes, crop tops. The singular artist famously wore a skin-tight, buttoned crop top that barely covered his nipples on the cover of his 1986 album Parade — the same cutoff shirt he performed in later that year at London’s Wembley Arena. In 1988, he donned a ruffled, white cropped blouse while on his Lovesexy Tour in Europe.
It's no surprise then that the garment became a high fashion piece in the ‘90s. But that association with sex, celebrity, and fashion may be what ultimately deterred straight men from wearing them by the late ‘90s. Then, in the new millennium, crop tops on men were largely seen and normalized as queer fashion in the West, as queer men rejected imposed heterosexuality and began expressing their identities loudly and proudly through ‘fits that highlighted the curve of their bodies.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, South Korea's picture of masculinity was also changing, thanks in part to the popularity of the "flower boy" aesthetic that took hold in the late ‘90s. For the first time in Korea's economic history, teens were powerful consumers. Media companies targeted directly to them through the picturesque images of slender, beautiful boys depicted in the pages of shōjo manga and seen on their television screens in dramas and on music shows. Soon, the phenomenon became wildly successful so it makes sense that popular boy bands of the early 2000s like TVXQ and SHINee would embrace the kind of androgyny and chaste sex appeal those teens, particularly teen girls, craved with shiny hair, mesh clothing, makeup, and, yes, crop tops.
Though, it took a while for regular South Korean men to get onboard; now, they're the world's biggest spenders when it comes to beauty and skincare. It's also important to note that while men wearing makeup and dressing nicely is considered normal in South Korea, it's still a patriarchal culture where gender roles are often rigid, and non-performative queerness is largely unaccepted in its entertainment industry. (Toxic masculinity is a global issue.)
But visuals are important, especially to marginalized communities. And it's K-pop's disconnection from ideas of Western masculinity and "bro" culture that appeals so broadly to fans around the world, many of whom also reject such binary depictions of gender performance in fashion and entertainment. In K-pop, an artist's sartorial choices are limitless, and their relationship to fashion and beauty is often methodical. Men can wear pink crop tops, have sherbet-colored hair, and show physical and emotional affection toward their members.
Alongside the likes of Lil Nas X, Troye Sivan, Jaden Smith, Kid Cudi (who took his cut-off crimson gym top to the Coachella stage in 2014), and Harry Styles, K-pop artists are paving the way for a younger, more gender-fluid generation of men around the world; inspiring them to redefine their masculinity and look good while doing it.
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