Two weeks ago, Jason Gyamfi pulled on a sweater, held out his arm and declared a major life change. In a front-facing video that has well over a million likes on TikTok, Mr. Gyamfi, 21, looks into the camera and explains that he will no longer be wearing his former go-to sweatsuits.
“I don’t do that Nike Tech stuff that y’all little boys do,” Mr. Gyamfi says in the video as he smooths out his navy quarter-zip sweater, a style that hasn’t been favored by the fashion-conscious set for years. “I’m elegant, I’m classy, feel me? Like, you can take me somewhere; I look presentable.”
Almost overnight, there were young men at malls, meeting up in parking lots, hanging out on their school campus — men who might have previously been wearing sweatsuits, loungewear or Nike Tech suits — all sporting quarter-zip sweaters. T-Pain posted a picture on Instagram in a similar knitted sweater with the caption “401k and a quarter zip.”
“I really got tired of wearing the Nike Tech,” Mr. Gyamfi, who is from the Bronx and recently graduated from Allegheny College with a degree in computer science, said in an interview. “After a certain point, when that frontal lobe starts developing, you’re like, Why am I still wearing it?”
For generations, teenagers have looked for ways to signal to society that they had grown up. The longhaired, bell-bottom-wearing, fringe-trimmed teens of the 1960s and ’70s eventually morphed into the power suit-wearing yuppies of the ’80s. Now, it seems, the time has come for Gen Z to lean into business casual, and the often ribbed, always square quarter-zip sweater seems to be their garment of choice.
The shift from the Nike Tech fleece sweatsuit — an athletic-looking ensemble made of a polyester-cotton blend and favored by many Gen Z men — to the classic quarter zip signifies an aesthetic pivot toward the expectations of the professional world.
When Josh Akinwunmi, 22, decided he wanted to try a different look, it was to change the way his clothes made him feel, not the way he was received: He was ready to hold himself in a different regard.
According to Mr. Akinwunmi, a student at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Nike Tech wearers have a reputation for being “a little rowdy,” but all that can change as soon as they zip into a new life. “It is almost not even necessarily telling our young generation to put down the Nike Techs and to pick up a quarter zip, but to just hold yourself to a higher standard,” he said. “Dress for success.”
Mr. Akinwunmi’s twin brother, Peter Akinwunmi, who is studying at the University of Houston, agreed, saying that a style reset had the capacity to change not only the outward-facing impression but also how a man feels about himself.
“We really picked up this movement about the quarter zips and more elegant wear because it really helps mentally as well as physically to express growth and personal development,” he said.
Sayam Hashimi, 21, said Mr. Gyamfi’s video reached him at just the right time. A recent Virginia Tech graduate, Mr. Hashimi has been going to job interviews and felt it was time for him to elevate his everyday wear.
“I’m not going to lie, when I saw it was blowing up, I went to Old Navy: I got a couple of half zips,” Mr. Hashimi said. “I’m just kind of doing that transition from being a college kid, and we’ve got to be a little bit more business casual now.”
On Sunday, Mr. Hashimi organized a gathering at a local shopping center in Northern Virginia that he called the “DMV Quarter-Zip Meet-Up.” He estimated that some 70 people came out wearing their quarter zips.
“I was at the mall the other day and some kid was wearing a half zip, we looked at each other and kind of both laughed,” Mr. Hashimi said. “It’s literally starting a whole movement.”
Many attendees were also carrying matcha drinks to round out the look. It is meant to signify maturity — not quite ready for a black coffee, but definitely not chugging a soda. Mr. Hashimi conceded that the beverage aspect of the look was a bit performative.
“You’ve got that professional business-casual look with the matcha, it creates a whole different vibe,” said Mr. Hashimi, who said his quarter-zip style icon was Shah Rukh Khan. “It’s a funny way of reinventing yourself.”
For all his talk of personal reinvention, Mr. Gyamfi said it would be unwise to read too much into any pivot. “I don’t think necessarily there’s a difference between wearing a Nike Tech or a quarter zip because the clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the clothes,” he said.
Sandra E. Garcia is a Times reporter covering style and culture.
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